Coriolan

Alternative title: Coriolanus
Synopsis: Brecht’s re-working of Shakespeare’s play adapted by Manfred Wekwerth and Joachim Tenschert. Karin Hercher directs Ekkehard Schall in the title role.
Series: Welt des Theaters
Language: German (Standard)
Country: Germany
Medium: Television
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Transmission details: 26 Dec 1978 at 20:00 (Channel: DFF/DDR-2)
Duration: 153 mins

Director

Karin Hercher

Producer

Ingeborg Trenkler

Cinematographer

Writer

Bertolt Brecht

Music

Paul Dessau

Production Design

Karl von Appen

Costume

Karl von Appen

Contributor

Joachim Tenschert; Manfred Wekwerth

Cast

Notes: A sound recording of the Berliner Ensembler’s 1965 production at the Old Vic is held by the British Library Sound Archive and catalogued separately.
General: Brecht adapted Shakespeare’s play in 1952-5, as Coriolan for the Berliner Ensemble. He intended to make it a tragedy of the workers, not the individual, and introduce the alienation effect; his journal notes that he found many of his own effects already in the text, and he considered staging the play with only minimal changes. The adaptation was unfinished at Brecht’s death in 1956; it was completed by Manfred Wekwerth and Joachim Tenschert and staged in Frankfurt in 1962. [wikipedia].

British Universities Film & Video Council