The Artful Artificer, Bertolt Brecht: A Study Of Six 'Bearbeitungen.'

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Content This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 6 7 -1 3 ,7 4 3 FUEGI, John Burgess, 1936- THE ARTFUL ARTIFICER, BERTOLT BRECHT: A STUDY OF SIX BEARBEITUNGEN. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1967 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan C opyright (c) by JOHN BURGESS FUEG I 1967 THE ARTFUL ARTIFICER, BERTOLT BRECHT A STUDY OF SIX BEARBEITUNGEN by John Burgess Fuegi A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Comparative Literature) June 1967 UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFO RN IA T H E G RA D U A TE SC H O O L U N IV E R SIT Y PA R K L O S A N G E L E S . C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by .......................Jphji„E.urgs.a.a..F.uegjL..................... under the direction of hi$.....Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Date..J.URSa... 19. 6. 7. DISSERTATIO ITTEE Chairman j + unai ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Without an excellent seminar on Brecht given at the University of California at Los Angeles by Professor Charles Hoffmann and his encouragement throughout my work, this study of Brecht would not have been written. Almost as important to me as Professor Hoffmann's direct help has been the indirect help of Professor Reinhold Grimm of Frankfurt am Main. Dr. Grimm's study, Bertolt Brecht und die Welt- literatur. inspired the theme I have chosen to examine. At the University of Southern California, the editorial assistance of my doctoral committee, Professors David H. Malone, Aerol Arnold, and John M. Spalek, has been invalu able. I am particularly grateful also to another member of the University of Southern California family, Frau Feucht- wanger, widow of the novelist and playwright Lion Feucht- wanger. Mrs. Feuchtwanger's comments on the relationship of her husband to Brecht and on Brecht's stay in America were of particular value. Without the opportunity to go to Berlin, to study the Berliner Ensemble, to use the Brecht Archive, and to meet the principal Mitarbeiter. my work would have far more deficiencies than it still has. Fellowships given through the Institute of International Education, specifically, a major grant from the Germanistic Society of America and a Fulbright Travel Grant, made an extended stay in Berlin possible. Many people then proceeded to make my stay in Berlin as fruitful as possible. In West Berlin, Dietmar and Ekhard Haack have been knowledgeable guides to the Berlin literary and theatrical world. Professor Peter Szondi of the Freie Universitat Berlin has also earned my thanks, as has Dr. Rolf Ulbrich with his help on Czech texts. In East Berlin, at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, Helene Weigel, Dr. Heinetz, Werner Hecht, Manfred Wekwerth and Elisabeth Hauptmann have all (some directly, some indirectly) pro vided me with valuable insights and information on Brecht's working methods. Benno Besson, onetime Mitarbeiter of Brecht, now one of Berlin's most distinguished directors, also spared me some of his valuable time for very frank discussions of his working relationship to Brecht. The iii contrast between Besson's corarnraents and those of his good friend Elisabeth Hauptmann provided me with some of my most interesting and baffling materials. At the Brecht Archive in East Berlin, Fraulein Kiel was helpful above and beyond the call of duty. For those alert to echoes of earlier works, my title should reveal a certain indebtedness to an article on trans lation by the late Renato Poggioli. Finally, I would like to thank my wife for all her encouragement, typing, expert analysis, and patience during every stage of evolution of my work. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS........................................ ii INTRODUCTION.......................................... 1 Chapter I. THE LITERARY AND THEATRICAL BACKGROUND . . . 21 II. THE THEORY OF THE BEARBEITUNGEN............. 60 III. MARLOWE AND B R E C H T ...................... 98 IV. GORKY AND B R E C H T ......................... 148 V. HASEK AND B R E C H T ........................ .. . 209 VI. SOPHOCLES AND B R E C H T .................... 265 VII. MOLIERE AND B R E C H T ...................... 314 VIII. FARQUHAR AND BRECHT....................... 367 IX. CONCLUSION............................... 420 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................... 448 v INTRODUCTION The aim of this study is to establish the extent to which six of Brecht's Bearbeituncren (or reworkings) of tales taken from world literature are "original" and are or are not "works of literary art." In contrast to positivistic views of "originality" (or of lack thereof), I hold with both more ancient and more modern criticism that a work of art can be entirely original as gestalt, as structure, as art, even though many of its constituent parts are "bor rowed." With Eisenstein and other experimenters with mon tage in film, I hold that a borrowed "cell" or "frame" can be, and often is, severely modified by its new context, i.e., the montage or dialectical sequence in which it is found. Or as Wellek, speaking of works of art in general, observes, they "are not simply sums of sources and influ ences: they are wholes in which raw materials derived from elsewhere cease to be inert matter and are assimilated into 1 2 a new structure?"^ Failing to note the function of the old cell in the new structure, most Brecht criticism thus far (including the work of such Brecht authorities as Reinhold Grimm, Martin Esslin, John Willett, and Hans-Joachim Bunge) has held that Brecht is "unoriginal" when an indisputable source has been found for a passage in his work. I would go so far as to maintain and, hopefully, convincingly demonstrate that even a word-for-word borrowing often be comes original in Brecht by reason of its new literary and/or theatrical context. In order to be able to concentrate on the comparative problem of Brecht's actual use of sources, I have selected plays the originality of which, in a positivistic sense, is open to most doubt because they are frankly acknowledged as Bearbeitungen of earlier literary works. My primary concern is with the second problem area mentioned by Sonnenfeld when he writes: Brecht's plays and poems offer almost inexhaustible material for the assiduous researcher who likes to - * “ Rene Wellek, Concepts of Criticism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 285. Reprinted from: Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Comp. Lit. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959). catalogue sources. But it is the total effect produced by this eclecticism which should provide the most fruitful subject for critical consideration.^ Freeing myself deliberately from an exhaustive search for all conceivable "sources," I free myself for a task that I feel is of greater value, i.e., an examination of the aes thetic transformation, if any, of certain given "raw mater ials." As Wellek and Warren observe of source studies in their Theory of Literature: The real critical problems in this kind of study arise when we reach the stage of weighing and comparing, of showing how one artist utilizes the achievements of another artist, when we watch the transforming power. Following Wellek and Warren, therefore, the question asked of each of the six plays examined in this study is: does the treatment of any given topic raise the subject matter (seen as raw material) to the level of an independent work of art? The judgment becomes then deliberately qualitative and deliberately hostile to a positivistic view of art, art seen as topic rather than treatment. ^A. Sonnenfeld, "The Function of Brecht's Eclecticism," Books Abroad. XXXVI (1962), 134. 3Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature (New York, 1949), p. 249. Though Brecht himself, as evidenced by his interest in montage and dialectic as aesthetic and political devices, would be likely to agree with the theory of cell modifica tion by context as presented above, he would no doubt vio lently disagree with my insistence on dealing with the topic as a purely aesthetic problem. As I shall demonstrate more fully in the second chapter of this study, Brecht loved to maintain that his work with the Bearbeitunaen was that of a literary and theatrical craftsman creating useful "work" rather than works of art. Because of this claim of Brecht's (borne out, I feel, by much of the Bearbeitung itself), I have titled this work "The Artful Artificer, Bertolt Brecht." It seems to me that the Brecht of the Bearbei- tunqen is "artful" in both the sense of being "crafty and cunning," and in the sense of being "skillful and ingen ious." Likewise, the Brecht of the reworkings seems to hover somewhere between the craftsman he so fondly imagines himself to be and the artist that many of the Brecht critics assume him to be. I formally describe him, therefore, as "artificer," as creating works lying somewhere between "art" and "artifact." Funk and Wagnall define the interrelation ship of the three terms artist, artisan and artificer thus: The work of an artist is creative? that of an artisan, mechanical. The artificer is between the two, having less scope for the embodiment of his own ideas than the artist. but more than the artisan, who usually has none. Where Brecht (for much, though by no means all, of his life) concentrated on the utile pole of his endeavors, I tend to emphasize dulce or aesthetic values in his work. Throughout my examination of the work of Brecht as artisan, as reshaper of older works of art, the reader must constantly bear in mind the dual existence of the texts examined. They exist as both literature and drama. Because of this, they demand the simultaneous use of two sets of aesthetic postulates: those applicable to literature and those pertaining to the stage. Only by remaining constantly aware of the fact that this duality is reflected in Brecht's thinking can we remain sensitive and fair to "both" Brechts, to both levels of his plays, and to the two sets of aes thetic or evaluative postulates that have a bearing on his separate and combined achievement. Emphasizing as I do in this work a close study of a number of texts and their consideration as works of art, I have left myself no room for a number of other topics which, though of much interest in themselves, are hardly germane to a consideration of Brecht as dramatist. I do not, there fore, discuss such topics as the sincerity of Brecht's commitment to the Communist party per se; the depth, extent, and source of Brecht's "psychic wounds"; the orthodoxy of his Marxism-Leninism; his reliance on musical collaborators; the extent to which the plays represent autobiography; the number and range of his borrowings from world literature; the number of words taken from any given source; or the extent to which Brecht's plays do or do not depend on his theoretical postulates. In short, this is not a study from eight or more aspects; this is a study in which the texts themselves as texts and as staged plays are of central im portance and Brecht (fascinating though he is) is of mar ginal importance. The approach I have taken to Brecht's plays necessarily limits the number of texts that can be examined in so de tailed a way. How I have selected a workable number of texts from the overly rich selection available deserves some explanation. Because of my concern with treatment rather than topic, I have deliberately confined myself to those plays, the sources of which are clear and indisput able; Brecht himself acknowledges the connection in each case. As a prerequisite to the validity of a close study 7 of texts, my own linguistic range has been the prime factor in further selection. On this basis I have confined my study to plays based on texts in languages either directly accessible to me, i.e., English, French, Ancient Greek, and Russian, or, as with Czech texts, available to me with the assistance of a Czech expert on difficult points. Despite this linguistic limitation, however, there would still be too many works for close examination if no other basis for exclusion were used. I have, therefore, also excluded works heavily dependent on music (Die Dreigroschenoper). works uncompleted at the time of Brecht's death (Coriolan). and various works that did not find a place in the thirteen volumes of the Stiicke. Works based entirely on German texts I have left for the Germanisten. My insistence on examining only texts in the few lan guages directly accessible to me is done for reasons that will become plain as I proceed and despite my certain know ledge that Brecht's linguistic background was even more limited than my own and that he worked almost entirely with translations. As Willett observes, Brecht read very little French— so little that he did not, for instance, know Musset's plays--but Rimbaud was translated both by Theodor Daubler (an older friend of the Dadaist group) and by Alfred Wolfenstein who 8 4 worked as "Dramaturg" for Piscator . . . Brecht's hesitant command of English is demonstrated in his long and involved relationship with Charles Laughton on the "translation" of Leben des Galilei and his real or feigned incompetence before the House Un-American Activities Com mittee. His long residence in America and his attempts to do his own translation of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Coriolanus indicate, however, that he may well have had a greater passive command of English than his attempts at active use of English show him to have had. There is no record of his ever having studied Czech, Russian, or Greek. Only with Latin and English does he seem to have had suffi cient background in the language to have been able to have even limited direct access to works of literature in these languages. Brecht was, then, largely dependent on transla tions . These he obtained from whatever source happened to be easiest to hand. With many plays, the translation was "besorgt" by Brecht's Mitarbeiter. most frequently by his lifelong friend and helper Elisabeth Hauptmann, or, in the 4John Willett, The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects (London, 1959), p. 89. Hereafter to be referred to as Willett, Theatre. later years in East Berlin, by his French-Swiss directorial assistant, Benno Besson. Elisabeth Hauptmann seems to have been the most useful in the realm of English translation, a language which she knows quite well. Though Brecht worked through the Mitarbeiter and various translations, accurate scholarship demands that the strata of text transmitted by translators or Mitarbeiter or both be separated, wherever possible, from the layer which Brecht may be assumed to have contributed. Obviously such complete and positive separa tion and identification is not always possible. As Reinhold Grimm in his study of sources (including translations) for Edward II observes: "Sie [his examples] zeigen schon fur die erste von Brechts Bearbeitungen Oder Nachdichtungen sein Prinzip, meistens mehrere Texte heranzuziehen, weshalb man die genaue Vorlage selten mit Sicherheit identifizieren 5 kann." In order to avoid the pitfalls mentioned by Grimm, I have confined myself to plays where most of the inter mediate materials used are identifiable with at least a 5Reinhold Grimm, Bertolt Brecht und die Weltliteratur (Nurnberg, 1961), p. 30. Hereafter to be cited as Grimm, Weltliteratur. The problem Grimm notes here will be re turned to again and again in the course of my study. Des pite diligent searching I am not sure I have found all source materials for the six Bearbeitungen I examine. 10 high probability of accuracy and even with some probability of completeness. By limiting my choice of plays in the ways listed above, I am left with the following six Bearbeitungen and/or Nachdichtungen; Leben Eduards des Zweiten von England ("nach Marlowe," written in collaboration with Lion Feucht- wanger and based, as Grimm demonstrates, on a German trans lation by Heymel); Die Mutter ("Nach dem Roman Maxim Gor- kis" ; Mitarbeiter as listed in the Stiicke; S. Dudow, H. Eisler, G. Weisenborn; not listed in the Stiicke but known from materials in the Brecht Archive to have worked on the play: G. Stark); Schweyk im zweiten Weltkrieg (no source given in the Stiicke but freely acknowledged elsewhere as derived from Jaroslav Hasek's famous novel of the First World War; no Mitarbeiter listed in the Stiicke but Mitar beiter for an earlier draft of the play given in Piscator's Das politische Theater): Die Antigone des Soohokles ("Nach der Holder linschen Ubertragung fur die Biihne bearbeitet" ; Mitarbeiter: Caspar Neher); Don Juan ("von Moliere"; Mitar beiter: B. Besson, Elisabeth Hauptmann); and Pauken und Trompeten (based on The Recruiting Officer of George Farquhar; Mitarbeiter; B. Besson, Elisabeth Hauptmann). Of the six plays here given, Eduard II. Schw.eyfr, and J2ie. 11 Mutter fall outside the last two volumes of the Stiicke g which are labeled specifically Bearbeitungen. Commenting specifically on Bearbeitunaen in each of the two volumes labeled as such in the Stiicke. Elisabeth Hauptmann provides much useful background information on the reworkings when she states: Die Bearbeitung von Stiicken war fiir Brecht ein wichtiger und selbstandiger Teil seiner Theaterarbeit. Mit Ausnahme der "Antigone" machte er die in den Banden XI und XII enthaltenen "Bearbeitungen" fiir sein Theater, das Berliner Ensemble. Sie wurden von Brecht Oder von seinen Schulern unter seiner Leitung inszeniert und aufgefiihrt, mit Ausnahme des "Coriolan", dessen In- szenierung er vorhatte, die er aber nicht mehr auf- fiihren konnte. Die Herausgabe der "Bearbeitungen" in Buchform war schon von Brecht geplant? Auswahl und Anordnung folgen seinem Vorschlag. Fiir die Bearbeitung der "Antigone" des Sophokles benutzte Brecht die Holderlinsche Uber- tragung. "Coriolanus" von Shakespeare iibersetzte Brecht selbst fiir seine Bearbeitung. Die Obersetzung von Molieres "Don Juan" und Farquhars "Recruiting Officer" besorgten Mitarbeiter Brechts.