(Neue Sachlichkeit) in the drama. "Kaiser has left the cloud that used to surround him," a review in the Weltbühne suggested, "and landed with both feet on the earth." Kaiser's plays, particularly From Morning to Midnight, were highly influential on the German dramatists operating during the 1920s, including Iwan Goll, Ernst Toller and Bertolt Brecht, who drew on Kaiser's use of revue-type scenes and parable, which was influenced by medieval and 16th-century German mystery plays. Kaiser collaborated with the composer Kurt Weill on his one-act operas Der Protagonist (1926) and Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (1928), also Der Silbersee (1933). In his later years, he further developed his criticism of the modern machine age that had characterised the Gas trilogy. Imprisoned briefly in 1923 for stealing a loaf of bread during the hyper-inflationary crisis, Kaiser fled to Switzerland when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s (Kaiser went into exile in 1938). There he turned to writing verse dramas on mythological themes, including Pygmalion, Amphitryon, and Bellerophon, and a pacifist drama, The Soldier Tanaka (1940). The Raft of the Medusa (1945) is a play written in verse that reverses the ethos of The Burghers of Calais in a more pessimistic direction; to avoid bad luck, thirteen children on a life-raft drown the youngest of them. (See the frigate Méduse for the historical shipwreck and The Raft of the Medusa for its famous depiction in art.) Plays 1914: Die Bürger von Calais (The Burghers of Calais) 1916: Von Morgens bis Mitternachts 1917: Die Koralle 1918: Gas I 1920: Gas II 1923: Gilles und Johanna 1928: Oktobertag 1938: Die Gärtner von Toulouse 1940: Alain und Elise Selected filmography Film adaptations From Morn to Midnight (dir. Karlheinz Martin, 1920) — based on the play From Morning to Midnight Women's Sacrifice (dir. Karl Grune, 1922) — based on the play Das Frauenopfer The Farmer from Texas (dir. Joe May, 1925) — based on the play Kolportage Hurrah! I Live! (dir. Wilhelm Thiele, 1928) — based on the play Der mutige Seefahrer (dir. Felix Basch, 1930) — based on the play Zwei Krawatten The Valiant Navigator (dir. Hans Deppe, 1935) — based on the play Der mutige Seefahrer The Ghost Comes Home (dir. Wilhelm Thiele, USA, 1940) — based on the play Der mutige Seefahrer (dir. Eduard von Borsody, 1948) — based on the story Der Flüchtling Kolportage (dir. Hans Lietzau, 1957, TV film)