Trumpets and Drums is an adaptation

Theatrical adaptation

In a theatrical adaptation, material from another artistic medium, such as a novel or a film is re-written according to the needs and requirements of the theatre and turned into a play or musical....

 of an 18th-century English Restoration comedy

Restoration comedy

Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama...

 by Farquhar

George Farquhar

George Farquhar was an Irish dramatist. He is noted for his contributions to late Restoration comedy, particularly for his plays The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem .-Early life:...

, The Recruiting Officer

The Recruiting Officer

The Recruiting Officer is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury to recruit soldiers...

. It was written by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

 in collaboration with Benno Besson

Benno Besson

Benno Besson was a Swiss actor and director. He had great success as director at Volksbühne Berlin, Deutsches Theater and Berliner Ensemble in East-Berlin, where he went by an invitation of Bertolt Brecht in 1949...

 and Elisabeth Hauptmann

Elisabeth Hauptmann

Elisabeth Hauptmann was a German writer who worked with Bertolt Brecht....

.

It was first performed in 1955 in a production directed by Besson, with music by Rudolf Wagner-Régeny

Rudolf Wagner-Régeny

Rudolf Wagner-Régeny was a composer, conductor, and pianist. Born in Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, since 1920 Romania, he became a German citizen in 1930, and then East Germany after 1945.From 1919–1920 he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and then at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from...

 (whose songs for the play have been called "Weill-like

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

" by John Willett

John Willett

John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...

). It was the first premiere of Brecht's final season at the Berliner Ensemble

Berliner Ensemble

The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...

. Willett identifies an instance of Brecht's lifelong indebtedness to Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 in the play's "Song of the Women of Gaa."

The production strongly influenced the English director William Gaskill

William Gaskill

William 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...

's reinterpretation of Farquhar's original play for the National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

.

Synopsis

Brecht offers the following account of the first scene of the play:

Sources

• Willett, John
  John Willett
  John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
  
  . 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 041334360X.
• Willett, John and Ralph Manheim, eds. 1972. Collected Plays: Nine. By Bertolt Brecht
  Bertolt Brecht
  Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
  
  . Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Ser. New York: Vintage. ISBN 0394718194.