Cabaret Voltaire

This guide to Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich opens in the freezing February of 1916, when a broke, unknown performer named Hugo Ball talked the owner of this tavern, then called the Hollandische Meierei, into free use of the back room by promising to sell more beer and sausages. It follows the war refugees and exiled writers, among them Tristan Tzara and Emmy Hennings, who packed into the room to drink, eat and shout poetry nobody had heard before. Listen for it standing where Ball once struck that bargain, at the same counter still pouring drinks tonight.