Erwin Piscator

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Piscator, Erwin Friedrich Max (1893–1966), German director, who during the 1920s worked in Berlin where he devised a form of epic theatre, intended to reinforce the impact of his strong pacifist and Communist convictions, which encompassed the whole of society in its political and economic complexity and greatly influenced the later work of Brecht. He anticipated the trend away from a completed playscript, and was one of the first directors to use film-strips and animated cartoons in conjunction with live actors. Among his productions at this time was Gewitter über Gottland (1927) by Elm Welk, which included film projections of the Russian Revolution and cost him his job at the Volksbühne. He then opened his own theatre, where he produced Toller's Hoppla, wir leben! (1927) in a revolving multi-level set with seven or eight acting areas and surfaces for film and slide projections; Alexei Tolstoy's Rasputin (also 1927), staged in a huge revolving steel hemisphere symbolizing the earth; and Die Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schweik (1928) adapted by Brecht and others from the novel by Hašek. This was Piscator's most successful production, and technically his most ambitious, but it was so expensive that the theatre was soon forced to close. After some desultory freelance work, Piscator left Germany in 1933, and reached New York, via Paris, in 1939. There he directed a Dramatic Workshop, where he mounted a number of teaching productions including his own adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1942); among his students were Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. He returned to Germany in 1951, and in 1962 he became Director of the West Berlin Freie Volksbühne, where he directed several documentary dramas—Hochhuth's Der Stellvertreter (1963), Kipphardt's In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964), and Weiss's Die Ermittlung (1965). Piscator died suddenly during the rehearsals of Hochhuth's Soldaten. His influence was apparent in the work of Joan Littlewood at Theatre Workshop in England and in that of the Living Theatre in the USA.

Erwin Piscator , 1893–1966, German theatrical director and producer who, with Bertolt Brecht , was the foremost exponent of epic theater, a genre that emphasizes the sociopolitical context rather than the emotional content or aesthetics of the play. He worked experimentally in Berlin after 1919. As director of the Volksbühne (1924–27), and later at his own theater (on Nollendorfplatz), he produced social and political plays especially suited to his theories. His dramatic aims were utilitarian—to influence voters or clarify Communist policies. He used mechanized sets, lectures, movies, and mechanical devices that appealed to his audiences. In 1927 he produced a notable adaptation of a Czech novel (tr. The Good Soldier Schweik ). Piscator went to the United States in 1939 and became director of the Dramatic Workshop and the Studio Theater, which he founded in New York City. He returned to Germany c.1958; he was appointed manager and director of the Volksbühne in West Berlin and received honors from the West German government for his contribution to the arts. His influence on European and American production methods was extensive.

Bibliography: See C. D. Innes, Erwin Piscator's Political Theatre (1974).

Piscator, Ervin Friedrich Max (1893–1966) German stage director. He developed the concept of epic theatre, which Bertolt Brecht incorporated into the work of the Berliner Ensemble. Piscator shared the conviction that theatre should be a political medium. See also expressionism