Round Heads and Pointed Heads

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Round Heads and Pointed Heads (German: Die Rundeköpfe und die Spitzköpfe), sometimes translated as Round Heads and Peaked Heads or Roundheads and Pointheads, is a play by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, with songs by his frequent collaborator Hanns Eisler. Originally begun as an adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, its roots are almost unrecognizable in the final version, which is a satirical anti-Nazi parable about a fictitious country in which the rulers maintain their control by setting the people with round heads against those with pointed heads.

The play was initially produced in Copenhagen while Brecht was in exile from Nazi Germany there. It opened on November 4, 1936, to mixed reactions. Brecht was not upset by this — he remarked some years later that he had seen some people crying at the same scene that others were laughing at, "And I was satisfied with both." [1]

Unlike others of his lesser works, Brecht included Round Heads and Pointed Heads in his collected works of 1955.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Frederic Ewen. Bertolt Brecht: His Life, His Art and His Times, (1967), citing "Anmerkung zu Rundköpfe..." in Stücke VI (1957-1967)


 This article on a play is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
v • d • e
The Plays of Bertolt Brecht

Baal • Drums in the Night • The Beggar • A Wedding • Driving Out a Devil • Lux in Tenebris • The Catch • In The Jungle of Cities • Edward II • Man Equals Man • Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer • The Elephant Calf • Little Mahagonny • The Threepenny Opera • The Flight across the Ocean • The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent • Happy End • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny • Der Jasager / Der Neinsager • The Decision • Saint Joan of the Stockyards • The Exception and the Rule • The Mother • Kuhle Wampe • The Seven Deadly Sins • Round Heads and Pointed Heads • The Horatians and the Curiatians • Fear and Misery of the Third Reich • Señora Carrar's Rifles • Life of Galileo • How Much Is Your Iron? • Dansen • Mother Courage and Her Children • The Trial of Lucullus • Mr Puntila and his Man Matti • The Good Person of Szechwan • The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui • Hangmen Also Die! • The Visions of Simone Machard • The Duchess of Malfi • Schweyk in the Second World War • The Caucasian Chalk Circle • Antigone • The Days of the Commune • The Tutor • Die Verurteilung des Lukullus • Report from Herrnburg • Coriolanus • Joan of Arc • Turandot • Don Juan • Trumpets and Drums