Don Juan (Brecht, Manheim)

This adaptation of one of the French master's funniest plays preserves much of the plot of the original, which concerns the notorious womanizer Don Juan and his servant Sganarelle—but, naturally, Brecht has given it his own inimitable slant, which here becomes distinctly anti-artistocratic.

In this adaptation Don Juan, the lgenedary lover, is regarded as a means to ridicule the hypocrisy and pretentiousness of the world as he pursues his amorous ways, dodges and outwits his enemies until, in the form of the Statue of the Commander, he meets his inevitable nemesis and is cast into hell fire. This is one of Brecht's less radical adaptations and one of those with which he apparently had least to do.