Editing Weimar culture (section)

===Theatre===
The theatres of [[Berlin]] and [[Frankfurt am Main]] were graced with drama by [[Ernst Toller]], [[Bertolt Brecht]], [[cabaret]], and stage direction by [[Max Reinhardt]] and [[Erwin Piscator]]. Many theatre works were sympathetic towards Marxist themes, or were overt experiments in propaganda, such as the [[agitprop theatre]] by Brecht and Weill. Agitprop theatre is named through a combination of the words "agitation" and "propaganda". Its aim was to add elements of public protest (agitation) and persuasive politics (propaganda) to the theatre, in the hope of creating a more activist audience. Among other works, Brecht and [[Kurt Weill]] collaborated on the musical or opera ''[[The Threepenny Opera]]'' (1928), also filmed, which remains a popular evocation of the period.

Toller was the leading German expressionist playwright of the era. He later became one of the leading proponents of [[New Objectivity]] in the theatre. The avant-garde theater of Bertolt Brecht and Max Reinhardt in Berlin was the most advanced in Europe, being rivaled only by that of Paris.<ref name="KirkusLaqueurUK"/>

The Weimar years saw a flourishing of political and grotesque cabaret which, at least for the English-speaking world, has become iconic for the period through works such as ''[[The Berlin Stories]]'' by the English writer [[Christopher Isherwood]], who lived in Berlin from 1929-33.<ref name="Doyle 2013"/> The musical and then the film ''[[Cabaret (musical)|Cabaret]]'' were based upon Isherwood's misadventures at Nollendorfstrasse 17 in the Schöneberg district where he lived with cabaret singer [[Jean Ross]].<ref name="Doyle 2013">{{cite news | last = Doyle | first = Rachel | title = Looking for Christopher Isherwood's Berlin | newspaper = [[The New York Times]] | page = TR10 | date = 12 April 2013 | df = dmy-all | access-date = 18 June 2018 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/travel/looking-for-christopher-isherwoods-berlin.html}}</ref> The main center for political cabaret was Berlin, with performers like comedian [[Otto Reutter]].<ref>[[Peter Gay]] (1968) ''[[Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider]]'' p.131</ref> [[Karl Valentin]] was a master of grotesque cabaret.

Historian Peter Jelavich has written extensively about minstrelsy in the Weimar cabaret. In his book ''Berlin Cabaret'' he writes that in 1920s Germany "blacks became symbols of a radically new cultural sensibility" and that the reception of minstrelsy in the revue cemented in the idea in Germany that "the United States was both the most modern and the most 'primitive' of nations."<ref>Peter Jelavich: [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674067622 Berlin Cabaret] Harvard University Press, 1996.</ref>