About the show

About the performance

Brecht.Cabarett — a musical and dramatic performance based on Bertolt Brecht's play ‘Drums in the Night’. The production combines the atmosphere of a cabaret, live music and Brechtian irony, turning into a conversation about war, fear and a society that gets used to living next to a catastrophe.

At the center of the story is a soldier who returns home, but his appearance seems to go unnoticed. The city continues to live in the rhythm of night lights, cafes, music and entertainment, although somewhere very close you can already hear the drums of a new war. The performance explores how people try to laugh and have fun when the world around them is gradually collapsing.

Brecht's texts in the production sound modern and painfully recognizable, and the songs on his poems translated by Serhiy Zhadan create a special atmosphere of an unsettling cabaret. The performance was created with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation in co-production with the Kharkiv State Academic Puppet Theater named after V. A. Afanasyev.