At the end of the 1990s, Winnie Böwe, a young acting student and singer, helped an almost forgotten prototype of the soap opera achieve cult status at the Berliner Ensemble: "Happy End" is the story of Salvation Army girl Lilian Holiday in Chicago's gangster milieu. It mixes the classic ingredients: forbidden love, crime, purification, betrayal and mortal danger with a compilation of the best songs by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, from "Surabaya Johnny" to the "Bilbao Song". For the online format of the Brecht Festival, Winnie Böwe (vocals) and Felix Kroll (accordion) perform the piece as a compact show for those in a hurry: The storyline of Dorothy Lane aka Elisabeth Hauptmann is retold in fast motion, but for the first time all songs are only available with accordion accompaniment!
Concept, direction and vocals: Winnie Böwe
Musical arrangement and accordion: Felix Kroll
Camera and editing: Paul Rohlfs
Performance rights: Verlag Felix Bloch Erben GmbH & Co KG, Berlin
Photo: Paul Rohlfs

A production of the Brechtfestival Augsburg