Señora Carrar's rifles
By: Bertolt Brecht ; translated by Wolfgang Sauerlander
Contributors: Sauerländer, Wolfgang, translator; Brecht, Bertolt, 1898-1956
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London]
Language: eng
Work titles: Gewehre der Frau Carrar
Description: Partly based on Synge's 'Riders to the Sea', 'Señora Carrar's Rifles' transposes the Irish play of the early 20th century to mid-century Andalucia. There, a fisherwoman named Teresa Carrar is trying desperately to maintain a normal life even as the civil war closes in around her; having killed her husband it proposes now to sweep up her two sons as well. Teresa hopes to insulate her boys from the fighting, believing she can keep her head down, sew nets and send the boats out, and the war need not touch them. But tragedy strikes her eldest on the waves, causing her to rethink her position of non-engagement. Written as an Aristotelian drama, based on empathy, rather than Brecht's own theories of Epic theatre, 'Señora Carrar's Rifles' is one of Brecht's more immediately accessible plays. It premiered in Paris, 1937.
Notes: Previously issued in print: in Collected plays four. London: Methuen Drama, 2003.

Translated from the German.