ERNST TOLLER'S LIVING NEWSPAPERS AND THE FEDERAL THEATRE PROJECT

During his first trip to the US in 1929 Ernst Toller was impressed by the Newsreel cinemas of William Fox. In his words – ‘die Zeitung ist lebendig geworden’ – the films were a sort of ‘living newspaper’. He tried to write such a ‘Living Newspaper’ in his first radio play Berlin, letzte Ausgabe! (1930), as well as in one of his last texts for the stage which was found among his literary remains: ‘Forget Europe!’ is a short concept paper he wrote for Hallie Flanagan's Federal Theatre Project (FTP) in the late 1930s. This article compares the different conceptions of the FTP's ‘Living Newspaper’-plays with Toller's own ideas about bringing the news to the stage. Reflecting on Toller's poetics, I trace why the exiled author ultimately failed to finish his ‘Living Newspaper’ for the FTP.