Ten Things I Remember of Brecht
Here, just a few thoughts to help with the written work.
Forward and the Future.
There is no such thing as no such thing. Everything is possible. Wo/man's fate is in her/his own hands. Don't capitulate to your emotions. Superstition might be a refuge but don't let it be your last refuge. Tears are natural and understandable but when tears finish and your reason begins, you're in a better place. You need to have your wits about you to fight unfairness and injustice. Both the unfairness and injustice you do and that which is done to you.
Change.
Everything can be changed. Even the policeman or the soldier who is shooting you can be changed. He is the same as you. You are not divided from him. Nothing is static. Nothing will be forever. The tyrant will be overthrown. The rubble of his statues, his laws and his palaces will one day lie in the sand, smashed and forgotten.
Women.
Mothers. Carers. The powerless. But strong. The people who you don't see. The servants. The butchers. The cooks. The nannys and cleaners. The hidden army of people who make the the goods, empty the garbage and scour the toilets. Brecht asks how they can have the power.
Peasant Cunning
If you're at the bottom of the heap, cunning and patience are your best weapon. Respect for that on Brecht's part. All his protagonists have it. It's a strength based on dispossession.
Learning.
Learn stuff. People who can't learn can't change. And are of no use - to the world or themselves. Learning and teaching are intimately involved. Learn so that you can teach. Teach so that you can learn. Pass on information. Be open. Don't shut off. Learning is living. Stop learning and what happens?
Clarification
Brecht wanted to say something first and foremost about the world. Not about acting. Not about theatre. He wanted to say something so that the world could be changed in ways both large and small. His job, the job of his actors, the job of his designers, his composers, his musicians, the stage hands and the wardrobe department was to CLARIFY the play. If he, his actors, his musicians, his wardrobe department, his electrians obscured the play, that had to change. I think he believed that all good actors, artists, craftsmen, thinkers, people clarify things rather than obscure them. Or become good when they are clarifying.
On the run.
Brecht was 30 and married with two kids when he was forced to leave his homeland and live for seventeen years on handouts in countries where German wasn't spoken. Who made his plays? Other people. He had no control. They had the paintbrush, not the painter. The chisel not the scultor. The fooball not the goalscorer. His theory might have been written to try and help them in his absence but it was still an absence. Finally, when he got his theatre, he could show them what he really meant. The paintbrush came alive. The chisel transformed the stone. The goals went in.
False Friends
The function of many commentators/editors/directors/academics is to obscure Brecht. Politically they detest 'what he stands for', making it impossible for them to see what's happening under their own noses. The simple things are so hard to see! Brecht's humanity, for example: his amusement at Vessovchikov, his understanding of Lydia Antonovna, of Smilgin, of Karpov, even of the soldiers who shoot Pavel, these False Friends attribute to Brecht's 'inconsistency'. It's the very thing that Vera Stepanovna accuses Pelagea of in the Bible Scene. They're glad that they've heard you crying through the wall. That's where reason gets you, they say. But, as Pelagea answers, it's only when you overcome your grief that you can go forward. Ordinary people's lives are about about loss, self-sacrifice, disempowerment, disinheritance, self-delusion and being robbed. Brecht shows it, truthfully - puts it in context and shows why - but he also wants us to see how we can move on from that place.
Energy. Passion. Deadness.
Brecht can't be played cool. Or dead. Not on the inside. Can't be played laid back. Behind the stillness there is loads going on. The work has to be played with energy and massive focus because the plays originate from a place of passion in Brecht himself; a passion for justice and change. The main thing is: don't play it sentimentally. Sentimentality obscures; it doesn't clarify. As all good actors know.
Comedies
All his plays are comedies in the Shakespearian sense. They end well. Brecht's plays are not dark, not 'mysterious'; the polar opposite of most 20th Century Euro/American theatre, film, dance, TV, video and art. Think of Kafka, Pollock, Munch, David Lynch. Think of the 'comedies of Chekhov: in the Seagull, Konstantin blows his brains out at the end. In Three Sisters, the sisters are left alone in the provincial town, nothing has changed; they've failed to escape their 'fate'. Brecht's plays, on the other hand, never leave us looking into some personal abyss with a sense of hopelessness. There is no fate.
Nor are they about Brecht's mum and dad making him an alcoholic because they drowned his pet kitten. They are not about being personally fucked up; that 'nothing can be done about this so don't even try'. About being stuck up the creek without a paddle. In that sense they are more true than, say, Chekhov; most people don't just give up. They strive. They try to find a way round their difficulties. Wo/man is naturally optimistic: even in front of the firing squad we are planning our escape.
Nor do Brecht's plays leave us in an 'Everyone is against me' type of Paranoia World. Brecht's plays do, however, suggest how we're being screwed, collectively, and what we might do about it - but that's something else entirely. Parents are not all abusers, in Brecht's plays, Nice people don't turn out to be psychos. His heros are just the people you see on the bus in the morning.
