Methuen Drama Student Editions

Written in 1941 just before Brecht's arrival in the USA, 'Arturo Ui' is a parable of the rise of Hitler, who is recast by Brecht as a small-time Chicago gangster taking over the city's greengrocery trade.

The play opens with an anachronistic dinner party hosted by Marlene, the newly-promoted manager of the Top Girls employment agency. Her guests are five women from the past: a transvestite Pope, a courtesan-cum-nun, a tireless adventurer, an obedient wife from Chaucer and the leader of a charge into hell from a Bruegel painting. The feminist themes introduced by this cacophonous scene echo throughout the more contemporary action of the play, as Churchill uses the setting of the `Top Girls' agency to allow a glimpse into the lives of several very different working women.

This text is Brecht's series of 24 inter-connected playlets that describe events which took place in German households before his own exile in 1936. They describe the suspicion and anxiety experienced by people as the power of Hitler grew.