GAIL HART
GERMAN DEPARTMENT
GKHART@UCI.EDU
M 10-11, W 1-2 in HIB 185
Against the Law: Conspiracy, Punishment, Resistance
Week 4: Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956):
Art and Ideology: the Communist Artist
KURT WEILL Composer
BRECHT LECTURE ONE:
Background on Brecht and his Theater
BB testified before HUAC on October 30, 1947
30 Years of Treason: p.214 text & audio
Brecht: full testimony, pp.207-225
Brecht fled the Nazis in 1933 as a Communist (Prague, Denmark)
Came to US and Hollywood in 1941
Surveillance:
1) as suspicious foreigner (during war against Germany)
2) as Communist after war. 1946 FBI phone tap
Brecht was a communist, but not a Party member.
Not a hero before HUAC
----fled the USA in 1947 just as he had fled Nazi Germany in 1933: As a Communist.
ART IN THE SERVICE OF IDEOLOGY
Brecht was pursuing social change
-----like Miller, he addressed events as an artist
-----unlike Miller, he did not focus on specific historical events like Salem
or HUAC
-----focused on what he saw as an outdated and exploitative economic system:
CAPITALISM
THE THREEPENNY OPERA
-----Set in 19th-Century London
-----Follows fortunes of Macheath, Peachum and Polly, Brown, bunch of robbers and prostitutes
Threepenny Opera
CHALLENGES THE LAW AND RE-CONCEIVES CRIMINALITY
By posing the question:
WHAT IS CRIME AND WHO IS THE CRIMINAL IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY?
PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE WAYS IN WHICH THIS SOCIETY IS REGULATED
-----to the economy that prevails
-----to the ways in which law is enforced
-----to those who enforce it
[p. 61]
The Law-abiding use the Law for exploitation and the argument that the play
tries to make is:
-----this exploitation is criminal
------the law should be changed or enforced so that this exploitation is no longer possible.
BOTTOM LINE: The bourgeois is a criminal
And as we shall see THE CRIMINAL MACHEATH IS A BOURGEOIS
What’s a bourgeois?
Brecht addressed social change ARTISTICALLY, like Miller, and he established a particular kind of theater to do this.
BRECHT AND HIS THEATER
EPIC THEATER
Three main genres of literature:
Lyric,
Epic,
Dramatic
EPIC THEATER TELLS OR NARRATES A STORY OR SITUATION
------it does not recreate the story or situation or present the illusion that the story is unfolding.
This ILLUSION is the usual point of drama
[willing suspense of disbelief]
drama, tragedy-------? CATHARSIS
Purging of pity and fear which are emotional links
POINT OF ARISTOTELIAN THEATER, a tradition that derives from the reception of Aristotle, IS EMOTIONAL IMPACT THAT DERIVES FROM IDENTIFICATION WITH THE FIGURES ON STAGE.
The basic impulse of Brecht’s theater is to disrupt the emotional identification
of the audience with the characters
------he referred to this emotional hold over the audience as witchcraft
Arthur Miller: “A drama cannot merely describe an emotion—it has
to become that emotion” (Reader, 411-12)
-------------------------------------
Brecht’s purpose is very different:
TO SUBSTITUTE LOGOS FOR PATHOS: THOUGHT FOR FEELING
DIFFERENT VALUE SYSTEM? How do we recognize a GOOD play?
We often judge a play to be good if it involves us emotionally
Why does Brecht want his audience to think?
One of Brecht’s favorite quotes was
Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach:
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point is to change it.”
War, poverty, starvation
WHY AREN’T WE OUT THERE CHANGING IT?
BRECHT’S ANSWER:
----We tend to see these problems as
INEVITABLE,
ENDURING,
COMMONPLACE
WE DON’T THINK THEY CAN BE CHANGED!
Brecht tries to historicize and negate the commonplace
To say:
Here is a specific (not general or universal human) situation
THAT COULD BE OTHERWISE
In Threepenny Opera:
---1. some are rich and some are very poor
---2. law and the social order support this
----3. most insist on ignoring these problems and seeking soothing entertainment
BRECHT’S THEATER tries to address these conditions from the bottom up:
3. Persuade the apathetic spectators
2. Initiate change in the system
1. Redistribute wealth and abolish poverty.
In other words, CHANGE THE LAW AND THE MANNER OF ITS APPLICATION AND YOU CHANGE
THE WORLD
-------------------------------------------------------
HOW TO PROMOTE CRITICAL THINKING IN THE THEATER
Epic Theater and the Alienation Effect
1.Environmental devices: physical circumstances of the audience
2. Theatrical devices:
------ACTING
Actors must always remember that they are telling about rather than becoming their character.
------INTERRUPTION OF THE ACTION WITH SIGNS AND OTHER PROPS
------SONGS
vs. grand opera or other types of musical theater, where songs and gestures and dialogue and action blend into a seamless whole.
-------Brecht’s songs interrupt and comment on the action.
Brecht: “Nothing is more revolting than when an actor pretends not to
notice that he has left the level of plain speech and started to sing.”
Raindrops on Roses and whiskers on kittens
Therefore: “Song lighting”
Title on placard
Very deliberate transition into song
BRECHTIAN SINGING
[Marc Blitzstein version, Gerald Price singing ]
ALIENATION EFFECT (V-effekt)
Goal of these techniques: block emotional identification and so that audience can think critically.
Pay close attention to the Pirate Jenny song
pp.19-20; pp.21-22
[Joseph Papp version, Ellen Greene singing].
Papp testified before HUAC on June 19, 1958
Ballad of the oppressed girl with a dream-----made theatrical in a way
that separates the pain and emotions she feels from the subject
------and presents them as a matter for analysis.
----Maintaining alienation is hard
----easier to manipulate emotions
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Gay’s ‘A Beggar’s Opera’ (1728)
Moral: “That the lowest sort of people have their vices in a degree as well as the rich and that they are punished for them.
Brecht recognized the strong resemblance between the laws and orders of this
society and his capitalist society and decided to adapt the play. Or did he?
Not by Brecht alone:
When we say ‘Brecht’ we often mean the collective ‘Brecht’
THREEPENNY OPERA
---premier in 1928
---almost 20 years before HUAC appearance and before WWII
A very important observation lies at the bottom of this piece and it has to
do with private property and profiting from the work of others.
[forget the circumstances of composition]