^ Besides the general statement of the importance of 6The distinction between Nachdichtunaen and Bearbei- tunaen cannot be formally established with any precision. Supposedly, however, Nachdichtunaen stand in a somewhat freer relationship to the "original" text than do Bearbei- tunaen. ^Elisabeth Hauptmann, ed., Stiicke by Bertolt Brecht, 13 vols. (Berlin und Frankfurt am Main, 1953-1966), XI, 4. Hereafter to be referred to as Stiicke followed by volume and page number. Bearbeitungen to Brecht, two other observations made by Elisabeth Hauptmann in the above quotation will receive detailed examination in my study: (1) her attribution of the actual staging of the plays to students of Brecht under Brecht's direction is important because of the importance of the relationship of the final staging to the final text of the play, and (2) the actual sources of the translations will require far more detailed examination than Hauptmann's rather vague concluding phrase would assume to be necessary. It seems to me that certain intermediary versions of the texts are not given sufficient credit either by Elisabeth Hauptmann with reference to the Bearbeitunaen or by Brecht himself with reference to the Nachdichtunaen. I have found a number of such intermediary versions that are pertinent to the final text but I cannot, unfortunately, be sure of having found all pertinent intermediary versions of the works. Translations by a particular and often obscure hand are notoriously difficult to trace. This is particularly true in Brecht's case because of the dissolution of his own library during his exile and the planned and unplanned destruction of a tremendous number of Germany's book hold ings during the same period. No doubt Reinhold Grimm is correct when he observes: 13 DaB Brechts NachlaB, wenn er einmal veroffentlicht sein wird, vor allem durch die Fiille von Briefen, Arbeits- buchaufzeichnungen und Notizen in Bxichern noch manche Aufklarung liber des Dichters Verhaltnis zur Weltlitera tur liefern wird, liegt auf der Hand.® A further major difficulty confronting the scholar dealing in detail with texts of Brecht is establishing what should be considered as the text to be examined. As I shall demonstrate later in detail, the text of many plays as given in the Stucke can hardly be regarded as definitive. Even more confusing but less important as far as textual study of the plays is concerned, the theoretical writings as given in the Schriften zum Theater may or may not b^ given to us in the form and context in which they were conceived by Brecht. My work with photostats of original materials in the Brecht Archive in East Berlin and with the Berliner Ensemble has led me to doubt at least the completeness of 9 texts as they are given in the Stucke and the Schriften. 8Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 28. ®A11 references in the text to the seven volumes of Brecht's Schriften zum Theater (shortened in the text to Schriften) are based upon: Bertolt Brecht, Schriften zum Theater (Berlin und Weimar, 1964). The Aufbau-Verlag edi tion varies in no significant way from the first edition: Bertolt Brecht, Schriften zum Theater (Berlin und Frankfurt am Main, 1963). Bibliographically, neither the seven vol umes of the Aufbau-Verlag nor those of Suhrkamp should be 14 Though, probably, no additions have been made, significant deletions may well have been. The problem is complicated, of course, by the political situation both now and in the last years of Brecht's life in East Berlin. Even with those volumes of the Stucke published before Brecht's death, one must wonder how much extra-literary considerations played a part in the final printing of the plays. Though he could theoretically publish anything in the West through his West German publisher and friend Suhrkamp, whether he would have wanted thus to annoy his East German employer is uncertain. Due to this uncertainty about the literary authority of the texts under consideration, I have tried to give some notion of alternate versions available in manuscript and possessing perhaps some literary merit and interest. How irrelevant is the nice clear-cut conclusion of Wellek and Warren in a situation such as the one I have just described'. They write: "Yet if we examine drafts, rejections, exclusions, and cuts more soberly, we conclude them not, finally, confused with the one-volume Schriften zum Theater, zu- sammengestellt von Siegfried Unseld (Frankfurt am Main, 1957). My reasons for doubting the textual soundness of the Schriften will become clear when I discuss the plays themselves and Brecht's comments (some published, some un published) on them. necessary to an understanding of the finished work or to a judgment upon it."^ Without a definite "finished work," such alternate possibilities seem to me to be in Brecht's case as important, textually if not absolutely, as the collation of the earliest variants of Shakespeare's plays. I cite, therefore, variants where they seem to me to be important. It should be noted, however, that as many papers in the archive are still not cleared for general scholarly perusal, my own notation of variants can make no claim whatsoever to completeness. Another element of incomplete ness is introduced by the fact that certain Ensemble varia tions seem to have no manuscript authority whatsoever and exist only as actions upon a particular stage. Then, what does one make of the literally thousands of notes, photo graphs, tapes, and costume and scene sketches available at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in East Berlin? If we had such material from the Globe or from Moliere's theatre per haps even Messrs. Wellek and Warren might consider it pos sible that such material might illuminate the literary text. For Brecht, man of the theatre, the literary text gave, in his opinion, only the palest shadow of the play as play. 10Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, p. 79. 16 As the excellent East German critic Witzmann observes, Brechts Bearbeitungen waren mit seiner Tatigkeit als Regisseur eng verbunden. Nie interessierte ihn das Literarische an sich, sondern stets die Auffiihrung eines bestimmten Stiickes zu einer bestimmten Zeit fiir ein bestimmtes Publikum.^ As if problems enough had not already been found, what is one to make of Brecht's relationship to the Mitarbeiter? In this area, understandably enough, the more public activ ity of Brecht the director is easier to document than the more private work of Brecht the playwright. In this area the only "record" really is the personal reminiscences of the Mitarbeiter themselves. Some of these people, often friends of Brecht's for many, many years, often fanatically devoted to his memory, are, understandably enough, reluctant to make any remark that might be misconstrued by even the most sympathetic interviewer. Replies to direct questions, therefore, are often guarded or are transmitted in confi dence with the understanding that they are to be "off the record." Sometimes diametrically opposed answers were given by different Mitarbeiter to the same question. This problem i:LPeter Witzmann, Ant ike Tradition im Werk Bertolt Brechts (Berlin, 1964), p. 75. Hereafter cited as Witzmann, Antike Tradition. 17 of collective authorship and the role of the various Mitar beiter in putting together some of the works will be re turned to again and again in the course of this study. Before going on to a discussion of Brecht's own liter ary and theatrical background and the theoretical postulates of his Bearbeitungen. it is necessary to add a few words on the general methodology I shall use in examining the plays. In general, I shall attempt to give some notion of changes in structure or form introduced by Brecht or a Mitarbeiter. Within this general framework, I shall then indicate changes of a subtler nature made in language, in the characters, or in the metaphysics or tone of the play. My summing up in each case will include not only an assessment of quantita tive changes made but an attempt to assess the value of the various changes introduced. Clear establishment of change will, of course, depend very often on a comparison of several different versions of what may basically be the "same" passage. In the case of materials drawn from Rus sian, Czech, and Ancient Greek sources I have thought it necessary not only to offer the cited materials in the lan guage and form of the original but also to offer a fairly literal translation of the passage under consideration in one of the modern western European languages. In order to 18 make the final typing of the text a little easier I have taken the liberty of rendering Russian texts in the Latin alphabet using standard Library of Congress transliteration 12 guides with Mirsky's modifications. In citing Brecht I refer, wherever possible, either to the seven volumes of the Schriften zum Theater (see footnote 9) or to the thirteen-volume edition of the Stiicke (see footnote 7) rather than to the Versuche which, despite the Neudruck of numbers one through eight in 1959, are not as generally available as the Stiicke and Schriften. References to the files of the Bertolt Brecht-Archiv will be prefaced BBA and will be followed by the appropriate file number followed by a dash and then followed by a page number. A reference, therefore, to file 1784, p. 87 of the Bertolt- Brecht-Archiv would read: BBA 1784/87. My practice here follows that generally used by Brecht scholars. My bibliography, though not entirely confined to cited works, is of necessity selective. Those in search of more complete bibliographical data on Brecht should consult the 12See D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature from Its Beginnings to 1900. ed. J. Whitfield (New York, 1958), pp. vii-viii. The reason I use Mirsky's system is that it does away with the need for diacritical marks not generally available on Western typewriters. following sources. Walter Nubel, "Bertolt Brecht-Biblio- graphie," in Sinn und Form:__Zweites Sonderheft Bertolt Brecht (Berlin, 1957). Nubel's bibliography contains only German titles and even here is not complete. Nubel himself warns: "die Arbeit [erhebt] keinen Anspruch auf Voll- standigkeit." Perhaps the best source in terms of relia bility (except towards the very end of the book) is Reinhold Grimm's Bertolt Brecht. 2. verbesserte und erweiterte Auf- lage (Stuttgart, 1963). Grimm's book (part of the Sammlung Metzler, Realienbucher fur Germanisten series) is absolutely invaluable. A running bibliography is provided by the Arbeitskreis Bertolt Brecht. Information on the Arbeits- kreis can be obtained from Elisabeth Weisgerber, Berlin- Zehlendorf, Am Vierstiickenpfuhl 18, Germany. A useful specialized bibliography put out by the Arbeitskreis was that of Lew Kopelew (himself an author of a book on Brecht), "Beitrage zu einer Brecht-Bibliographie der UdSSR," in a Nachrichtenbrief of the Arbeitskreis in March, 1965. The best general bibliography of the Arbeitskreis is that of Klaus Dietrich Petersen and covers the period 1957-1962. This bibliography was mailed to the Arbeitskreis in May, 1963. It is one thing, of course, to have a bibliography and quite another to obtain the items listed in it. Perhaps the only place to find most of the materials in a multitude of languages is the Brecht-Archiv. A conscien tious attempt is made there to collect everything ever written anywhere in any language on Brecht. These materials are available to the scholar as part of the archive's re search- resources. CHAPTER I THE LITERARY AND THEATRICAL BACKGROUND A summary of Brecht's drama theory and practice in relation to European (East and West) and (indirectly) non- European theory and practice is perhaps best begun with its conclusion, i.e., that virtually nothing in Brecht's theatre theory and practice is in any positivistic sense "original." Though direct and unassailable connections between earlier theories and those of Brecht are often not sufficiently well substantiated by critics who have worked in this contro versial area, the prior existence of similar manifestations and the virtual certainty that Brecht had access to the earlier work is convincingly documented. However, because a clear cause and effect relationship often cannot be de finitively established, it is surely not surprising that different researchers see many different sources as the source for certain innovations in Brecht's work. The major 21 22 difficulty for the comparative scholar in this problem area is the lack of a truly comparative history of the drama and of the stage for the last 100 years. Recent research in Symbolist and Expressionist theatre and into the origins of such concepts as "the grotesque" and "the absurd" all tend to confirm the suspicion that neat divisions of the last hundred years of theatre do little justice to the richness of this period of theatre history. It becomes increasingly clear, for instance, that in a period which we tend to associate with the naturalistic theatre of Nemirovich-Danchenko, Stanislavsky, Otto Brahm, Antoine, and J. T. Grein, powerful anti-naturalistic countermovements in literature and on the stage were al ready well under way. In Russia the theories of S. M. Solovyov had long since made inroads on the utilitarianism of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Pisarev. Many artists had already begun a violent swing away from the inordinate emphasis on utile of the sixties and seventies and were on their way to an inordinate emphasis on dulce. It must be remembered too that as early as 1905 Stanislavsky himself invited experiments on other paths than the one of Realism when he put MeyerhoId in charge of the Studio connected with the Moscow Art Theatre. All the bizarre and fruitful manifestations of that starburst of Agitprop (theatre of political agitation and propaganda) and Symbolist theatrical activity in Russia in the first three decades of the twen tieth century were already forming when the Moscow Art Theatre achieved its first real success with the Seagull in 1898, a production which, incidentally, Chekhov himself found to be excessively "realistic" and insufficiently "theatrical." In England, Shaw, while championing Ibsen, was also contemptuously dismissing those writers who failed to impose their own design on their raw materials. Mean while, Ibsen himself had abandoned Naturalism and had gone over to Symbolism. At the same time, French Naturalism had spent its creative force. In the physical theatre the chronological closeness of two diametrically opposed ten dencies is illustrated by the following historical observa tion of Jacques Guicharnaud: "Antoine's Theatre Libre, founded in 1887, became the champion of realism and natur alism, and Paul Fort's Theatre d'Art, 1891, champion of the so-called poetic theatre."^ Also significant in a period that tends to become overshadowed by Antoine's realistic productions is the 1892 production by Lugne Poe in his Modern French Theatre (New Haven, 1961), p. 6. 24 Th£&tre de 1'Oeuvre of Pelleas et M^lisande. Nor is it possible to ignore the international (London, Berlin, Flor ence, Moscow, etc.) activity during this period of the radical designer and director Edward Gordon Craig. Finally, mention must be made of the international impact of the daring German stage innovator, Georg Fuchs. As Marjorie L. Hoover correctly observed in a recent article, the works of Fuchs (Die Schaubxihne der Zukunft. Berlin, 1903, and Die Revolution des Theaters, Munich, 1906), "with the motto 'rethe^traliser le theatre,' retailed ideas of theater re form then being fervently discussed by an elite throughout 2 Europe." Though we lack the synthesizing comparative his tory of the drama of the last hundred years that is needed, it should be clear from the references already made here that by the time Brecht began to write and stage his plays, sappers of various nations had long since undermined the 3 foundations of the Naturalist theatre. It should be added, ^"V. E. Meyerhold: A Russian Predecessor of Avant- Garde Theater," XVII (Summer 1965), 241-242. ^1 do not wish to suggest here, of course, the total demise of realistic theatre during this period. The work of Belasco in America, the realistic work of Stanislavsky, and the Socialist Realist movement in Russia (to name but three prominent examples) testify to the continuing strength of the realistic or naturalistic tradition. 25 however, that though ideas of theatre reform were put into practice at a number of theatres, the dominant mode of pro duction (in terms of sheer numbers) remained closer to Stanislavsky at his most rigid than to Meyerhold at his most experimental. Also, it must be remembered that the theor etical postulates of reform from either the side of the Realists or that of the Symbolists only slowly exercised any real influence on the monolithic body of the physical theatre. Out of the theoretical postulates of the period and productions lagging behind the theory, Brecht evolved the theory and practice associated with his own name. From a welter of ideas was formed a notion of theatre that re tained much of the utile of Grein and Antoine but rejected the more confining elements of the style of theatre most closely connected with the name of Stanislavsky. While Brecht was ostensibly still a medical student in Munich we know that his interest in theatre was already strong, as he attended a drama seminar given by Frank Wede- 4 kind's biographer, Professor Kutscher. We know also that ^For a general discussion of Brecht's early interest in theatre, see Hans Otto Munsterer, "Erinnerungen an Brecht im Jahr 1919 in Augsburg," in Erinnerungen an Brecht, zusammen- gestellt von Hubert Witt (Leipzig, 1963), pp. 19-28. 