Hurwicz, Angelika

(1922-1999)

   Actress. Hurwicz studied acting under Lucie Höflich in the 1940s, disguising her Jewish family background and ultimately getting jobs in the German countryside at the height of World War II with touring theater troupes. In mid-1945 she returned to Berlin, where she began working at the Deutsches Theater. There she met Bertolt Brecht and began working with him and Helene Weigel as they prepared their production of Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children) in 1949; Hurwicz played the deaf-mute daughter of Anna Fierling in that consequential production, killed in a barrage of gunfire near the end of the play. Her performance won her widespread renown, including a prize for acting from the East German government. She played the role through the 1950s and repeated it in the 1961 video version. For the company's 1954 premiere production of Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (The Caucasian Chalk Circle), Hurwicz played the pivotal role of Gruscha to widespread acclaim, solidifying her status as a genuine "Brecht actress." She left the company after Brecht's death, however, appearing in numerous theaters throughout the German-speaking world in the 1960s. In 1964 she wrote a much-discussed book on her experiences with Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble.