The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui/The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Here's an idea for radical theater, a Brecht Revival for my cranky 
"Fallow Traveler."

How about rewriting _The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui_ -- an MBA 
(Harvard Business School, 1975) disguised as a Texan cowboy rises to 
power through election frauds and alliance with international 
gangsters, bent on global domination through the oil protection 
racket?

If any European artists really wanted to satirize The Empire and its 
Euro Hangers-on with malicious glee, they could, of course, stage 
_The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny_, too.

*****   ...Mahagonny is seen in flames on the screens in the 
background.  Then groups of demonstrators begin appearing; they 
interweave and confront one another, continuing right up to the 
end....

First Group:
For this splendid Mahagonny
Has it all, if you have the money.
Then all is available
Because all is for sale
And there is nothing that one cannot buy.

_The inscriptions on the second group's signs read_:
'FOR PROPERTY'
'FOR THE EXPLOITATION OF OTHERS'
'FOR THE JUST DIVISION OF SPIRITUAL GOODS'
'FOR THE UNJUST DIVISION OF TEMPORAL GOODS'
'FOR LOVE'
'FOR THE BUYING AND SELLING OF LOVE'
'FOR THE NATURAL DISORDER OF THINGS'
'FOR THE PROLONGATION OF THE GOLDEN AGE'

Second Group:
We need no raging hurricane
We need no bolt from the blue:
There's no havoc they might have done
That we cannot better do.

_The inscriptions on the third group's signs read_:
'FOR THE FREEDOM FOR THE RICH'
'FOR VALOUR AGAINST THE DEFENCELESS'
'FOR HONOUR AMONG MURDERERS'
'FOR GREATNESS OF SQUALOR'
'FOR IMMORTALITY OF UNDERHANDEDNESS'
'FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THE GOLDEN AGE'

Third Group:
As you make your bed so you lie on it
The bed can be old or brand-new:
So if someone must kick, that is my part
And another get kicked, that part's for you.

First Group _returning with its signs_
Why, though, did we need a Mahagonny?
Because this world is a foul one
With neither charity
Nor peace nor concord
Because there is nothing
To build any trust upon....

(Bertolt Brecht, _The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny_, Scene 
20)   *****
-- 
Yoshie

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