“Um homem é um homem” was rewritten by Brecht many times from 1926 until 1956 when he died. It is a comedy from a transition phase in Brecht’s career, when the theory of the epic theater was being formed.
“Um homem é um homem” bears traces of various sources: the cabaret, the circus, street theater, popular music, and the epic theater. It is a fable that tells us of the transformation of a peaceful dock worker into a killing war machine. “Um homem é um homem” is above all a cautionary tale about the power of manipulation and the dangers incurred by those who do not know how to say no. That is the case with the protagonist, Galy Gay, a man who leaves home one day to buy some fish in the market and ends up with a cucumber. After he accepts a new identity, the soldier Jeraiah Jip, he is wounded and arrested in an assault to a religious temple and ends up being executed. On the background of this story there is a war of occupation led by a western army in a distant eastern country. Through Paulo José’s adaptation, this background is brought to sharper relief by being referred to the current war in Iraq.