26 at this seminar Brecht met Wedekind personally. In the very first paragraph of Volume I of the Schriften. Brecht gives an indication of how important to him this tie with Wedekind actually was. In a eulogy Brecht writes: Am Samstag durch die sternbesate Nacht den Lech hinunter- schwarmend, sangen wir zufallig seine Lieder zur Gitarre, das an Franziska, das vom blinden Knaben, ein Tanzlied. Und, schon sehr spat, am Wehr sitzend, die Schuhe fast im Wasser, das von des Gliickes Launen, die sehr seltsam sind und in dem es heiBt, es sei am besten, taglich sei- nen Purzelbaum zu schlagen. Sonntag morgen lasen wir erschiittert, daB Frank Wedekind am Samstag gestorben sei .5 At another point in this eulogy we find: Er [Wedekind] sang vor einigen Wochen in der Bonbonniere zur Gitarre seine Lieder mit sproder Stimme, etwas mono ton und sehr ungeschult: Nie hat mich ein Sanger so be- geistert und erschiittert. (p. 8) We recognize here of course precisely the kind of singing Brecht did himself and demanded of those rendering the "songs" in his plays. Another comment in the Schriften on the influence of Wedekind on an unnamed Stuckeschreiber clearly applies to Brecht and clearly indicates that not only was the influence on his songs but on the actual style of his productions. Brecht writes, ". . . er [sah] den 5Schriften. I, 7. 27 Dichter Wedekind in seinen Werken auftreten, mit einem Stil, g der im Kabarett entwickelt worden war." Also important to Brecht's theory and practice is Wedekind's notion as given by Kutscher that "he [Wedekind] does not want people to 7 forget that they are in the theatre ..." The closing words of Brecht's eulogy to Wedekind also deserve mention, as they give a clue to two other probable influences on the young Brecht, two influences that no 0 scholar has as yet followed up. Brecht writes: "Er [Wedekind] gehorte mit Tolstoi und Strindberg zu den groBen Erziehern des neuen Europa." The eulogy is dated 1918, the year of Baal and of Trommeln in der Nacht. Tolstoy and Strindberg? They are rather a mixed bag, really, but some how typical of Brecht's ability to absorb the most diverse literary elements in his own work. At first glance it would 6Sehriften. V, 151. 7Cited in Willett, Theatre. p. 107. ^Though the problem has not been properly investigated, George Steiner, in his Tolstov or Dostoevsky; An Essav in the Old Criticism (New York, 1959), in a very perspicacious remark claims (p. 131) that Brecht is "one of Tolstoy's heirs." In the same passage Steiner argues that Tolstoy's (and by implication, Brecht's view of drama is "religious," if "we expand the word to include the advocacy of a better life and a truer morality." 28 seem that the radically agnostic Brecht and the fanatically religious Tolstoy would have little in common, yet, of course, they do. In Tolstoy (particularly the post-1880 Tolstoy) we have the rejection of class, the urge towards living the simple life and wearing workers' clothes, the contempt for possessions but the retention of them, the demands for social reform, and the demands that art serve a social purpose, make itself simple, strip itself of adornment, and be intelligible to the simplest soul. Fur ther, is the God of Tolstoy, "there is no God, other than 9 the moral law inside man," so different from that of Brecht, whom he described as negatively as Tolstoy when he maintained that "the destiny of man is man"? The connection seen by Steiner (see footnote 8) between Tolstoy and Brecht is given very strong support if we apply the following re mark of Steiner on Tolstoy to Brecht: Tolstoy would have no truck with the "dead church" which accepts the crimes, follies, and inhumanities of terres trial life in the expectation that justice will be meted out hereafter. The theodicy of compensation, the belief that the tortured and the impoverished shall sit on the right of the Father in another kingdom, seemed to him a fraudulent and cruel legend calculated to preserve the 9Ivar Spector, The Golden Age of Russian Literature, rev. ed. (Caldwell, Idaho, 19,43), p. 159. 29 existing social order. Justice must be achieved here and now. The Tolstoyan version of the second coming is an earthly millennium in which men will have awoken to the dictates of rational morality.10 It seems to me (and I shall seek to show this in some detail later) that everything said here of Tolstoy applies with equal force to Brecht. Particularly when one considers the context in which it is found, Brecht's reference to Strindberg is perhaps more to be expected than the one to Tolstoy. The preoccupations and styles of Wedekind and Strindberg are sufficiently similar that praise of the one artist almost necessarily involves Brecht in praise of the other. The sexual themes and the frankness of treatment of these themes and the deliberately unnaturalistic tone of many of the plays of both authors must have appealed to Brecht. Likewise, the attack on bourgeois mores (in Strindberg perhaps at its clearest in the Ghost Sonata and the Dream Play and simply everywhere in Wedekind) surely struck a responsive chord in the young Brecht. Another writer whom Brecht demonstrably admired in this period is the great Scandinavian forerunner of Strindberg, 10Steiner, Tolstov or Dostoevsky, p. 254. 30 Henrik Ibsen. Although Brecht (along with many other writers of the 1920s) was no longer at all impressed with or even tolerant of either the formal exposition of an Ibsen play or with the "fourth wall" style of theatre that the plays of Ibsen represented, Brecht no doubt approved of Ibsen's introduction of burning social problems to the theatre, and of Ibsen's willingness (like Strindberg, Tol stoy, and Wedekind) to deliberately insult the bourgeoisie in his works. Another name that often comes up in the Schriften. a name closely connected with Ibsen, is that of Shaw. Writing in 1926, Brecht says flatly of the English writer: "Er ist, und was konnte man von einem Mann viel mehr sagen, ein guter Mann."11 Later in the same essay (entitled "Ovation fur Shaw") we find Brecht wholeheartedly subscribing to the evolution theory of Shaw that holds that man can and will be improved out of all recognition. With a directness ex tremely rare in Brecht he declares Shaw to be "absolut ver- trauenswurdig." Given this attitude of Brecht to Shaw and noting also the general familiarity with Shaw's theoretical postulates that the "Ovation" implies, it would seem that a 1^Schriften. I, 191. comparative study of Brecht and Shaw might well be a fruit- 12 ful undertaking. Though there is obviously no room for any full-fledged comparative study of the two writers here, some of the major similarities should at least be noted. Shaw too thought that the theatre had sunk to a disgustingly low level. Shaw too demanded that the theatre be used, as Ibsen had used it, as a place for the frank examination of social problems. Shaw shared Brecht's view of utile being more important than dulce in a work of literature. Shaw attacked hypocrisy, praised the common people, mixed up stage and pulpit, deliberately sought publicity by calcu lated insult, attacked the classics, attacked the stage practices of his day, pooh-poohed realism, demolished tra ditional notions of the heroic, praised the use of force yet demanded an end to war, preached utopian socialism, and, with marvelous inconsistency worthy of even Brecht at his most dialectical, praised beauty, blamed the poor for their own problems, and demanded every last cent due to him in royalty payments. It is no wonder that Brecht deemed Shaw worthy of an ovation. l^This idea is not new with me. See Grimm, Weltlitera- tur. pp. 16-17. 32 Before I leave literary influences and go on to discuss the specifically theatrical milieu of Brecht's early days and its influence on his plays and drama theory, the influ ence of two German writers deserves some mention. The first of these is Carl Sternheim. Though certain similarities of attitude towards the bourgeoisie and the oft-expressed need to break out of the confining shell of Realism are plain to me in the work of Sternheim, the differences from Brecht (with the advantage of the dialectic) are even plainer. Brecht makes only one reference to Sternheim in the Schrif- 13 ten and there he rejects him and all that he stands for, i.e., Expressionism at its most empty and declamatory, at its most naive and politically fruitless. In contrast to the curt rejection of Sternheim is Brecht's extended praise of Buchner, the other writer mentioned above. In his well- known debate on the theatre entitled "Der Messingkauf," the same Dramaturg who noted the influence of Wedekind on an unnamed Stuckeschreiber says: Zwei Dichter und ein Volksclown beeinf luliiten ihn am meisten. In diesen Jahren wurde der Dichter Buchner, der in den dreifciger Jahren geschrieben hatte, zum erstenmal aufgefuhrt, und der Stuckeschreiber sah das 13Sehriften. II, 9-10. 33 14 Fragment "Woyzeck" . . . (The other writer referred to here is the previously dis cussed Wedekind and the VoIksclown the yet to be discussed comedian Valentin.) The importance of Buchner's Wovzeck to Brecht's stage practice and literary style is discussed by Willett as follows: t It was in Woyzeck at Frankfurt in 1919 that Helene Weigel played her first professional part; it was Albert Steinruck's performance as Woyzeck that showed Brecht the possibilities of a restrained style of act ing and the "broken" verse delivery to which we have already referred. As Willett offers no evidence for his contention that Brecht necessarily gleaned the idea of a "restrained style of act ing" from Steinriick, we simply do not know whether Willett's assumption is correct. That Brecht was impressed with Weigel (also given to a very restrained style of acting) we have no doubt. The actual source (if any) for the re strained style in acting remains unclear. We are on somewhat safer ground when we come to the esteem in which Brecht is known to have held Buchner and his plays. In the 1950s (in a passage to which I shall 14Schriften. V, 150-151. i ^ w i i i e t t , T h e a tr e , p . 106. 34 •return when I discuss Die Mutter in detail) Brecht defended his play Die Mutter against charges of "formalism" by claim ing that the same type of epic construction was to be found 16 in Woyzeck. What Brecht quite deliberately ignores in making this claim is that the Noh style exposition of his play has nothing whatsoever to do with Buchner. However, according to Brecht's view, Die Mutter could make the same claim to realism as Buchner's work. Perhaps more important than Brecht's stated reasons (which are, as we shall see later, highly suspect in this case), however, are elements of tone and subject matter rather than structure which Brecht may have taken from Buchner directly or from Buch ner's possible source for these elements (Shakespeare) 17 directly. In Buchner Brecht probably saw and enjoyed a certain verbal coarseness that goes beyond "Shakespeare's bawdy." In Buchner's life Brecht saw clear political 16BBA 238/18. •^Unfortunately, there is no room here to discuss the very interesting side issue of how much of his "Shakespeare" Buchner got directly from the English writer. It is pos sible, of course, that what we take to be Shakespearean in Buchner may actually be only Shakespeare as reflected by Victor Hugo. We know, for instance, that Buchner translated Hugo's Lucretia Borgia and Maria Tudor and that both these plays clearly reveal the influence of Shakespeare on Victor Hugo. 35 commitment and dangerous involvement in day to day politics. Another readily verifiable source of influence on Brecht's work in the early days in Munich and then later in Berlin and Los Angeles is the writer and translator Lion Feuchtwanger. It was to Feuchtwanger that Brecht showed his first three plays, and it is Feuchtwanger who worked with Brecht on their joint version of Eduard II. Ulrich Weisstein convincingly demonstrates the hypothesis that one should look at the early translation work of Feuchtwanger (and later the work of the Berlin director Piscator) rather than only at the specifically "literary" antecedents of 18 Brecht. Weisstein points out that Feuchtwanger, before becoming a novelist and playwright, began his literary career as a translator of Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sudraka, Kalidasa, Calderon, and the Elizabethans. The subsequent sphere of Brecht's interests remarkably parallels in scope 19 and substance this early work of Feuchtwanger. As Brecht I Q "From the Dramatic Novel to the Epic Theater: A Study of the Contemporary Background of Brecht1s Theory and Practice," fiR, XXXVIII, No. 3 (1963), 257-271. ^However, as Mrs. Feuchtwanger pointed out to me in an interview with her in Santa Monica, California, we must be careful not to carry the theory of the importance of her husband to Brecht too far. It should be noted that the be ginning of Brecht's playwriting career roughly coincides 36 says of his own interests in the "Lied des Stiickschreibers": Urn zeigen zu konnen, was ich sehe Lese ich nach die Darstellungen anderer Volker und anderer Zeitalter. Ein paar Stiicke habe ich nachgeschrieben, genau Priifend die jeweilige Technik und mir einpragend Das, was mir zustatten kommt. Ich studierte die Darstellungen der grofien Feudalen Durch die Englander, reicher Figuren Denen die Welt dazu dient, sich grofi zu entfalten. Ich studierte die moralisierenden Spanier Die Inder, Meister der schonen Empfindungen Und die Chinesen, welche die Familien darstellen Und die bunten Schicksale in den Stadten.^® With only a few additions, Brecht's list reads like a sum mary of the interests of Feuchtwanger. An important non-literary influence during the early period is the previously mentioned VoIksclown Karl Valen- 21 tin. Marianne Kesting, in her useful book on Brecht, with the termination of Feuchtwanger's interest in the dra matic medium. Even Feuchtwanger's work on the adaptation of Marlowe's Edward the Second and, later, the dramatization of the Simone Marchard materials was done, so insists Mrs. Feuchtwanger, reluctantly and only out of friendship for Brecht. What this means, I believe, is that though Brecht learned a great deal from Feuchtwanger, he was forced to do as much as possible without Feuchtwanger's help. 20Schriften. V, 306. 2^For a brief but good discussion of the importance of Valentin, see Rudolf Frank, "Brecht von Anfang," in Das Arcernis Brecht (Basel/Stuttgart, 1961), pp. 32-33. 37 states: Die lakonische Ironie, die ans Absurde grenzenden Situationen beriihren sich unmittelbar mit der Dar- stellungsart des groften Munchener Komikers Karl Valen tin, den Brecht, zeit seines Lebens, als eines seiner groften Vorbilder verehrte.22 Or, as Resting says a little later, it is in the cabaret work of Valentin that die volkstiimliche Sprache, Drastik und Realistik der Darstellung, durchtrankt mit gleichnishaften und ab- surden Momenten, die grofle Rolle des Mimischen und Pantomimischen, der sichtbaren Vorgange, die auch das spatere Theater Brechts, zumal in seiner Regie, cha- rakterisieren, kiindigen sich hier an. (pp. 25-26) Brecht supports this contention of Resting himself in "Der Messingkauf" where the Dramaturg (as quoted above) notes the importance of Buchner and Wedekind but then goes on to say, "Aber am meisten lernte er von dem Clown Valentin, der in 23 einer Bierhalle auftrat." Besides the non-literary influence of Valentin's style of beer hall cabaret with its latrine humor, Brecht was also influenced by that specifically German institution 22Bertolt Brecht in Selhstzeuqnissen und Bilddokumen- ten (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1959), p. 25. Hereafter to be referred to as Resting, Bertolt Brecht. 23Schriften. V, 151. 38 (still active today in East and West Germany), the political cabaret. In his excellent summary of the importance of the political cabaret to Brecht, John Willett notes that: Kurt Tucholsky (writing under four pseudonyms), Walter Mehring, Joachim Ringelnatz and Erich Kastner were all bitter social critics who used direct, stinging satire as the best means of attack and wrote a large part of their always intelligible light verse to be declaimed or sung. The importance of this tradition to the technique and con tent of the Dreiaroschenoper. for instance, can hardly be overestimated. Likewise, the use of "songs" in so many of his plays, and the frank theatricality of much of his stag ing would all seem to stem from his Munich period and the multiple influence of Wedekind, Valentin, and the cabaret writers mentioned by Willett above. To an over-all view of the early period Brecht adds the following important note: Ich hatte in Berlin am damaligen Staatstheater am Gendarmenmarkt JeSners Inszenierung von "Othello" mit Kortner und Hofer gesehen, und ein technisches Element hatte mich beeindruckt, die Art der Beleuchtung. Durch gekreuzte Scheinwerfer hatte Jefiner ein eigentumlich zerstaubtes Licht auf der Buhne erzeugt, das die Figuren machtig hervortreten lieS: sie bewegten sich in Licht wie die Figuren Rembrandts. — Weitere Eindriicke kamen hinzu: die Lekture von Rimbauds "Sommer in der Holle" 24Willett, Theatre. p. 88. 39 25 und J. Jensens Chikagoroman "Das Rad." When Brecht moved to Berlin in 1924, where he then lived until his exile in 1933 (except for several summers spent in his hometown, Augsburg), and during earlier visits to the Prussian city, he came in the closest possible con tact with the work of the three great Berlin directors: Jessner, Reinhardt, and Piscator. The influence of Jess- ner1s staging is clear from the above citation and we know for certain that Brecht's first permanent job in Berlin was 26 as Dramaturg with Reinhardt. We know also, from various references to Piscator in the Schriften and many references to Brecht by Piscator in his seminal book, Das politische Theater, that Brecht's relationship to Piscator was ex- 27 tremely close. Through the director Reinhardt we come to an important literary and theatrical influence during Brecht's first year 25Stucke. I, 11-12. 