Ask Me More About Brecht: A Theatrical Reconstruction of Conversations Between Hanns Eisler and Hans Bunge

In this multi-media show the audience is taken back to the East Berlin of 1958 when Hans Bunge began the first of his fourteen recorded interviews with the courageous and committed left-wing composer, Hanns Eisler. The audience is invited to meet Hanns Eisler – played by Paul Clements. Eisler was an enormously intelligent and entertaining conservationist: sharp, witty, incisive, humorous and lively, and with such a breadth of knowledge and profound understanding of historical processes that it is extraordinarily stimulating to read and hear his words today. Asking the questions is Hans Bunge whose words are spoken by his daughter, Sabine Berendse. Bunge was one of Bertolt Brecht’s assistants at the Berliner Ensemble and, after the playwright’s death in 1956 Brecht’s widow, Helene Weigel, gave him the responsibility of creating the Brecht Archive. The initiative behind the fourteen conversations was Eisler’s wish to keep alive the memory of his great friend and colleague, Bert Brecht. But Eisler’s dynamic conversational range embraces far more than his relationship with Germany’s greatest twentieth-century playwright. He reflects on their exile from Nazi Germany in Los Angeles where they numbered among their many friends and acquaintances Charlie Chaplin, Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann. He also recalls their bruising encounters with the House Committee on un-American Activities. Back in post-war Europe, he considers the quality of artistic, political and intellectual life in the German Democratic Republic; the social significance of music; and far broader philosophical themes concerning the future of the arts, artists and the lives of ordinary people. What would a show about a composer be without his music? The performance includes eight recordings of Eisler’s music in different genres and four are of Eisler singing and accompanying himself at the piano. Rarely seen photographic images of Eisler and others illustrate the show. Moderated by Minou Arjomand, Assistant Professor of English, Boston University. Free and open to the public. Reception and book-signing to follow.