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.