In 1923, the German epic theatre director Erwin Piscator staged the play at his "proletarian Volksbühne" (a rival to the Volksbühne), in Berlin. "Our intention," Piscator writes, "was to move toward a political message from a broad artistic base." The production opened on 19 January at the Central-Theater on the Alte Jakob Strasse. Having aimed for "the greatest possible realism in acting and decor," Piscator described his production as "thoroughly naturalistic." Herbert Ihering approved of its attempt to bring serious drama at low ticket-prices to working-class audiences, though he thought that its attention to naturalistic detail distracted from the core meaning of the play.