He is not cynical or depressed. He's cheery.
Forward and the Future.
There is no such thing as no such thing. Everything is possible. Wo/man's fate is in her/his own hands. Don't capitulate to your emotions. Superstition might be a refuge but don't let it be your last refuge. Tears are natural and understandable but when tears finish and your reason begins, you're in a better place. You need to have your wits about you to fight unfairness and injustice. Both the unfairness and injustice you do and that which is done to you.
Change.
Everything can be changed. Even the policeman or the soldier who is shooting you can be changed. He is the same as you. You are not divided from him. Nothing is static. Nothing will be forever. The tyrant will be overthrown. The rubble of his statues, his laws and his palaces will one day lie in the sand, smashed and forgotten.
Women.
Mothers. Carers. The powerless. But strong. The people who you don't see. The servants. The butchers. The cooks. The nannys and cleaners. The hidden army of people who make the the goods, empty the garbage and scour the toilets. Brecht asks how they can have the power.
Peasant Cunning
If you're at the bottom of the heap, cunning and patience are your best weapon. Respect for that on Brecht's part. All his protagonists have it. It's a strength based on dispossession.
Learning.
Learn stuff. People who can't learn can't change. And are of no use - to the world or themselves. Learning and teaching are intimately involved. Learn so that you can teach. Teach so that you can learn. Pass on information. Be open. Don't shut off. Learning is living. Stop learning and what happens?
Clarification
Brecht wanted to say something first and foremost about the world. Not about acting. Not about theatre. He wanted to say something so that the world could be changed in ways both large and small. His job, the job of his actors, the job of his designers, his composers, his musicians, the stage hands and the wardrobe department was to CLARIFY the play. If he, his actors, his musicians, his wardrobe department, his electrians obscured the play, that had to change. I think he believed that all good actors, artists, craftsmen, thinkers, people clarify things rather than obscure them. Or become good when they are clarifying.
On the run.
Brecht was 30 and married with two kids when he was forced to leave his homeland and live for seventeen years on handouts in countries where German wasn't spoken. Who made his plays? Other people. He had no control. They had the paintbrush, not the painter. The chisel not the scultor. The fooball not the goalscorer. His theory might have been written to try and help them in his absence but it was still an absence. Finally, when he got his theatre, he could show them what he really meant. The paintbrush came alive. The chisel transformed the stone. The goals went in.
False Friends
The function of many commentators/editors/directors/academics is to obscure Brecht. Politically they detest 'what he stands for', making it impossible for them to see what's happening under their own noses. The simple things are so hard to see! Brecht's humanity, for example: his amusement at Vessovchikov, his understanding of Lydia Antonovna, of Smilgin, of Karpov, even of the soldiers who shoot Pavel, these False Friends attribute to Brecht's 'inconsistency'. It's the very thing that Vera Stepanovna accuses Pelagea of in the Bible Scene. They're glad that they've heard you crying through the wall. That's where reason gets you, they say. But, as Pelagea answers, it's only when you overcome your grief that you can go forward. Ordinary people's lives are about about loss, self-sacrifice, disempowerment, disinheritance, self-delusion and being robbed. Brecht shows it, truthfully - puts it in context and shows why - but he also wants us to see how we can move on from that place.
Energy. Passion. Deadness.
Brecht can't be played cool. Or dead. Not on the inside. Can't be played laid back. Behind the stillness there is loads going on. The work has to be played with energy and massive focus because the plays originate from a place of passion in Brecht himself; a passion for justice and change. The main thing is: don't play it sentimentally. Sentimentality obscures; it doesn't clarify. As all good actors know.
Comedies
All his plays are comedies in the Shakespearian sense. They end well. Brecht's plays are not dark, not 'mysterious'; the polar opposite of most 20th Century Euro/American theatre, film, dance, TV, video and art. Think of Kafka, Pollock, Munch, David Lynch. Think of the 'comedies of Chekhov: in the Seagull, Konstantin blows his brains out at the end. In Three Sisters, the sisters are left alone in the provincial town, nothing has changed; they've failed to escape their 'fate'. Brecht's plays, on the other hand, never leave us looking into some personal abyss with a sense of hopelessness. There is no fate.
Nor are they about Brecht's mum and dad making him an alcoholic because they drowned his pet kitten. They are not about being personally fucked up; that 'nothing can be done about this so don't even try'. About being stuck up the creek without a paddle. In that sense they are more true than, say, Chekhov; most people don't just give up. They strive. They try to find a way round their difficulties. Wo/man is naturally optimistic: even in front of the firing squad we are planning our escape.
Nor do Brecht's plays leave us in an 'Everyone is against me' type of Paranoia World. Brecht's plays do, however, suggest how we're being screwed, collectively, and what we might do about it - but that's something else entirely. Parents are not all abusers, in Brecht's plays, Nice people don't turn out to be psychos. His heros are just the people you see on the bus in the morning.
He is not cynical or depressed. He's cheery.
posted by Steve at 11:33 AM
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