Written between 1921 and 1924, it received its first theatrical production under the title Im Dickicht ("In the jungle") at the Residenztheater in Munich, opening on 9 May 1923.
The cast included Otto Wernicke as Shlink the lumber dealer, Erwin Faber as George Garga, and Maria Koppenhöfer as his sister Mary.
Im Dickicht was produced at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where Brecht had been employed as a dramaturg.
[1] Brecht revised the play almost to its final form—now with the title Im Dickicht der Städte and a subtitle proclaiming "the struggle between two men in the great city of Chicago"—in 1927, when it was produced at the Hessisches Landestheater in Darmstadt, directed by Carl Ebert.
Garga accepts the challenge and immediately makes the business sell the same lot of lumber twice, thereby cheating one of the buyers.
Garga starts to try to make Shlink marry Marie, but she becomes afraid and runs to Manky, who happily agrees to take her.
While celebrating the marriage dinner, Shlink arrives with a letter informing him that he will have to go to jail for three years for making a fraudulent lumber deal.
In the Jungle of Cities premiered at the Residenz Theater (Residenztheater) in Munich on 9 May 1923, starring Erwin Faber and Otto Wernicke in the central roles of Garga and Schlink.
The premiere was interrupted several times by Nazis, hooting, whistling and throwing stink bombs at the actors on the stage.
During a pause before the beginning of rehearsals, Brecht, Engel and Faber collaborated with Karl Valentin and other Munich actors to make a short, comic film, Mysteries of a Barbershop.
Al Pacino starred in a short-lived production at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City in 1979, directed by the famous Romanian director Liviu Ciulei.
[7] In October 1991, Ruth Berghaus directed the play at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg as part of a series of 'related texts', as she called them (which also included Büchner's Danton's Death).