''Señora Carrar's Rifles'' (german: Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar) is a

one-act play A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writi ...

by the twentieth-century German dramatist

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 ...

, written in collaboration with

Margarete Steffin Margarete Emilie Charlotte Steffin (21 March 1908 – 4 June 1941) was a German actress and writer, one of Bertold Brecht's closest collaborators, as well as a prolific translator from Russian and Scandinavian languages. Biography Born to a pro ...

. It is a modern version of the Irish dramatist

John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival. His best known play ''The Playboy of the Western World'' was poorly r ...

's play ''

Riders to the Sea ''Riders to the Sea'' is a play written by Irish Literary Renaissance playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed on 25 February 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theater Society with Helen Laird playing Ma ...

'' (1904). The play's setting is re-located to Spain during the height of the Civil War. Teresa Carrar, the mother, wants to protect her children but ends up fighting on the side of the oppressed. Brecht wrote it in 1937 and it received its first theatrical production in the same year, opening in Paris on 16 October. This production was directed by

Slatan Dudow Slatan Theodor Dudow ( bg, Златан Дудов, Zlatan Dudov) (30 January 1903 - 12 July 1963) was a Bulgarian born film director and screenwriter who made a number of films during the Weimar Republic and in East Germany. Biography Dudow was ...

and

Helene Weigel Helene Weigel (; 12 May 19006 May 1971) was a German actress and artistic director. She was the second wife of Bertolt Brecht and was married to him from 1930 until his death in 1956. Together they had two children. Personal life Weigel was b ...

played Señora Carrar.Willett (1959, 45-46).

References

Works cited

* Willett, John. 1967. ''The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects.'' Third ed. London: Methuen. . 1937 plays Plays by Bertolt Brecht {{1930s-play-stub

See also

References

Works cited