Described by Brecht as ''a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all'', Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler - recast by Brecht into a fictional, small-time Chicago gangster''s takeover of the city''s greengrocery trade in the 1930s. The satirical allegory combines Brecht''s Epic style of theatre with black comedy and overt didacticism.

Using a wide range of parody and pastiche - from Al Capone to Shakespeare''s Richard III and Goethe''s Faust - Brecht''s compelling parable continues to have relevance wherever totalitarianism appears today.

Written during the Second World War in 1941, the play was one of the Berliner Ensemble''s most outstanding box-office successes in 1959, and has continued to attract a succession of major actors, including Leonard Rossiter, Christopher Plummer, Antony Sher and Al Pacino.

This version of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is by Canadian theatre academic Jennifer Wise.