26Kesting, Bertolt Brecht, p. 36. 27Erwin Piscator, Das politische Theater (Berlin, 1929). This is the first edition of the work. Citations in my text, however, are from: Erwin Piscator, Das politische Theater. neubearbeitet von Felix Gasbarra mit einem Vorwort von Wolfgang Drews (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1963). 40 in Berlin. Although Brecht fails to mention Pirandello any where in the Schriften. it is very likely that he became acquainted with Six Characters in Search of an Author 28 through Reinhardt's 1924 production of the play. The likelihood that Brecht saw the play increases to virtual certainty when we note that the play lasted into a second season and that is was in the repertoire of the very theatre where Brecht worked as a Dramaturg. The important thing about the Pirandello play is, of course (as Willett also notes), that the actors in the piece step out of their roles and view them critically. The importance of such an inno vation to Brecht's theory of Verfremdung can hardly be ex aggerated. Had Brecht not already gleaned the idea of cool ness and/or distancing from the 1919 production of Wovzeck mentioned above he could certainly have gotten it from Pirandello in 1924. Unfortunately, there is no space here to discuss or explore the tradition from which Pirandello sprang and to which he contributed, the Teatro del grottesco. Nor can we ^Resting (Bertolt Brecht, p. 64) notes the similarity between Brecht's and Pirandello's work but does not go on from this to postulate influence. Willett (Theatre. pp. 112-113), however, claims that Brecht actually attended the rehearsals of the Reinhardt production of Pirandello. 41 do more than note the similarities to the Italian movement of a French and Russian movement of the same period, that of "Futurism." The concern of the Futurists with separate scenes rather than tight construction in their plays, their interest in brilliant lighting and their hopes for the re turn of vaudeville-type theatres bears striking resemblance to the Munich activity I have mentioned above. Munich, always proud of its up-to-dateness in things artistic, may well have been awake to the bizarre and fruitful French, Russian, and Italian experiments of the period and to Marinetti's manifesto of the Futurist group published in Fiaaro on February 20, 1909. It is most unfortunate that the international impact of both French and Russian Futurism and of the Italian Grotteschi has received so little criti cal attention that the spread of the movements cannot as yet be accurately charted. Until such work is done conclusions in this area must simply be speculative. To return to surer ground, we know that Brecht, though he came to Berlin to work for Reinhardt, spent a great deal of time at the theatre of Piscator. The influence of this contact on Brecht's theories is plain. So similar are the theories of the two men that the following description of Piscator's methods could as easily be applied to Brecht. 42 Martin Esslin writes: Piscator relegated the author to a relatively minor position and was often content to compile his produc tions out of newspaper reports or documentary material. He put these spectacles on a constructivist stage and used graphs of statistics, explanatory captions, lantern slides of photographs or documents, newsreels, and docu mentary film sequences to convey the political or socio logical background of the play, while the propaganda lesson was drawn by choruses, spoken or sung, on stage or in the auditorium . . .29 Brecht has himself acknowledged the importance of Piscator for his own artistic (and political) development in the Schriften where he writes: "Vor allem war die Wendung des Theaters zur Politik Piscators Verdienst, und ohne diese Wendung ist das Theater des Stuckeschreibers kaum denk- 30 bar." Or, as Brecht grants quite freely at another point: "Ich habe an alien seinen [Piscator's] Experimenten teil- „ 31 genommen . . . A major difficulty in discussing "Berlin" influences on Brecht is the largely unanswerable question of how origi nal were those who influenced Brecht. Though we can clearly ^^Brecht: The Man and His Work (Garden City, New York, 1961), p. 24. Hereafter cited as Esslin, Brecht. 30Schriften. V, 150. 31Schriften. Ill, 92. 43 point to certain productions of Jessner, Reinhardt, and Piscator and can offer an educated guess as to the influence of these productions on Brecht, it is more difficult to determine where the Berlin directors got their ideas. Though the picture is by no means complete, some definite areas can be filled in. Esslin states, without drawing a definite conclusion, that: As early as 1907 MeyerhoId had advocated a theatre in which the audience "never forgets for a minute that it is seeing actors who are playing and the actors never forget that an auditorium is before them, a stage be neath them and d6cor all along the sides," the very principles of Brecht's anti-illusionist theatre. And it was MeyerhoId who had demanded a style of acting without tremolo, tenseness, and emotionalism, and in sisted on "epic" calm, coolness, and ease of delivery long before Brecht formulated the same ideas.^ Though Esslin simply notes the prior existence of Meyer- hold's theories, Willett goes further and musters sufficient evidence to establish the overwhelming likelihood that Brecht along with the rest of the Berlin avant-garde was actually familiar with the work of the Russian formalist school. Willett writes: In 1923 and again in the summer of 1925 Alexander Tairoff brought his productions from the Moscow 3 ^ E s s l i n , Brecht. p . 206. 44 Kamerny Theatre to Berlin, where Vesnin's set for The Man Who Was Thursday (August 1925) plainly helped to inspire Pisoator's production of Hoppla. In 1925, too, S. M. Eisenstein's shattering film Potemkin was first shown in Berlin, to a score by Edmund Meisel, who wrote much of the music for Piscator's productions, as also for the 1928 Mann ist Mann. Meyerhold himself, the most radical of all the Soviet producers, though he did not actually bring his company to Berlin until 1930, was followed with the greatest interest. He was known to be trying to mechanize his actors according to the theory of "bio-mechanics"; for Ehrenburg's Trust D. E . of 1924 he projected texts on a screen above the stage; while for Le Cocu Maqnifiaue and Tarelkin's Death he used no curtains or cyclorama, and had a wooden Con structivist mechanism in lieu of a set.33 Margaret Hoover also argues for the influence of Meyerhold on the Western European stage in general and on Brecht and Piscator in particular when she writes: Norris Houghton, in his most recent book, assigns to Meyerhold prime importance in the history of the modern theater: "Brecht and Piscator had, for example, learned from Meierhold rsic1. and the rest of us had learned from Brecht."34 The East German critic, Schumacher, also proposes 33willett, Theatre. pp. 111-112. As an illustration of the complex international inter-weaving of giving and taking in theatre theory and practice, the effect of Piscator and Brecht on Meyerhold (from whom Piscator and Brecht them selves learned much) is noted by Niessen when he writes: "Rasch nahm Tairoff die Dreiaroschenoper im Moskauer Kammer- theater 1930 auf." Brecht auf der Buhne (Cologne, 1959), p. 24. 34Hoover, p. 235. 45 Russian influences on the Berlin theatre of the first three decades of the present century. The pro-Brecht but anti- Piscator Schumacher writes: Piscator's theories were anticipated by Kerzhentsev in all essential points. For example, Kerzhentsev was also for a "fusion of audience and stage," which could best take place in a kind of circus. The audience should be included in the action as players. Piscator in his book The Political Theater also refers to Kerzhentsev . . .35 As though sufficient "sources" had not already been found for key terms and concepts in Brecht's drama theory and practice, Egon Holthusen postulates yet another Russian source and a couple of other German sources for the term Verfremduna. Holthusen observes that no mention of this term is found in Brecht before 1936 and goes on to mention three other earlier usages of at least similar terms. After stating flatly that "the concept of 'alienation' was not invented by Brecht," Holthusen goes on: It is a translation of the Russian word ostrannenie. which the aesthetician Victor Shklovsky, one of the leading representatives of Russian formalism, had already suggested in 1917 in an essay on "Art as 35Ernst Schumacher, "Piscator1s Political Theater," in Brecht; A Collection of Critical Essavs. ed. Peter Demetz (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1962), p. 90. All subsequent references to this book will be shortened to Demetz, Brecht. 46 Artifice," in order to denote the transformation of an "ordinary" or "automatic" perception into a poetically felt, poetically visionary perception. The main difficulty with Holthusen's contention is that it simply establishes prior usage of a similar term but fails to go on from there to determine whether or not Brecht ac tually knew of the work of Shklovsky. Also, Holthusen omits any discussion of the clear differences between the poetiz ing function of ostrannenie in Shklovsky and the frequent anti-poetic use of the term Verfremdung in Brecht. More likely, it seems to me, is the connection postulated by Holthusen between the use of the term in Hegel and Marx and Brecht's usage of it. As Brecht's preoccupation with Hegel and Marx is a matter of record (to say the least) and his connection with Shklovsky is wholly conjectural, it would seem more sensible to assume that he got the term from the Communist Klassiker rather than from the Russian formalist. Considered absolutely, however, we can only say that the term was so obviously part of the theatrical air Brecht breathed in the thirties that he could have got the term from just about anywhere and everywhere. 36nans Egon Holthusen, "Brecht's Dramatic Theory," in Demetz, Brecht. p. 108. 47 Before touching briefly on seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century usages of terms often assumed to be somehow new with Brecht, there remains one important thread of theatre history of the modern period that must be woven into the fabric of Brecht's literary and theatrical back ground. As important as any of the influences so far men tioned is surely the tremendous impact of oriental theatre and literature on European minds in the first third of the twentieth century. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Brecht was influenced by this wave of interest in the non- naturalistic theatre of the East. As Elisabeth Hauptmann stated flatly in an interview with me, "In the winter of '28-'29 I was overwhelmed by Waley's translations." How ever, Frau Hauptmann also mentioned her earlier reading of the work of the Frankfurt Sinologist, D. Richard Wilhelm, whose "yellow books" published by the Diederichs Verlag 37 "were in all our private libraries." Speaking specific- 37Interviews in East Berlin in June, 1966. The impor tance of Frau Hauptmann's reference to Wilhelm, it seems to me, is that it should caution us against concurring with the widespread notion that Waley, virtually alone, made the classics of the Far East available to the twentieth-century reader in good translations. If indeed Wilhelm's books were "in all the private libraries," we should pay more attention to them. I have seen Wilhelm's translations of Confucius and Laotse and find them admirable. See: Kungfutse, 48 ally of Brecht's exposure to these oriental translations, Frau Hauptmann told me unequivocally, "I am sure Brecht read everything translated into German." Brecht himself, in the previously cited passage from the "Lied des Stuckschreibers" specifically acknowledges an acquaintance with Chinese theatre but fails to mention the Japanese as an influence. Yet, of course, the relationship of Per Jasager and Per Neinsacrer to the Japanese play Taniko is too clear to need substantiation here. Besides the clear use of Far Eastern materials through the medium of Wilhelm and Waley, Brecht's access to oriental materials through other sources is wholly clear. We know, of course, of his contact, through Feuchtwanger, with the drama of India, for instance, but we also know that Max Reinhardt staged in 1925 in Berlin (the year after Brecht arrived in the city) Klabund's (pseudonym for Alfred Henschke) translation of the medieval Chinese drama of Li Gesprache (Lun Yu), aus dem Chinesischen verdeutscht und erlautert von Richard Wilhelm (Jena, 1921), and Laotse, Tao Te King fVom Sinn und Leben). aus dem Chinesischen ver deutscht und erlautert von Richard Wilhelm (Jena, 1919). In neither of these works is any mention made under Benutzte Id-teratur to Waley. Wilhelm praises instead the English translations from the Chinese of Ku Hung Ming. 49 Hsing-tao, Per Kreidekreis. Brecht's own reworkings of this theme make his knowledge of this important work certain. Somewhat more conjectural are some of the possibilities of contact that Grimm notes. Because of Hauptmann's assurance (in the interview cited above) that Brecht read everything translated into German from the oriental languages, I am inclined to agree with Grimm who, noting the presence in Brecht's own library of a 1924 issue of Das iunoe Japan, concludes (without, in my opinion, adequate substantiation) that Brecht must have read the play Umihiko. Yamahiko (by 38 Yuzo Yamamoto) contained therein. Another indirect oriental source that Grimm notes and, this time, substantiates is the work of the sometime French ambassador to Japan, Paul Claudel. Grimm notes: "Wir wis- sen, dafi er bereits 1914 Werke von Paul Verlaine und Paul Claudel gekannt hat: beide Namen werden in Buchbesprechun- 3®However, in general it should be noted that the mere presence of a book in Brecht's library is no guarantee of his ever having read it. The fact that the library contains numerous works in Russian (which Brecht could not read at all) should illustrate this point well enough. It is also true that the absence of a book is no guarantee of his not having read it. Perhaps the best idea of the unreliability of the library on this latter point is given by the fact that no copy of any work of Gorky (in any language) nor of Marlowe's Edward the Second (in any language) is to be found in the library. 50 39 gen, die der Sechzehnjahrige veroffentlichte, erwahnt." More important than this early contact with Claudel is the possibility and virtual certainty that Brecht was familiar with the work of Claudel written after his six years in Japan. As Willett clearly demonstrates, Claudel's Le livre de Christophe Colombe with its clear use of Noh conventions was accessible to Brecht because it had a long run in Berlin in 1930. Claudel's preface to the play shows remarkable parallels to (and, of course, differences from) Brecht's plays of this period, the so-called Lehrstiieke. Claudel writes of his play that it "is like a book, which one opens 40 in order to deliver the contents to the audience." At another point in the preface Claudel speaks of the delivery of these contents through the use of choruses which cross- examine both the actors and their audience. It is not cer tain that Brecht saw Claudel's play (Elisabeth Hauptmann told me that she simply did not remember but thinks it probable that he did) but we may assume with Frau Hauptmann, I think, that Brecht simply would not have been able to stay out of any theatre where interesting experiments were being 39Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 9. ^Cited in Willett, Theatre. p. 116. 51 done. We must simply conclude with Grimm that, at the time Claudel came out with Christophe Colombe. "dafi Brecht zur selben Zeit mit dem Schreiben von formal sehr eng verwandten 41 Lehrstucken begann." Going beyond the single example of Claudel, we find in the Japanese and Chinese theatre in general and in many of Brecht's post-1929 plays the following similarities: lack of scenery or stylized representation of locale; no attempt at realism of playing locale or of acting style; use of un masked and masked figures in the same play; relative inde pendence of individual scenes; recitation and/or recapitula tion between acts; exposition by means of direct audience address; frank recognition of stage barriers as a conven tion; presence on the stage of musicians; shifting, in full view of the audience, of whatever stylized scenery is pres ent; and deliberate use of comic interludes. Though I am aware of the presence of many of these elements in the plays and stage practice of the Elizabethans, and am aware also of Brecht's familiarity with this school, the degree of usage, the established fact of his knowledge of the Japanese and 41Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 19. 