Hoppla, We're Alive! () is a Neue Sachlichkeit (or "New Objectivity") play by the German playwright Ernst Toller. Its second production, directed by the seminal epic theatre director Erwin Piscator in 1927, was a milestone in the history of theatre.Pearlman (2000, 17). The British playwright Mark Ravenhill based his Some Explicit Polaroids (1999) on Toller's play.Pearlman (2000, 31).
Characters
Prologue Time: 1919 Karl ThomasEva BergWilhelm KilmanAlbert KrollFrau MellerWarder Randrow Lieutenant Baron FriedrichSoldiers
Main play This piece takes place in many countries, eight years after the crushing of a people's uprising. Time: 1927 Karl ThomasEva BergWilhelm KilmanFrau KilmanLotte KilmanRandProfessor LundinAlbert KrollFrau MellerRandProfessor LundinFritzGreteCount LandeMinister of WarBanker Banker's SonPickelBaron FriedrichMinistry OfficialMadhouse OrderlyStudent1st Worker2nd Worker3rd Worker4th Worker5th WorkerExamining MagistrateHead WaiterPorterRadio OperatorBusboyPolice Chief1st Policeman2nd Policeman3rd PolicemanChairman of the Union of Intellectual Brain WorkersPhilosopher XPoet YCritic ZElection officer2nd Election Officer1st Electioneer2nd Electioneer3rd ElectioneerVoterOld WomanPrisoner NJournalistLadies, GentlemenPeople
Reception According to theatre critic Eric Bentley’s book The Playwright as Thinker, when Erwin Piscator directed the premiere of Hoppla, We’re Alive! in 1927 and Frau Meller, the mother in the play, said "There’s only one thing to do: either hang one’s self or change the world," the youthful audience burst spontaneously into the Internationale.Bentley (1987).
Hoppla, We're Alive! was one of the books burned in the infamous Nazi book burning, along with 20,000 other left-wing and Jewish books.
References
Sources Bentley, Eric. 1987. The Playwright as Thinker: A Study of Drama in Modern Times. Revised ed. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. . Pearlman, Alan Raphael, ed. and trans. 2000. Plays One: Transformation, Masses Man, Hoppla, We're Alive!. By Ernst Toller. Absolute Classics ser. London: Oberon. .
External links Full text of the play at HathiTrust Digital Library: Hoppla! (English translation by Hermon Ould) Hoppla, wir leben! There are some Toller-Texts on the Internet. Links of Helmut Schulze. http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/TollerErnst/index.html Links Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day: Prague spring "The Tartan Online (Carnegie Mellon's Student Newspaper) Political theater: Robert Myers evaluates politics in playwrighting" Ernst Toller Page Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia