Elisabeth Hauptmann (20 June 1897, Peckelsheim, Westphalia,

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

– 20 April 1973,

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

) was a German writer who worked with fellow German playwright and director

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

. She got to know Brecht in 1922, the same year she came to Berlin. She worked as a secretary for the German-American poet and writer

Herman George Scheffauer Herman George Scheffauer (born February 3, 1876, San Francisco, California – died October 7, 1927, Berlin) was a German-American poet, architect, writer, dramatist, journalist, and translator. San Francisco childhood Very little is known abou ...

.See Sabine Kebir Ich fragte nicht nach meinem Anteil Elisabeth Hauptmanns Arbeit mit Bertolt Brecht (Aufbau-Verlag GmbH: Berlin 1997), p. 22. She began collaborating with Brecht in 1924, and is listed as co-author of ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, ''The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with music ...

'' (1928). She purportedlyBrecht & Co.: Sex, Politics and the Making of the Modern Drama by John Fuegi wrote the majority of the text as well as providing a German translation of

John Gay John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peac ...

's ''

The Beggar's Opera ''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satiri ...

'', on which the musical play is based, as working material for Brecht and

Kurt Weill Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...

, the composer. She reportedly wrote at least half of the ''

Mahagonny-Songspiel ''Mahagonny, ein Songspiel'', or ''Mahagonny, a song-play'', was written by composer Kurt Weill and dramatist Bertolt Brecht and first performed with that title and description in 1927. Elisabeth Hauptmann contributed the words to two of its songs. ...

'', but was not credited. She was the main text author of the musical comedy '' Happy End'' (1929). Because of the rise of Nazism, Hauptmann went into

exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

from 1934 to 1949, marrying German composer and conductor

Paul Dessau Paul Dessau (19 December 189428 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor. He collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and composed incidental music for his plays, and several operas based on them. Biography Dessau was born in Hamburg into a ...

in 1943. After Brecht's death in 1956, she published works of his at Suhrkamp Verlag, a German publishing house, and worked as a

dramaturg A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...

for the

Berlin Ensemble The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langho ...

. In 1961, she received the Lessing Award, which the Ministry for Culture (East Germany) awarded every year. She made a German version of ''He hanshan'' (''The Confronted undershirt''), a

Yuan Dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...

-era Chinese play. In 1977, a collection of her works was published under the title ''Julia ohne Romeo'' (''Julia without Romeo'').Tian, Min, p
40
" .. Yuan play, ''He hanshan'' (The Confronted Undershirt) .nd it was later rendered into German by Elisabeth Hauptmann."

References

* Hanssen, Paula. ''Elisabeth Hauptmann: Brecht's Silent Collaborator''. New York University/Ottendorfer, Book 46, 1995; . 173pp. * Tian, Min. ''The Poetics of Difference and Displacement: Twentieth-Century Chinese-Western Intercultural Theatre''.

Hong Kong University Press Hong Kong University Press is the university press of the University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine ...

, 1 June 2008; /.

Notes

1897 births 1973 deaths People from Höxter (district) People from the Province of Westphalia German women dramatists and playwrights Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit 20th-century German dramatists and playwrights 20th-century German women writers {{Germany-writer-stub