The Terribly Topical 1920s. Songs and lyrics between boom and crisis.
Germany in the 20s - it's a balancing act between hope and hell. Between pleasure-seeking and street fights, the republic lurches toward the totalitarian state. In the cabarets, creativity explodes.
The traumas of the First World War had not yet been dealt with, the shrills of the defunct empire were still roaring. But the desire to enjoy life again was already seeping out of all the cracks. Dance bars, nightclubs and cabarets were opening not only in Berlin, but also in Frankfurt. Poets, musicians and painters revolted against all bourgeoisie and fought for revolutionary new forms of expression. The founding of the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles ushered in that brief, strident era that preceded Adolf Hitler's seizure of power in 1933. In retrospect, the golden, crazy 1920s seem like a dance on a volcano. And yet they produced a tremendous wealth of exciting ideas and works that continue to fascinate us today. The political climate was poisoned and heated, parallels to today's developments suggest themselves.
The Volksbühne revives the "Roaring Twenties" with songs, poems and prose texts by Kurt Tucholsky, Walter Mehring, Betty Scholem, Fritz Grünbaum, Friedrich Hollaender, Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler and many others, with a program between boom and crisis .
With Ingrid El Sigai, Ulrike Kinbach and Michael Quast
