How Much Is Your Iron?
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| How Much Is Your Iron? | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Was kostet das Eisen? |
| Written by | Bertolt Brecht |
| Directed by | Ruth Berlau[1] |
| Date premiered | October 1939[1] |
| Place premiered | Tollare folkhögskola[1] |
How Much Is Your Iron? (German: Was kostet das Eisen?) is a short play by German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wrote How Much Is Your Iron? in the fall of 1939 while in exile in Sweden, against the background of the approaching Second World War, following Nazi Germany's annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, against which Western powers such as Great Britain and France had at that stage not yet intervened. The play takes a critical look at Sweden's involvement with both Axis and Allied Powers in the build-up to World War Two.[2] It is still produced regularly, playing in 2007 in London with a good review by The Guardian.[3]
Synopsis
How Much Is Your Iron? is set in the shop of a male character named Svenson, who is repeatedly visited by a gangster-like figure wanting to purchase iron. Neighbouring shopkeepers Herr Austrian and Frau Czech fall victim to the gangster's increasingly violent behavior, but Svenson refuses to join a pact with shopkeeper Herr Britt to ward off the gangster (the "Austrian cigar-merchant and Czech shoeseller are liquidated.").[3] Eventually, Svenson himself falls victim to the gangster.[3]