52 Chinese styles, and the change in his own style from circa 1929 on (many years after he was first introduced to the Elizabethans) lead me to the conclusion that the oriental theatre itself (and that contains, let us remember, the Indian as well as the Chinese and Japanese) was directly important in shaping Brecht's post-1929 literary and theat rical style. Not content with the host of twentieth-century "sourc es" that have been found for Brecht's literary and theatri cal style, many critics go as far back in time as the seventeenth century in their search for origins. Martin Esslin says, for instance: "Racine anticipates many of 42 Brecht's ideas in his preface to Baiazet." Though, as I have noted earlier, it is a matter of record that Brecht spent some time in the theatre history Seminar of the Uni versity at Munich, we simply do not know whether he en countered in his courses there the preface to which Esslin refers. More likely, it seems to me, is the idea that Fradkin has postulated, that Brecht found the ground for his theorizing on the need for aesthetic distance (or, to use the French term, distantion). alienation, or Verfremdung in 4P Esslin, Brecht. p. 140. Diderot's Paradoxe sur le Com£dien. Brecht himself refers approvingly to Diderot, but in the same passage links him with another great "Enlightener," Lessing. Brecht writes: "Die revolutionare burgerliche Asthetik, begrundet von den groBen Aufklarern Diderot und Lessing, definiert das Theater 44 als eine Statte der Unterhaltung und der Belehrung." Brecht wrote these words in 1939-40, a little after he first began to use the term Verfremdunq. Not content with simply listing Diderot as a potential source, Fradkin, very sensi bly, hastens also to mention Lessing and writes: "Very often, Brecht finds a starting point for his theoretical 45 constructions in Lessing's Hamburqische Dramaturqie ..." Other German sources postulated by Fradkin are "the corres pondence and aesthetic studies of Goethe and Schiller" (p. 105). Ernst Schumacher in his massive tome on the pre-1933 plays also notes certain similarities between the work of 46 Schiller and Goethe and that of Brecht. In contrast to 4^I. Fradkin, "On the Artistic Originality of Bertolt Brecht's Drama," in Demetz, Brecht. p. 105. 44SfiliEjL£tSfl, I I I , 95. ^■^Fradkin in Demetz, Brecht, p. 105. 46Pie dramatischen Versuche Bertolt Brechts: 1918-1933 (Berlin, 1955). Hereafter cited as Schumacher, Die drama- 54 the brief and speculative remarks of Fradkin, Schumacher laboriously, and I believe unassailably, establishes that much basic thinking on "epic theatre" was done by Goethe and Schiller and that Brecht would clearly have had access to their work. Going beyond Schumacher and Fradkin, it might well be noted also that Goethe objected vigorously to stereotyped playing of the classics, one of Brecht's per sonal complaints. At one point Goethe complains of the court theatres: "Es war eine Art von Cultus im Theater zu sitzen, als mentaler Souffleur die bekannten Stucke zwischen 47 den Zahnen zu murmeln ..." At another point he states: Eine Vorlesung der Phadra der ich nicht beiwohnen konnte, hatte jedoch einen vorauszusehenden Erfolg: es ward abermals klar, der Deutsche mochte wohl auf ewig dieser beschrankten Form, diesem abgemessenen und aufgedunsenen Pathos entsagt haben. Den drunter verborgenen hiibschen natiirlichen Kern mag er lieber entbehren, als ihn aus so vieler nach und nach darum gehullten Unnatur gutmiithig herausklauben.48 This almost typically Brechtian comment is particularly amazing as all evidence indicates that Goethe had no notion tischen Versuche. 47Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Werke. herausgegeben in Auftrage der Groftherzogin Sophie von Sachsen, 55 vols, (Weimar, 1893), XL, 134. 48Goethe, Werke. XXXVI, 362. 55 of either Brecht's objections to treatment of the classics or of his demands for reform. The broad view of Brecht's literary and theatrical background that this chapter presents is largely substanti ated not only by other critics working in this speculative area but by Brecht himself. Brecht's 1939 essay, "Uber experimentelles Theater," would seem to confirm the broad outlines of Brecht's background and to demonstrate the relevancy of such a broad sweep of literary and theatrical 49 history to Brecht's work. In this essay Brecht clearly demonstrates his own knowledge of trends and experiments in the period that this chapter has just covered. Brecht writes: "Zumindest seit zwei Menschenaltern befindet sich das ernsthafte europaische Theater in einer Epoche der Experimente."^ Among the people, periods, and movements that Brecht mentions in this essay and deems important are: Diderot and Lessing, Antoine, Brahm, Stanislavsky, Gordon Craig, Reinhardt, Jessner, Meyerhold, Vakhtanov, Piscator, Ochlopkov; experiments with oriental theater; experiments 49This essay is found on pp. 85-114 of Vol. Ill of the Schriften. 5QSchriften. Ill, 85. with mask; experiments in buskin, mime, and pantomime; the development of a new dramatic style by Ibsen, Tolstoy, Strindberg, Gorky, Chekhov, Hauptmann, Shaw, Kaiser, and O'Neill; the breakdown of the distinctions between "revue" and "theatre"; Expressionism, which, "die Ausdrucksmittel des Theaters sehr bereicherte" (p. 96); the use of Verfrem- dunaseffekten in the Chinese theatre and in "das klassische spanische Theater, das volkstiimliche Theater der Breughel- zeit und das elisabethanische Theater" (p. 114). Given my own broad summary of the period in question and Brecht's own confirmation of much of it, it would seem impossible to object to the main line of Weisstein's conclusion that; "Daring experimentalist and thinker that he was, Brecht merely succeeded in fusing the many overt and latent trends in the German and European theater of the twenties into a 51 whole." Though the wholeness of the theory which Weis- stein presupposes may be questioned by some, lack of uniqueness of its constituent parts would seem to be in disputable. Though many of the skeins are tangled, though many another "source" may yet crop up, and though certain segments of the interrelationship may need additional ^•*-Weisstein, p. 271. 57 defining, enough is clear as to suggest the conclusion that much of Brecht's theatre and literary theory is a Bearbei- tunq of the work of a host of other theorists and practi tioners of the literary and theatrical arts. Despite the fact that the chronology of Brecht's de velopment of certain ideas remains unclear, I feel it is clear enough that Willett should be challenged when he con cludes: . . . every strong influence which he underwent seemed proper to the state of his own development at the time, and in each case it is previously suggested in his own work. Piscator's "epic" methods are foreshadowed in Edward II. just as the N5 drama is suggested in the two 1929 cantatas and the Shakespearean narrative in the first plays of all.52 Willett would seem to assume here that Brecht encountered epic production methods only after producing Eduard II. that he encountered Noh techniques only after producing his 1929 cantatas, and that he first encountered Shakespearean narra tive only after writing his "first plays of all." There is no evidence for the implied contention that Brecht had no access to epic methods or to Shakespeare before he began to write plays. Both epic methods and Shakespearean narrative 52wiiiett, Theatre, p. 124. 58 were available to Brecht in Shakespeare's own plays, plays that were and are a part of the diet of the German Gymnasium student. Paradoxically, if my summary of influences on Brecht had been less complicated and detailed, a much stronger case could be made for lack of "originality" in Brecht. Esslin is clearly aware of this paradox when he writes: The various and openly acknowledged influences which shaped Brecht's work throughout his life have inevit ably led to his being accused of plagiarism and lack of originality. In fact, his originality consisted of his uncanny ability to absorb and assimilate the most diverse and seemingly incompatible elements.53 If the elements themselves are not original, the combination of these elements surely is. The dialectic usage or montage effects employed make the gestalt of Brecht's theory, with all its confusions, all its explained and unexplained re versals, its bold claims, its humble concessions, its claims to logic and its lack thereof, something that is nowhere else to be found in the history of drama theory and of staging practices. When the full curtain goes up and the half curtain is then whisked aside as the Berliner Ensemble goes to work and play, the theatrical experience that they 53Esslin, Brecht, p. 115. 59 present is one that is not to be found with any other group. It is this theatrical experience— whether it be a distillate of the theory or irrelevant to it is not entirely clear— that the spectator carries away from the theatre. It is this theatrical experience that has made Brecht's name world-renowned as an original spirit and which makes Brecht himself such a strong influence today on Western (and some Eastern) theatre. Esslin is surely correct when he says that the theories, despite a demonstrable lack of both in ternal coherence and of originality ("Basically these prin ciples are neither very complicated nor very new" [p. 120]), have had a most stimulating effect in freeing the stage from a narrow and cramping convention and will certainly continue to play their part within the much wider move ment for the renewal of the theatre. (p. 139) Brecht's theatre as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Brecht, the artful artificer of the stage, has created a work of art. Whether this conclusion, true of the work of Brecht the director, applies with equal force to Brecht the playwright of the Bearbeitungen. the rest of this study will seek to establish. 4 CHAPTER II THE THEORY OF THE BEARBEITUNGEN The end of the First World War coincided with the beginning of Brecht's career as poet, director, and play wright. Very decidedly Brecht rejected the values of the court of the deposed Kaiser Wilhelm and those of his own modest and proper middle class family, values that he vague ly felt at the time had caused and prolonged the just-ended war. Consciously, his early poetry (his "Legende vom toten Soldaten," for instance) and plays (Baal. Trommeln in der Nacht. Im Dickicht der Stadte. and Eduard des Zweiten) were designed, like the work of Tucholsky, Wedekind, and Shaw, "pour epater le bourgeois." This attack on middle and upper class values carried over directly into Brecht's view of the proper bearing for a modern poet. Not only was the form and content of his work deliberately hostile, but his dress and bearing (again following the model of Wedekind) were calcu lated to shock the middle class. Like many another writer 60 during the period between the World Wars, Brecht not only rejected the middle and upper classes but attempted somewhat romantically to identify with the lower classes, with the world not only of workers but of pimps and boxers, circus and cabaret artists, and six-day bicycle racers. Wearing the cloth cap of the masses and the leather jacket of the long-distance truck driver, with a miraculous two-days1 (never more, never less) growth of beard, Brecht lived the part of the anti-poet. Rejecting the name Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, a name connecting him very decidedly with the old middle class values, he "proletarianized" his name to Bert or Bertolt Brecht. At the same time Brecht con sciously rejected the kind of thinking that sees the poet as being on a pedestal, laurel-browed, uttering lofty thoughts in elevated language to a select audience. Scrap ping the ancient pedestal, Brecht sought at first no eleva tion whatsoever and later no elevation greater than that provided by a soapbox; scrapping laurels, he sought oneness with the masses by adopting the dress of the masses. Down*, he cried, with what he felt was the outdated romantic vision of the poet spinning his poems out of private sensibility and for a limited and fastidious audience. Down with sec recy and magic in poetry. Poems from now on were to be 62 written and performed amidst crowds, light, and confusion. Down, he cried also, with the retiring and starving poet. Instead, the poet-craftsman must be willing and able to compose for anyone willing to pay. Poetry, said Brecht, must become a craft which one exercises to earn one's daily bread rather than a mystic exercise in which one becomes a receptacle for divinity. Though he mentions neither man by name in the Schriften. Brecht might have illustrated his position by urging the rejection of the creed of the esthete Stefan George and the adoption of the rollicking crudity and involvement in everyday politics of Mayakovsky. Within works composed in the deliberately irreverent "new" vein, it is not surprising that the heroes of older styles of poetry are, when they are allowed to appear at all, made to appear deliberately unheroic and just a little ridiculous, are seen in a bad light and from their wrong side. And with this change of emphasis, it should be noted, this "new" poetry (as proud of its "newness" as of its fre quent "badness"), while shrugging off one ancient mode of aesthetic expression, unconsciously assumes another and equally venerable mode. The poetry of the post-war years is as new as the particular figures which it attacks and as old as attack on the spuriously noble or heroic. Thersites, 63 with his attack on Agamemnon in the Iliad, is a forerunner, as is Heracles's slave in The Frogs. The tradition so early established is then maintained down the centuries in Roman comedy; in the commedia dell'arte? the plays of Machiavelli and Goldoni; in some measure in Shakespeare and in great measure in Moliere; in the eighteenth century by Farquhar, Fonvizin, and Marivaux; and in the nineteenth century by Buchner, Brieux, and the early works of Shaw. It is no accident that this list, reflecting as it does a broad out line of what may be termed a realistic or at least anti- inflationary trend in literature, reflects also a great number of the authors and schools of drama Brecht thought most worthy of praise, emulation, and reworking. Closely allied with Brecht's predilection for what might be called 1 1 deflationary" literature was his search for poets whom he might view as kindred spirits. Looking in plays for the non-heroic, he looked in the authors of these plays for practical men of the theatre, craftsmen who were fully aware of the potentially didactic office of the stage. In Brecht's view, the poet, the play, and the play ers all had to be entheroisiert. The poet and players had to become craftsmen and the play upon which they worked had to be viewed as artifact. Reduced to artifact, a play 64 could then (or so he maintained) be manipulated or reworked by another craftsman to increase its present-day usefulness. Having adopted this point of view, Brecht would surely have agreed that his own view of his own mode of dramatic or poetic production was closer, to use Wellek and Warren's convenient "types of the poet," to that of the "maker" poet than the "possessed" poet.^ With reference at least to the Bearbeitungen. it is clear that Brecht rigorously sought to exorcise "possession" from his writing. As Martin Esslin observes: "To him the poet was a craftsman serving the community and relying on his reason and acquired skill, a man among men, not a being set apart by virtue of some 2 special quality or power." The aptness of Esslin's obser vation is confirmed by Hans Mayer, who observes: Es ist nicht bekannt geworden, dafi sich Bertolt Brecht jemals selbst als "Dichter" bezeichnet hatte. Schon seine Forme1 vom "Stuckeschreiber" ist das Ergebnis einer Gegenposition. Nicht Ingenium und Inspiration, sondern gutes Handwerk, praktikable Literatur.3 In English Brecht would surely have been happy with the Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, p. 73. 2Esslin, Brecht. p. 117. ^Hans Mayer, Bertolt Brecht und die Tradition (Pfullin- gen, 1961), p. 13. 65 term "playwright.” The English word, containing the element "wright" (one who constructs, contrives, or creates), would be wholly fitting to Brecht's notion of ars as craft in its 4 narrower, more constrxctive sense. An important by-product of the notion of playwriting as play crafting is the idea that while traditionally art is the creation of a single being, craft (and/or the per forming arts) can well be, and indeed often is, either a group or even an anonymous endeavor. Though the artist may be a "being set apart by virtue of some special quality or power," the craftsman can be useful either when working ^It should be noted, however, that Brecht was on this point, as on many another, not entirely consistent. In a context where she is trying to prove how democratic Brecht1s idea of the craftsman was, Kate Riilicke-Weiler notes: "Brecht lehrte nicht, wie man Dichten lernt. Die Frage, ob man Dichten lernen konne, beantwortete Brecht einmal: ‘ Ja, wenn man ein Dichter ist."' In: Werner Hecht, Hans Joachim Bunge, and Kate Riilicke-Weiler, Bertolt Brecht: Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1963), p. 210. Or as Riilicke-Weiler also notes of Brecht: "Er war dafiir, talent lose Schuler zu ent- mutigen, denn 'Nur ein Talent kann lernen', 'Nur Qualitat kann qualifiziert werden'" (p. 210). For me, Brecht's com ments quite clearly reject the notion that the "craft" of either Dichter or director can be learned. If this be true, we are back to the pre-Brecht, aristocratic type of the artist, the poet who is somehow quite inexplicably born as poet, and is separated by an unbridgeable gap from the craftsman or maker. The artist possesses an unlearnable, unacquirable essence that cannot be developed in those born mysteriously without it. 66 alone or as a member of a team or collective. Confusing, deliberately perhaps, creation with construction, Brecht, in his notes on Antigone. writes: "Der Schopfungsakt ist ein kollektiver Schopfungsprozeft geworden, ein Kontinuum dia- lektischer Art, so daft die isolierte urspriingliche Erfindung 5 an Bedeutung verloren hat." The use of the word "collec tive" should alert us here to a political strand running through what is supposedly simply literary or dramatic criticism. Here, as always in Brecht, literature and poli tics are inextricably intertwined. One sees this clearly in a note written in the late twenties in which Brecht specifically rejects individual creation when he says flatly: Man konnte mit einer geringfugigen Ubertreibung sagen, daft der Kunst die Ansichten der Kiinstler gleichgiiltig sind. Sie ist keine Sache der Ansichten. Das Getreide ist ubrigens auch keine Sache der Ansichten, insofern als es wachst. Ware Kunst etwas, das mit Ansichten zu schaffen hatte, so ware sie etwas durch und durch In- dividuelles, und dies haben ja auch viele Bourgeois und Proletarier zuweilen geauBert. Aber das ist nicht so. Kunst ist nichts Individuelles. Kunst ist, sowohl was ihre Entstehung als auch was ihre Wirkung betrifft, etwas Kollektivistisches Bertolt Brecht, Die Antigone des Sophokles: Mateyia~ lien zur "Antigone." ed. Werner Hecht (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), p. 71. Hereafter cited as Hecht, Materialien. 