Drums in the Night

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drums in the Night (German Trommeln in der Nacht) is a play by Bertolt Brecht. One of Brecht's earlier plays, it was written before he became a convinced communist but already one can see the importance of class struggle in Brecht's thinking.

[edit] Plot summary

The play revolves around a woman Anna Balicke whose love, Andreas has gone off to fight in World War I. Her parents attempt to convince her that he is dead and that she should put him behind her and marry a wealthy war materials manufacturer, Murk. Anna has just agreed to this arrangement when Andreas returns. Andreas learns of the new situation while Anna's parents realizing that the poor, proletarian Andreas cannot provide the kind of life for their Anna that the bourgeios Murk can and encourage her to stick to her agreement. Eventually Anna leaves Murk and her parents and goes looking for Andreas. Against the backdrop of the Spartacist uprising in Berlin, Anna searches for Andreas and finds him.

The play illustrates many of the complaints of the Sparticists in their uprising. The soldiers, returning from the front, felt that they had been fighting for nothing and that what they had had before they left had been stolen. Murk, who did not fight and made a fortune off the fighting and then nearly stole Anna, symbolizes the feeling of the working class of having been cheated.