Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar / Würgendes Blei

Mrs Carrar is a pacifist and believes that she can protect her sons from the violence of the Spanish Civil War by forbidding them to join the fight against Franco and the fascists. But a fatal event leads her to taking up arms herself. Luise Voigt transposes “Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar” into the setting of a 1930s feature film and develops Brecht’s principle of alienation further with elaborate sound and visual effects – only to have it all collapse.


Brecht himself had noted that his play – which premiered in 1937 and has distressing resonances today – might be presented together with a documentary film.


Instead, Luise Voigt’s “Carrar”-staging is followed by a second part: At the centre of the sequel “Würgendes Blei” by Björn SC Deigner – who  sees theatre as a place for negotiation, for demands and for instigation – are the specific consequences for those who go to war. The combination of both parts results in a focused, score-like show that asks whether neutrality is even possible in the face of a violent attack.


Statement of the Jury

Do weapons bring about peace or just more war? Bertolt Brecht’s “Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar” (Señora Carrar’s Rifles), first staged by German refugees in Paris in 1937, is the play of the hour. Mrs Carrar wants to save her sons’ lives and therefore initially takes a rigorous pacifist stance. This rarely performed play about the Spanish civil war hits home like a hammer today.


Luise Voigt stages it in the aesthetics of a 1930s movie: The set shimmers, the sound rustles and crackles and the landscape outside the window appears as expressionistic as a paper cut-out. Afterwards, Björn SC Deigner’s “Würgendes Blei” (Choking Lead) begins on the ruins of the past – as a piece for Mrs Carrar, a linden leaf, a machine gun and a chorus, as a religious service for the return of the ever identical horrors of war. How to escape this vicious circle?



(In German with English subtitles)