6£gh£AftenJ n, 39-4 0. 67 As Brecht was both director and playwright, we are not sure here whether the meant the above remarks to apply with equal force to both the collective art work, the staged play, and the usually individual work, the written text. Leaving no doubt, however, as to the pertinence of his view to the development of the written text, a note written in 1936 reads: "Eine neue Technik des Stuckebaus wurde ausgebildet. Kleine Kollektive von Fachleuten, darunter Historiker und 7 Soziologen, stellten Stiicke her." Within this group, Brecht, according to his close friend and Mitarbeiterin Q Elisabeth Hauptmann, was "primus inter pares." Though Brecht worked in a so-called "collective" and was open to suggestion, it should be noted also that he retained the right to decide which suggestions would be incorporated in the finished work. Transcripts of discus sions on some of the later plays suggest that though he may 7Schriften. Ill, 19. ^Statement made in an interview with me in East Berlin in June, 1966. It should be noted, however, that Benno Besson (who worked on Don Juan and Pauken und Tromoeten with Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann) claimed (in an interview with me in East Berlin in November, 1967) that Brecht's part in the work on Pauken and Don Juan was very small. See my fuller discussion of this point in Chapters VII and VIII. have been open to excellent suggestions from his Mitarbeiter (actors and/or writers), his vehement objections to sugges tions that he considered bad leave no doubt that in some cases a sovereign will was at work. It is this selective ness of Brecht's that makes the following statement of Esslin but a careless half-truth: "He [Brecht] was a col lective being, always the center of a crowd of collabora tors, asking advice and accepting it from anyone who cared 9 to offer it." To further confuse matters, not only did Brecht carefully sift advice (in contrast to Esslin's im plication) but he also, apparently, often worked quite alone (in direct contrast to Esslin's flat statement). Brecht's friend Fritz Sternberg observes, for instance: Ich fragte ihn bei Gelegenheit, warum er denn so oft im Sommer nach Augsburg ginge. Brecht lachelte verschmitzt: "Im Winter in Berlin, da ist Saison, da ist so viel Ab- lenkung, da komme ich nicht zum konzentrierten Schreiben. Da komme ich vor allem nicht dazu. ein Stuck zu schrei- ben. In Augsburg liegt das anders. Hier kenne ich wenige Leute und verkehre nur mit wenigen Leuten." (Italics mine.) If Sternberg is correct, and there seems to be no reason to ^Esslin, Brecht, p. 17. 10Der Dichter und die Ratio:__Erinneruncen an Bertolt Brecht (Gottingen, 1963), pp. 19-20. 69 doubt him, it would seem that Brecht flatly contradicted himself (and Esslin) here. From having claimed that art in the new age must be wholly collective, he went on to admit that he found it particularly difficult to work on plays when too many people were around to distract him. As usual there were two Brechts, the Brecht of theory and the Brecht of practice; as usual the two were in fundamental disagree ment . Even within the theory, however, there is further dis agreement . On one hand there was the Brecht who fancied himself as humble worker in a collective; on the other was the Brecht who worked in a collective but sometimes in a tyrannical fashion. Though it can be demonstrated that Brecht sometimes did dominate his collective, this should not lead us prematurely to the conclusion that the humble worker in a collective (the Brecht Brecht often liked to think he was) was wholly a figment of his own imagination. It remains open to question, for instance, whether Brecht exercised the same degree of sovereignty in his collective playwriting as he exercised as a play director. In general it would seem that for Brecht and for many of the critics, a good play, no matter how many Mitarbeiter are listed, is a Brecht play, i.e., Brecht fully exercised his sovereignty, whereas poor plays must be adjudged to be mainly the Vork of a humble collection of Mitarbeiter.^ For the Mitarbeiter (whether they worked on the writing of the play or the staging of the play or both) the situation was one in which 12 tails meant they lost and heads meant Brecht won. With ■^The history of the "authorship" of Happy End is a case in point. When it was first produced (in September, 1929) this play was billed as Elisabeth Hauptmann's adapta tion with lyrics by Brecht. As Esslin notes (Brecht. p. 43): "Brecht has often been reproached with having launched this weak play under the name of his secretary." It is in teresting to note, however, that at this point the play is entirely without an author. The Brecht-Archiv copy of Happy End is inscribed "Komodie in 3 Akten von Dorothy Lane" and nowhere mentions Brecht or Elisabeth Hauptmann (BBA 1721). The only problem with Dorothy Lane (supposedly the authoress of an American short story on which the adaptation is based) is that she never (as Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann well knew) existed. As Esslin notes: "The American source was pure invention, intended to give the play the cachet of authenticity and the prestige of a transatlantic original" (Brecht, pp. 42-43). If one translated the play into Eng lish, I wonder whom one would have to pay for the rights? This play is so poor that supposedly nobody wrote it. ^illuminating parallels between Brecht's collective working methods and those of medieval craftsmen working on big projects might be seen. Hans Huth, in his Kiinstler und Werkstatt der Spataotik (Darmstadt, 1967), p. 67, notes: "Einwandfrei steht fest, daB es einem Meister erlaubt war, seinen Namen auf sein Werk zu setzen, das, wenn es auch nicht vollig sein geistiges Eigentum, doch immerhin auf Grund seiner kiinstlerischen Organisation entstanden war. Als Meister und Leiter einer Werkstatt deckte er mit seinem Namen die Leistungen seiner in der Anonymitat verbleibenden Werkstattgenossen Oder sonstigen Mitarbeiter." A little later Huth also notes, however: "Neben den etwa einzuheim- senden Ehren hatte er ja . . . auch die Verantwortung fur 71 each of the plays I shall examine in detail, the vexing and perhaps insoluble question always is this: are the felici tous touches and major changes in the literary text, and the exciting pieces of stage business in the staged play Brecht's, or are they actually pieces of collective work with Brecht's part in them quite small? As Wellek and Warren observe: "Collaboration sometimes poses almost hope- 13 less tasks to the literary detective." In Brecht's case the problem of collaboration is complicated by the two levels of being of a Brecht Bearbeitung. With each Bear- beitung which I shall examine, the problems of collaboration are too complex (and often too poorly documented) for their solution to be possible either within the scope of this study or, perhaps, at all. Nevertheless, it must at all times be remembered that when a "Brecht play" is spoken of this is simply a tentative designation, one that could well be upset whenever more materials become available in this difficult area. In the meanwhile, fascinating though the die entstehenden Mangel." Applying this to Brecht, if he felt free to claim the best work of the collective as his own, we should surely feel free to blame him for any de ficiencies in any of the plays. See my note on Happy End above. 13Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, p. 55. 72 topic of Brecht's relationship to his Mitarbeiter may be, I must pass beyond this basically secondary problem (the mode of creation) to the primary concern of my examination, a consideration of the works (however they may have been created) as works of art or of craft. Not surprisingly, Brecht's own seeming confusion as to his own role in the creative process carried over into his view of other authors and their works. On one hand he attempted to view classic authors simply as craftsmen and their works as artifacts, while on the other hand he had the greatest difficulty in accounting for the perennial fascination of certain works of a few authors. Drawn ir rationally by the classics, he attempted to account ration ally for their pull upon him by claiming that the classic texts which interested him were socially useful. What Brecht the poet and vestryman deliberately failed to see in earlier works is a power that does not completely lend it self to rational analysis. Viewing earlier Bearbeitunaen. for instance, he deliberately treated both the original and the reworked texts as works of craft. Often Brecht con fused his reworkings with those of distinguished predeces sors in this realm of dramatic activity. The East German critic, Witzmann, sees, correctly I think, that Brecht's 73 references to classical examples of Bearbeitunq are often not only beside the point but seriously (and probably de liberately) misleading. Witzmann writes: Brecht behauptet freilich: 1 1 Bearbeitunqen dieser Art sind in der Literatur nichts Ungewahntes. Goethe bear- beitete die Iohiqenie des Euripides. Kleist den Amphi tryon des Molifere." Aber Brechts Bearbeitungen sind mit den von ihm zitierte Werken nicht vergleichbar. Goethe und Kleist nehmen uberlieferte Stoffe und Fabeln auf, ihre “Bearbeitungen" sind aber Werke, die als Ganzes, in Form und Gehalt, ihnen gehoren. Brecht da- gegen verfahrt anders, seine Bearbeitungen sind buhnen- gerechte Neufassungen alter Stiicke und zugleich der Versuch, diese als "Stoffgrundlage fur andere Inten- tionen" zu verwenden.^4 The fact that Brecht sought to use classical authority to justify his own practice is highly interesting in itself. Consistently inconsistent, Brecht cited the classics ap provingly whenever he wished to use them to support his own practice but cheerfully damned them whenever he wanted to do something different in his own plays. Confusing though it may be, a consideration of Brecht's attitude towards classic texts is nevertheless essential to an understanding of the theory of Brecht's Bearbeitungen. In a conversation with Ihering on the classics, Brecht said at one point with an air of finality: 14Witzmann, Antike Tradition, p. 75. 74 Die Bemuhungen um Klassikerauffiihrungen sind von mir aufgegeben worden. Wir haben noch einmal, als Erich Engel den "Coriolan" inszenierte, bei einem der groBar- tigsten Werke Shakespeares, den Versuch gemacht.*-5 A little later Brecht goes on: Und im letzten Winter haben Piscator, der Soziologe Sternberg und ich das Projekt, den "Julius Casar" auf- zufuhren, abgebrochen. Wir hatten immer wieder ver- sucht, aus diesen Werken, die wir als reine Material- grube benutzten, das herauszuholen, was wir den geis- tischen Gehalt nennen. (pp. 163-164) Asked why these projects were given up, Brecht replied: Die Klassik diente dem Erlebertum. Der Nutzen der Klassiker ist zu gering. Sie zeigen nicht die Welt, sondern sich selber. Personlichkeiten fur den Schau- kasten. Worte in der Art von Schmuckgegenstanden. Kleiner Horizont, burgerlich. Alles mit MaB und nach MaB. (p. 164) A few lines later Ihering asks: Schon, wenn die Inhalte der Klassik also doch letzten Endes nicht benutzbar waren, warum hielten Sie sich nicht an die Form? (p. 165) To which Brecht replies: "Die Form unserer Klassiker ist nicht klassisch. Zu fruhe Stabilisierung, Prinzip der Ruhe und Abgeklartheit" (p. 165). What Brecht may have meant by this oracular statement is more clearly put in a strident 15Schriften. I, 163. 75 and fragmentary essay of the same period (1928), "tiber eine neue Dramatik." Brecht writes: "Die alte Form des Dramas ermoglicht es nicht, die Welt so darzustellen, wie wir sie heute sehen." Or, as he says a few lines later: "Der fur uns typische Ablauf eines Menschenschicksals kann in der jetzigen dramatischen Form nicht gezeigt werden" (p. 217). The usual Brecht red herrings are present in these state ments. First, the old form of drama (that of Shakespeare and Marlow in particular) permitted as broad a frame of reference as anything Brecht or Piscator ever mounted. Second, the "typische Ablauf eines Menschenschicksals" is something that Brecht himself never managed to present in 16 a play. Almost entirely without exception his major characters are atypical and bigger than life. In character and form his plays do not significantly diverge from classic (either English or oriental) forms. The canvas of Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder is hardly broader than that of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra or Marlowe's Tamburlaine I6Perhaps the cleverest example of this type of failure is Brecht's Arturo Ui. To use a little Marxist criticism against Brecht, he fails in this play to present the whole of Ui's milieu. In terms of conventional dramaturgy this is hardly damning. But in terms of Brecht's claim that his methodology permits and even demands all-inclusiveness it surely is. or Doctor Faustus. The chronicle plays, Die Taqe der Com mune and the Leben des Galilei, certainly embrace no more Stoff than does Corneille's Cid. Schiller's Wilhelm Tell or the Wallenstein trilogy, or Goethe's Faust. In view of this I must conclude that Brecht's attacks on the classics (when they indiscriminately dismiss virtually all earlier drama) are irrelevant, misleading, and demonstrably incorrect. However, if he himself had not at times recognized this fact, reversed his position, and gotten into an argument with himself, Brecht would not have been Brecht. In Volume VI of the Schriften we find the long essay entitled "Der Messingkauf" (extraordinarily reminiscent, incidentally, of Dryden's "Essay on Dramatic Poesy") in which Shakespeare receives high praise. In Volume VII we find the admonition: Um zur groflen Handlung zu kommen, sollten wir die Bauart der Klassiker studieren, besonders die Shake- speares. Shakespeare verwendet oft die ganze Sub- stanz eines neueren Stucks in einer einzigen Szene, und nichts Wesentliches bleibt weg.^-7 Perhaps the best statement of Brecht's considered opinion of Shakespeare is contained in the following brief statement 17Schriften. VII, 347-348. 77 from Volume III of the Schriften; Ich kann mir vorstellen, daB viele, wenn sie horen, daB es eine Kunst sei, Shakespeare zu lesen, argerlich werden. Soli da etwa eine Schranke aufgebaut werden? Soil es heiBen: Weg da, ihr, erdreistet euch nicht, euch diesem Genius zu nahern'. "Gibt es da einen Tempel der Kunst, in den man nur hineindarf, wenn man die Schuhe auszieht? MuB man erst dicke Bucher walzen, Unterrichtsstunden nehmen, eine Prufung ablegen? Wie kann es schwierig sein, Theater stiicke zu lesen, die zu den schonsten der Weltliteratur gehoren?" Ich meine es natiirlich nicht so. Aber wenn mir je- mand sagt: "Um Shakespeare zu lesen, braucht es gar nichts" , so kann ich nur sagen: "Probier es!"^ Though Brecht tells us what he does not mean, he fails to tell us what he actually does mean. It would seem plain, however, that despite his denial, he had come to appreciate Shakespeare as the creator of works of genius, works going far beyond mere craft. Echoing this non-iconoclastic view, Brecht, in his last years, replied to the question, "Konnen wir den Shakespeare andern?" "Ich denke, wir konnen den 19 Shakespeare andern, wenn wir ihn andern konnen." In a note in the Brecht Archive entitled "Zur Bearbeitung" we find: Wir haben kein groBes Repertoire an noch spielbaren 18Schriften. Ill, 155. 19Stiicke. XI, 395. 78 klassischen Werken. Fur viele der klassische Stiicke ist unser Publikum nicht geschult genug, um sie ohne Bearbeitung zu verstehen.20 From this remark it would almost seem possible to conclude that, whenever this note was written (the note is undated), Brecht felt that the reason so few plays were still playable lay perhaps with the public viewing the classic works rather than with the classic works themselves. With such state ments Brecht can be seen to have come full circle from the position cited earlier, where he had somewhat prematurely dismissed both Shakespeare and all other classics and de clared: "Die Bemuhungen um Klassikerauffuhrungen sind von 21 mir aufgegeben worden." The iconoclast of the early period spent the best part of his last years working in tensely on the very playwrights he had previously so brusquely rejected. As Brecht returned to the plays he had earlier dis missed, he returned also to the problem of attempting to explain the perennial fascination of such works. Basically Brecht attempted to account for this fascination in 20BBA 650/02. 21schriften, i, 163. 79 deliberately unheroic terms. He attempted to see the sur vival of these works as being directly dependent upon the "human*' or "enlightened" (read Communist) social content of these plays rather than upon any aesthetic values they might contain. Though this social content may be aesthetically presented, the emphasis is always primarily on content and only secondarily on form. In a note written in 1954 we find: Die sozialistisch-realistische Wiedergabe alter klassi- scher Werke geht von der Auffassung aus, daB die Mensch- heit solche Werke aufgehoben hat, die ihre Fortschritte in der Richtung auf immer kraftigere, zartere und kiihnere Humanitat kunstlerisch gestalteten. Clearly emphasizing content, Brecht concludes: "Die Wieder gabe betont also die fortschrittlichen Ideen der klassischen 22 Werke." Commenting specifically on producing Moliere, Brecht wrote during the same period (1954): Wie soli man Molifere spielen? Wie den "Don Juan"? Ich denke, die Antwort muB sein: So, wie er nach moglichst genauer Prufung des Textes unter Beriicksichtigung der Dokumente von Molitres Zeit und seiner Stellung zu dieser Zeit gespielt werden muB. Das heiBt, man darf ihn nicht verdrehen, verfalschen, schlau ausdeuten; man darf niqht spatere Gesichtspunkte iiber die seinen stellen und so weiter. 