Saint Joan of the Stockyards

Like many of Brecht's plays it is laced with humor and songs as part of its epic dramaturgical structure and deals with the theme of emancipation from material suffering and exploitation.

[1] Saint Joan of the Stockyards was given its New York City premiere by the Encompass New Opera Theatre in 1978 in a production which incorporated music, directed by Jan Eliasberg.

Joan enters just outside of the Black Straw Hats Mission, a Salvation Army-type organization whose events draw dozens of workers, but only as long as there is soup.

Joan urges the workers to embrace God in light of life's injustices, but finds it difficult to distract them from hunger and the failing market.

Joan and Martha, another Black Straw Hat, wait outside of the Livestock Exchange as Cridle, Graham, Lenox and Mauler discuss the market and Lennox's sad fate.

Cridle insists that Mauler lower the asking price for his shares of the stockyard, arguing that the state of the market lessens their worth.

By the end of the play, Mauler preaches with the Black Straw Hats and Joan dies a bitter, cynical martyr in a world of heartless capitalists, strike-breakers, and penniless workers.