22Schriften. VII, 342. 80 Then, with absolutely no awareness of the non sequitur, Brecht continues: Die marxistische Betrachtungsweise, zu der wir uns be- kennen, fuhrt bei groBen Dichtwerken nicht zu einer FeststeHung ihrer Schwachen, sondern ihrer Starken. Diese Betrachtungsweise raumt mit den Restaurierungen, Verfalschungen und Entstellungen auf, die in Verfalls- epochen durch das Eingehen auf schlechteren Geschmack oder durch (bewuBte oder unbewuBte) Versuche der herr- schenden Klasse, sich durch eine selbstgefallige und selbstherrliche "Interpretierung" von Meisterwerken zu vergmigen, diese beschadigt haben.^ Brecht obviously saw no contradiction in his immediately subscribing to a Marxist interpretation of the plays after having said specifically "man darf nicht spatere Gesichts- punkte uber die seinen stellen." Nor did he seem to recog nize that he himself was now a member of the "ruling class" and that his own productions at his own lavishly supported state theatre were "eine selbstgefallige und selbstherrliche 'Interpretierung' von Meisterwerken." If the imposition of later viewpoints on a work damages the masterwork, our final question must surely be: is it possible that Brecht himself has "beschadigt" those plays which he reworked to fit the Marxist point of view? The final Berliner Ensemble rework ing of Don Juan, for instance, is a clear example of the 23Schriften, vi, 361. 81 deliberate imposition of Brecht's point of view on Moliere's play. The same imposition is clearly visible in the re working of Coriolanus. Brecht was perfectly aware of Shakespeare's attitude towards the plebeians and deliberate ly excised this attitude. In his work on Antigone he sliced and reshaped to make the material fit his own Marxist vi sion. In Pauken und Tromoeten he substituted for the gen eralized barbs of Farquhar his own specific class interpre tation of the events of the play. Doing all this, he de molished not only his own contention that plays must not be slyly reshaped but also his own hypothesis that the works have survived by reason of their extra-literary, socially progressive content. If he had to consistently insert such "content" himself, it would seem that the classic works did not possess this quality in sufficient measure. If this be so, we are back again to a question which Brecht never managed to answer: wherein does their greatness lie? Committed to his egalitarian social theory and, with this, to his basic theory that all art is simply craft and all artists simply craftsmen, Brecht left himself no answer to the question of why then some pieces of craftsmanship survive while others are speedily forgotten. Brecht simply had to observe: "Es hat wenig Sinn, iiber das nachshake- 82 spearische Drama zu sprechen, da es ausnahmslos viel 24 schwacher ist ..." The question of why, in the period of Henslowe, one of the great periods of joint or collective works, Shakespeare's Rp>arbp»itungen should tower so over those of the workers in Henslowe's playwriting collective, remains totally unanswered, as does the question of why the works of Hardy, Garrick, the pieces d'occasion (that failed to survive beyond the occasion) of the Jesuits and the Spaniards, or the works of Cardinal Richelieu's playwriting collective have not survived as anything but historical curiosities and literary monstrosities. The obvious answer, that the works of Shakespeare transcend craft while the works of hundreds of other theatrical craftsmen fail to do so, was not an admissible answer in Brecht's system. With such an answer, the theory of craft collapses and one must bring back (as Brecht himself so often did) the pedestal and the laurel wreath. The final evaluative question with reference to Brecht's own Bearbeitungen must be one that ignores Brecht's untenable view of all Bearbeitungen as craft and which seeks to discover whether the Bearbeitunoen of Brecht belong with those of Shakespeare, Goethe, Kleist, 24Schriften. I, 103. 83 Molifere, and Euripides, or might more justly be classed with those of Cardinal Richelieu's and Philip Henslowe's play writing collectives. It is surely fairest to Brecht to conclude with Wellek and Warren that: It is simply impossible to rely on the study of the intentions of an author, as they might not even repre sent an accurate commentary on his work, and at their best are not more than such a commentary.^5 It is not really surprising that Brecht's own confused and confusing theories as to the function of Bearbeitung and as to what constitutes a "reworking" should carry over into the criticism on his work. Just as in Brecht's own "the ory," the most contradictory points of view are presented by the critics. Brecht is and is not "original." He did and did not make "significant" (in the dual sense of no ticeable and enduring) changes in his reworkings of earlier plays. The tone of criticism ranges from righteous indigna tion at Brecht's borrowed feathers to paeans of praise for work that has, supposedly, saved the originals from extinc tion . A survey of Brecht scholarship in the area of the Bearbeitungen leads to the lamentable conclusion that, 25Theorv of Literature, p. 137. 84 though scholarship abounds in this as in virtually every other area of Brecht study, very little of this work is any more logical, unbiased, and useful than Brecht's own theo ries on the topic. Far too much of this scholarship is, as Grimm points out, characterized by "Unwissenschaftlichkeit" 26 which, in turn, leads to "falsche Ergebnisse." I must agree when Grimm says very reasonably: Brauchbare Ergebnisse sind allerdings hier wie uberall nur dann zu erwarten, wenn die Forschung mit dem Willen zur Objektivitat an Brechts Werk herantritt und sich endlich aller politischen, ideologischen und wissen- schaftlichen Vorurteile enthalt. Das gilt fur den Osten wie fur den Westen. (p. 78) The ideal criticism which Grimm calls for and which his own work, at its best, exemplifies is rare indeed. In all the criticism in this area there is far too little that (1) is based on close examination of primary texts, (2 ) is properly cognizant of earlier work in various languages in the same problem area, (3) is unbiased politically, (4) attempts judgments of value as to the revised plays as artistic wholes, (5) pays careful attention to the actual staging of the plays, (6 ) notes intermediary translations and post- ^6Reinhold Grimm, Bertolt Brecht, zweite Auflage (Stuttgart, 1963), p. 78. Hereafter given as Grimm, Bertolt Brecht. Not to be confused with Grimm, Weltliteratur. 85 publication revision of the plays, and (7) carefully exam ines the context of borrowed materials and the changes which this new context often makes. An examination of the major criticism in the area of the theory of the Bearbeitungen will, I trust, reveal the aptness of my strictures on the critical theory. The critic Liithy, basing his argument on the contention that Brecht "himself never created a plot," and that as a Communist he seriously depleted his creative talent, goes on to conclude that Brecht's major contribution in the area of 27 reworking was as a director rather than as a playwright. The fact that many another dramatist, including some of the very greatest, never really created a plot either should warn us against acceptance of Mr. Liithy's too facile con clusion. Also arguing that adherence to Communism is ipso facto destructive of talent is the radically right-oriented 28 work of Otto Mann. As difficult to accept as the scholarship from the far 27H . Liithy, "Of Poor Bert Brecht," Encounter. XXXIV (July 1965), 47; German version of same article, "Von armen Bert Brecht," Der Monat (May 1952). 28Mass oder Mvthos; Ein kritischer Beitrag iiber die Schaustiicke Bertolt Brechts (Heidelberg, 1958). Cited here after as Mann, Mass oder Mvthos. 86 right is that emanating from the far left. The Soviet critic Fradkin, an example of this position, writes: Brecht tended to borrow subjects so often and, moreover, to parody them because he found this a profitable and very flexible way to stimulate the revolutionary aware ness of the masses. Forcing the spectator by means of parody to reconsider critically the common concepts which he has learned in school, Brecht leads him 1 1 via literature" to a critical reexamination of the bases of bourgeois morality and ideology.29 What Fradkin would seem to propose here is that we should view the "bourgeois" text as thesis, Brecht's play as anti thesis, and the result of this clash (in the mind of the alert and well-read playgoer) as synthesis. This position, with its presupposition that the average playgoer actually retains so clear a memory of the original play that parody of it will be generally recognized, seems to me unreason able. Though it is, of course, possible so to overplay a text that parody is obvious, we are dealing then with the work of the director rather than the literary Bearbeiter. Despite some admirable detailed analysis, Fradkin fails to offer either sufficient evidence that spectators do gener ally recognize literary parody, or that parody in the re workings is part of the text rather than being simply ^Fradkin in Demetz, £rech£, p. 102. 87 dependent on staging. Though his general conclusions may fail, Fradkin*s close textual comparisons deserve praise and attention. Writing on Brecht's Die Rundkopfe und die Spitzkopfe and the model on which it is based, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Fradkin observes: Keeping the plot outline of Shakespeare's comedy almost intact, Brecht parodies all its elements. Impure and self-seeking love unites Nana with de Guzman— blackmail on one hand, material calculation on the other. Isa bella does not turn to a priest for advice but to the owner of a brothel. Not the loving, abandoned wife goes to the rendezvous in place of Isabella, but a prostitute whom she hires . . . and so on fsic 1. And all these parodied situations taken together emphasize and strengthen Brecht's ideologically tinged message, the red thread woven through the entire play. Brecht re fuses to recognize universal meaning free of class dis tinctions in the feelings or moral categories advertised in bourgeois society. (p. 101) Failing, unfortunately, to go on to a literary evaluation of the play after having extracted a "fortschrittliche" meaning from the text changes, Fradkin simply concludes: ". . . Brecht's parody is a form of social satire, and its object is not essentially literature, but bourgeois soci- 30 ety. . . ." (p. 101). Such a conclusion leaves the liter ary merits, if any, of the Brecht reworking entirely ■^Fradkin's own terminal punctuation. 88 unexplored. Fradkin as Marxist ends his examination of the literary text at precisely the point that the examination comes to the brink of critical or aesthetic judgment. Hans Kaufmann in his Bertolt Brecht; Geschichtsdrama und Parabelstiick devotes a chapter to Brecht' s " Stuckbear- 31 beitungen und theoretische Studien nach 1945." Pushing, as is so often the case with Communist criticism, politics to the fore, Kaufmann writes of the post-1945 Bearbeitungen; Die qualitativ neuen Ziige im Schaffen des spaten Brecht beruhen auf der qualitativ neuen Rolle der Volksmassen in Deutschland beim Aufbau der antifaschistisch-demokra- tischen Ordnung und des Sozialismus. (p. 239) Or, as he notes of Brecht's work on Coriolan; Dafi Brecht hier nicht nur wie eh und je fur das Volk und gegen die Ausbeuter Stellung nimmt, sondern die konkrete Situation des Kampfes in der DDR gegen den westdeutschen Militarismus vor Augen hatte und mit seiner aktualisierenden Bearbeitung die Politik der DDR zu unterstiitzen beabsichtigte, ist gar nicht zu ubersehen. (p. 225) Kaufmann's political orientation has here led him to an insight having aesthetic validity. I agree completely that it is impossible to overlook the fact that Coriolan (and, in my opinion, several other Bearbeitungen also) has a clear •^(Berlin, 1962), pp. 195-239. Hereafter cited as Kaufmann, Brecht. 89 political point to make. This point is often (as I shall show in my detailed discussion of texts) so obtrusive as to ruin the plays as aesthetic constructs. Equally perceptive are Kaufmann's remarks on how Brecht brings this political viewpoint to the fore. Kaufmann writes: Allen Bearbeitungen Brechts ist gemeinsam, daB der Bearbeiter dem bearbeiteten Werk neuen Text hinzuge- fiigt hat, der den Sinn in einer dem alten Autor fremden Richtung abandert. (p. 220) Kaufmann's insights into the political objectives of the Bearbeitungen are sound but he is probably right for what, in the West, would be considered the wrong reasons. Clearly aware of the didactic intent of the later plays and agreeing with what is being taught, Kaufmann has little time or in terest for the aesthetic question of how successful are or are not Brecht's casting of political problems in the dra- 32 matic medium. To end my examination of Kaufmann on a positive note, however, I must mention his insight into the 3^That Kaufmann sees these plays as presenting a par ticular point of view and that Brecht was here consciously teaching this viewpoint, i.e., that the post-19.45 Bearbei- tunaen should be viewed almost as Lehr stiicke. is plain when he speaks of: "Das Bestreben des Lehrers, sein Wissen und seine poetische Kraft in den Dienst der Arbeiterklasse und des Volkes zu stellen ..." (Kaufmann, Brecht, p. 195). 90 fact that Brecht's observations on his own theory of Bear- 33 beituna make little logical sense. Less skilled in textual analysis than either Fradkin or Kaufmann and even more dogmatic in his left-wing extra- literary demands on the texts of the Bearbeitungen is the East German critic, Pauli. In his 1956 Staatsexamen Arbeit on Brecht's reworkings of plays of Lenz, Moliere, and Far- quhar he comments: Mit ihnen und einer Reihe weiterer Werke hat Brecht demonstriert, was er unter kritischer Aneignung des literarischen Erbes versteht, kein Aufkochen von "schlecht konserviertem Fleisch durch scharfe Gewiirze und Saucen", sondern ein Auffinden der progressiven Ideen in den alten Werken, die dem neuen Publikum, den "Kindern des wissenschaftlichen Zeitalters" pro- duktive Unterhaltung gewahren k o n n e n . ^4 Again the search for "progressive ideas" removes the evalu ation of the texts from the realm of literary analysis into that of speculative sociology. Given this bias, with its ignorance (in a dual sense) of literary value, it is not altogether surprising that Pauli should conclude his com parative study with the contention: "In den drei hier 3^See particularly Kaufmann, Brecht. pp. 198ff. 34h . Pauli, "Brechts Bearbeitungen von klassischen Dramen," Staatsexamen Arbeit (Berlin, 1956). BBA 1650/81. 91 betrachteten Bearbeitung hat Brecht die Originale . . . weit hinter sich gelassen . . ." (p. 81). Literary and/or the atrical values also play second fiddle to politics and propaganda in the short article, "Coriolanus: Plutarch- Shakespeare-Brecht," by the East German critic, Jurgen Kuczynski. In Kuczynski's view, Brecht's treatment of the Coriolanus theme is better than that of Shakespeare because "... nicht nur versteht Shakespeare nicht die historische Rolle des VoIkes. Shakespeare mag das Volk auch nicht 35 . . ." For Kuczynski, Brecht's elevation of the role of the plebeians by making them more intelligent and more "progressive" automatically makes the Brecht play a better one than Shakespeare's "reactionary" piece. A more subtle form of bias and a somewhat more sensi tive appraisal of the revised texts as literature is re vealed in Martin Esslin's major book, Brecht; The Man and His Work. Perhaps the clearest revelation of Esslin's bias lies in his statement of intention; . . . my concern is to explain the relationship between Brecht's poetic genius and political convictions through ^ Forschen und Wirken. Festschrift zur 150-Jahr-Feier der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Band III (Berlin, 1960), 587. 92 an analysis of the psychological foundations of his personality revealed in the imagery of his poetry.36 Seeking to use the works to construct a psychogram of the man, Esslin ends up devoting very little time indeed to detailed studies of the plays. Esslin's hazy and careless view of the texts concerned leads him sometimes not only to flatly erroneous views of the relationship of the reworked text to the original, but also to clear misinterpretations of major characters. Word for word borrowings are, for Esslin, simply borrowings; he has no notion that new con text may modify old materials. Despite my many objections to Esslin's study, I nevertheless do agree with Esslin's observation concerning Brecht's lifelong interest in modi fying the work of other writers: "Brecht loved to adapt and to modify the work of others. He needed the challenge of another mind to get the best from his own talent" (p. 116). I do not agree, however, with Esslin's careless generaliza tion, "... while the Shakespearean models are used with reverence and admiration, the German classics are always ruthlessly parodied" {p. 116). Often (particularly in the early years) Brecht treated Shakespeare with scant respect. •^Esslin, Brecht. p. xiii. 93 Often he was at least as respectful to German classics as he was to Shakespeare. Like the work of Esslin, John Willett's The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht; A Study from Eight Aspects, though it does provide us with a many-facted portrait of Brecht, offers little in the way of close textual analysis and almost nothing helpful on Brecht's preoccupation with Bearbeitung. Basically, Willett's position in this topic area is summed up when he states that Brecht "remains overwhelmingly him- 37 self despite the use of many models." Another writer who fails to make close textual compari sons yet offers a clear verdict on the role of Bearbeitung 3 8 in Brecht's literary career is Richard Beckley. So close is Beckley's notion of the reworking as parodistic Geqen- stiick to Fradkin's thesis, antithesis, synthesis idea that Beckley's arguments can be dismissed on the same grounds as 37Willett, Theatre, p. 124. 3®See R. J. Beckley, "Some Aspects of Brecht^s Dramatic Technique in the Light of His Adaptation of English Plays," unpub. master's thesis (King's College, London University, 1961). See also a shortened and polished version of the above: Richard Beckley, "Adaptation as a Feature of Brecht's Dramatic Technique," German Li^e and Letters. XV (1962), 274-284. Incorrectly ascribed to Beckenley in Grimm, Bertolt Brecht, p. 102. 94 those with which I dismissed Fradkin. I doubt that the requisite memory and sensitivity of the playgoer that the theory demands is actually very often to be found among any group other than Brecht scholars such as Fradkin and Beck ley. My strictures on the theory of these two writers apply with equal force to the conclusion of Wendy Michener, who writes: Adapting Marlowe, Moliere, Farquhar, Shakespeare, Sopho cles, Gorki and others, was, for Brecht, a means of learning the playwright's craft, and of gaining irony by the contrast with the original work.39 Even if we might think of the early adaptations as a means for Brecht to learn the playwright's craft, it is difficult to view the reworkings done in the very last years of Brecht's life in this light. One further subscriber to the 40 parody theory is Sonnenfeld. He argues the case for parody no better than do Fradkin, Beckley, and Michener. Lion Feuchtwanger, due both to his long friendship with Brecht and to the fact that he worked with Brecht on play adaptation, should be worth our closest attention on the 39"The Plays of Bertolt Brecht," Queens Quarterly. LXVII (1960), 365. 40sonnenfeld, "Brecht's Eclecticism." See supra. In troduction, footnote 2 . 95 topic of Brecht's reworkings. Unfortunately, however, apart from some valuable historical information on how he and Brecht worked together, Feuchtwanger offers little more than a highly generalized and laudatory view of Brecht's Bear- beituncren The best known and (in my view) soundest German commen tator on the role of Bearbeituno in Brecht's work is Rein hold Grimm. Both in his Brecht und die Weltliteratur and in his descriptive bibliography, Bertolt Brecht, he provides valuable insights into the problems raised both by compara tive themes in Brecht and by studies of these themes. Though Grimm does not delve very far into the comparative problems which he outlines, he succeeds admirably in the task he sets himself. He says of his two major books: Sie mochten weiterer Forschung als Anregung dienen und bemiihen sich deswegen vor allem darum, die notwendigen Fragen zu stellen, weniger darum, sie bereits zu losen.42 Viewed as guides to further study, Grimm's works are un surpassed. I do have, however, some small quarrels with him. For Grimm, taking over passages wortlich would seem 4^See, however, Frau Feuchtwanger' s helpful comments cited in footnote 19 of Chapter I, supra. 42Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 5. 96 to constitute an unaltered borrowing (pp. 38, 45, 49, 55). Of somewhat more value, it seems to me, than Grimm's some what oversimplified view of word for word borrowings is his general statement on Brecht's practice in reworking texts. In a partially accurate and useful insight, Grimm observes: "Brecht verandert, indem er im formalen Bereich episiert und im inhaltlichen ideologisiert" (p. 76). With a slight re definition of what Grimm means by "episiert," I feel that this remark of Grimm is an accurate reflection of Brecht's real and theoretical approach to Bearbeituna. Though the corpus of Brecht scholarship is now so vast that a descriptive bibliography just of studies in the area of the theory of the Bearbeitunaen would approach book length, I must, having covered the major points of view, cut short my examination of secondary materials and plunge 43 now into the texts themselves. Wellek and Warren are no doubt correct when they write that: "The natural and sen sible starting point for work in literary scholarship is the interpretation and analysis of the works of literature 43see my notes on Brecht bibliography at the close of my Introduction. 97 44 themselves." It is unfortunate that they offer no rea sonable way to cut through the dense thickets of modern bibliography to get at the primary texts directly. They are on safer ground when they speak of biography standing be tween the critic and the work. I think particularly of Esslin and Willett as guilty parties when I read: After all, only the works themselves justify all our interest in the life of an author, in his social en vironment and the whole process of literature. But, curiously enough, literary history has been so pre occupied with the setting of a work of literature that its attempts at an analysis of the works themselves have been slight in comparison with the enormous ef forts expended on the study of environment. (p. 127) Their general comment is a wholly apt appraisal of the relative emphases of Brecht scholarship. The rest of this study will be devoted to an attempt to redress this balance somewhat. 44Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, p. 127. CHAPTER III MARLOWE AND BRECHT In 1923, while Brecht was still working on Im Dickicht der Stadte.^ a play described by Martin Esslin as one which "anticipates the plays of Beckett, Ionesco, and Adamov, which it resembles by its insistence on the impossibility 2 of communication,1 1 he began work with Lion Feuchtwanger on a Bearbeitung or Nachdichtuna of Christopher Marlowe's Ed ward II. The Brecht-Feuchtwanger version of Edward II. Leben Eduards des Zweiten von England (hereafter to be re ferred to as simply Eduard) may be thought of as a work sired by Marlowe's play but having Dickicht as its dam. Characteristic of Brecht in this early period is his heightening (in line with his own preoccupations) of the ^■This play is also, as Grimm has noted (We It li t er atur. pp. 11-12) a Bearbeitung. It is based in part on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, ^Esslin, Brecht. p. 280. 98 99 theme of homosexuality which he finds in the original, but his excision of the romantic heroism and baroque verbal splendor of the original in order to bring it closer to his own preoccupation with the anti-heroic and anti-romantic in drama and language, Reading the coarsened language of Brecht alongside the baroque prodigality of Marlowe, one is reminded of Brecht's placards for his 1922 production of Trommeln in der Nacht which read: "Glotzt nicht so roman- tisch.1,3 It must be noted, however, that the play which Brecht, in conjunction with Lion Feuchtwanger, produced in 1923 actually stayed far closer to Marlowe's text than does the play which is our main concern here, the final version, revised in 1924 and then reprinted (with only insignificant changes) in the thirteen-volume edition of the Stiicke. In teresting though an internal comparison of the two Brecht- Feuchtwanger versions might be, such a comparison lies be yond the scope and intention of this study. One problem that is germane to this study, however, is the contribution of Feuchtwanger to the joint text. Brecht himself comments: "Dieses Stuck schrieb ich mit Lion 3Stiiska, I, 118. 100 4 Feuchtwanger." On the relative contrxbution of the two writers, Feuchtwanger, in a letter written in May, 1958 to Peter Palitzsch, writes: Die Verteilung der Arbeit war etwa so: ich griff nur sehr sacht ein ins Sprachliche, wahrend sich Brecht in meine Vorschlage iiber Hand lungs fiihrung, Komposition und dergleichen fiigte. Sie wissen ja, daft Brecht heftige Debatten liebte, und es kam oft zu Kampfen sowohl iiber Sprachliches— wenn namlich Brecht allzu souveran mit der Grammatik schaltete— und andernteils, wenn Brecht auf wohlgelungene Szenen, die wenig mit der Handlung zu tun hatten, nicht verzichten wollte.5 Because of Feuchtwanger's modest appraisal of his own part in the work, the critic Tailleur goes so far as to say: In folgenden darf also nur von Brecht die Rede sein, da er doch die aktive Rolle bei der Arbeit gehabt und sich nicht unbedingt Feuchtwangers Vorschlcigen geftigt hat. (p. 3) A somewhat different interpretation of the division of labor between the two writers is given by another participant in the events of this period, Marieluise FleiBer, who writes: Die Arbeit scheint so vorgegangen zu sein, daS Brecht zuvor sein Geschriebenes mitbrachte, dies Geschriebene wurde dann gemeinsam von beiden (Brecht und Feuchtwanger— II, 6. 5Cited in Jean Tailleur, "Brecht und das elisabetha- nische Drama" (diss., Paris, 1959), p. 3. Reference found in BBA 1692. 101 E. S. [i.e., Ernst Schumacher]) beklopft. Der Lion war der Eiserne, der viel jiingere Brecht kam noch gern in ein geniales Schludern, und so konnte mir Feuchtwanger verstohnen, Brecht sehe schon nicht mehr, was er mache, er sei jetzt zwei Tage in Augsburg gewesen und habe von dort ganz abscheulich glatte Rhythmen mitgebracht, es sei recht muhsam, das alies wieder aufzurauhen, damit es gehorig holpere, bei Brecht mu&ten die Dinge namlich holpern The available evidence would seem to be somewhat contra dictory and, therefore, the relative contribution of each individual author can no longer be established with very much accuracy. For this reason, I shall treat the text as a joint work, though I shall assume that Brecht's contribu tion to the play was perhaps somewhat greater than that of the older and more experienced writer, Feuchtwanger. Another literary debt owed by Brecht in connection with the reworking of the Marlowe play has been noted by a number of critics even though Brecht himself nowhere makes any mention of it. As both Tailleur and Reinhold Grimm observe, it is indisputable that use was made by Brecht of Heymel's German translation of Marlowe's play. Grimm writes: Als Textvorlage diente den beiden sowohl das englische Original als auch die 1914 erschienene deutsche 6Suddeutsche Zeitung (Munchen, June 8, 1951), p. 2. Cited by Schumacher in Die dramatischen Versuche. p. 83. 102 tJbertragung von Walter Heymel. Die Abhangigkeit von Heymel— sie ist nicht sehr grofl— geht aus wbrtlichen Entsprechungen hervor.7 Clearly demonstrating that Brecht also made direct reference to the English text, Grimm notes: Daft Brecht auch den englischen Text verwendet hat, wird durch seine Beibehaltung sowohl des franzosischen Fluches "Mort dieu" (Marlowe S. 74; Stiicke II, 12), den Heymel (S. 8 ) mit "Gottes Tod" verdeutscht, als auch des ur- spriinglichen Kehrreims "Aheave und Aho" (Stiicke II, 40, Marlowe S. 123: "a heave and a ho") gegen Heymel's un- gliickliches "hu und ho und ha" (S. 48) zur Geniige be- wiesen. Diese Beispiele lieften sich vermehren. (p. 30) Echoing Grimm's conclusion, Tailleur simply observes: Da£ Brecht die Heymelsche Obertragung Eduards als Vor- lage benutzt hat, ist unleugbar. Obwohl er dem Original sehr weit weicht, sind zahlreiche fast gleichlautende Verse aufzufinden I agree with Grimm and with Tailleur that the Brecht- Feuchtwanger play so significantly diverges from Heymel's translation that the literary debt cannot be viewed as a terribly large one. The use without acknowledgment of a translation, however, should alert scholars to the possi bility that this is done with other Bearbeituncen but with 7Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 29. 8Tailleur, BBA 1692/46. 103 less divergence from the translation. Commenting on his reasons for reworking the Marlowe text as given to him directly and indirectly (i.e. in Mar lowe's and in Heymel's texts), Brecht says that he (they) wrote this version "weil ich den Marlowe inszenieren wollte 9 und er nicht ausrexchte." In what way, or for what, Mar lowe's play was insufficient, Brecht does not say. That he recognized the merit of his model despite his vague charge of "insufficiency" is clear from the following comment with its unequivocal praise for the central figure of the Marlowe piece: Das Geheimnis der groBen Dramenfiguren besteht zum Teil darin, dafi sie nahezu jeden Korper haben konnen und Platz fur eine Menge privater Zuge in ihnen ist. . . . Eduard II. z. B. kann ebenso ein starker boser Mann wie ein schwacher guter sein.^9 What Brecht seems to be primarily after in reworking the text is the retention of this central figure with, as we shall see, a radical and probably deliberate misreading of this character, and a free treatment of everything else in the work. 9schrif-fcen, n, 44. 10Schriften. I, 240. 104 We are warned fairly of boldness of textual change to be expected from Brecht when he writes: "Der echte Respekt, den diese Werke verlangen konnen, fordert es, daft wir den scheinheiligen, lippedienerischen, falschen Respekt ent- larven."^ Deceptively less bold is his remark in the same essay: Es gibt eine Tradition der Auffiihrung, die gedankenlos zum kulturellen Erbe gezahlt wird, obwohl sie das Werk, das eigentlich eine Tradition der Schadigung der klassi- schen Werke. Es fallt sozusagen durch Vernachlassigung mehr und mehr Staub auf die groften alten Bilder, und die Kopisten kopieren mehr Oder minder fleifiig diese Staub- flecken mit. (p. 5) Speaking as he does initially of "true" respect, one is prepared for the relative harmlessness of his implied image of himself as simple restorer of the original works. The implied image is, however, totally inappropriate to Brecht's practice both with Eduard and with the other plays which I shall examine in this study. Brecht, the simple restorer, very often becomes Brecht, the deliberate eliminator not only of the "Staubflecken" but of the old pictures them selves and the imposer of new pictures on old canvases. Almost invariably he adds new figures, eliminates figures, ^Brecht, "Einschuchterung durch die Klassizitat," Stiicke. XI, 8 . 105 and blithely alters the entire aesthetic, moral, and meta physical balance of the entire original pictures. If Brecht had actually worked in the field his analogy points to, it would be necessary to condemn his practice as simple van dalism allied with stunning megalomania. As it is, however, because of the nature of the dramatic medium, his slashing revisions become perfectly acceptable because the original remains unharmed. Working with the drama, Brecht's sover eign artistic will is at least as welcome as the simple restorer's more modest intentions. Among critics who compare Marlowe's work with the Brecht-Feuchtwanger Bearbeitung of it, there is substantial agreement that it is Brecht and Feuchtwanger as sovereign artists rather than as humble artisans who did the rework ing. As Reinhold Grimm observes: Das Leben Eduards ist eine so freie und unabhangige Nachgestaltung, daft dem Marioweschen Drama auf weite Strecken nur noch reiner Stoffcharakter zukommt, nichts anders, als ob Brecht Holinsheds Chronicles of England selber als Quelle beniitzt hatte.^2 Aware though of the cursoriness of his examination of the two texts, Grimm notes: 12Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 30. 106 Es muB freilich kiinftigen Untersuchungen vorbehalten bleiben, das Verhaltnis solcher und ahnlicher Texte zueinander genauer zu interpretieren. (pp. 32-33) Equally cursory but less conscious of the limitations of his work is Martin Esslin. Commenting in a general way on the play and blundering generally in his reading of emphasis and character, Esslin maintains: The plot has been concentrated and coarsened so that the relationship between Edward and Gaveston, which Marlowe treats with a certain amount of discretion, becomes an openly homosexual infatuation.13 Actually, it is difficult to see how Marlowe might have been less discreet with the homosexual relationship at the heart of his play. Further, "homosexual infatuation" (with an emphasis on the temporary, arbitrary, and foolish connota tions of "infatuation"), though certainly applicable to the king in Marlowe's text, is not really applicable (as I hope to demonstrate) to Brecht's king. Esslin is somewhat closer to the truth when he says that the story in Brecht is told without any political or social moral, . . . merely as an illustration of the futility of human ambition and the blind turnings of the wheel of fortune. (p. 281) In opposition to Esslin's view of the play as asocial and l^Esslin, Brecht, p. 280. 107 amoral, and, like Esslin's view, partly true and partly false, the English critic Gray contends that in this play the principal character seeks to apply his capacity for amoral action to a useful end, the transformation of society. Mortimer in this version is a kind of early intellectual revolutionary who opposes the King in the interests of the English working class . . . Laboulle, in an article in the Modern Language Review, presents as negative a view of the play as that of Martin Esslin cited above. Laboulle says flatly: "The philosophy of the play is negative, the conflicts lack any metaphysical reference."My reservations about Esslin's blanket state ment apply with equal force to that of Laboulle. I fully agree with Laboulle, however, when she writes: "The adapta tion is nothing if not bold: so bold, in fact, as to be virtually an original work" (p. 214). Or, as she says at another point: One thing is clear from a comparison of Marlowe's play with Brecht's: Brecht has turned Marlowe entirely to his own ends. Eduard II is, we might say, the play which he intended to write, whatever his model may have been. (pp. 219-220) 14Ronald Gray, Bertolt Brecht (New York, 1961), p. 43. 15L. J. Laboulle, "A Note on Bertolt Brecht's Adapta tion of Marlowe's Edward II." MLR. LIV (1959), 220. 108 I agree much less (as will be seen in my close analysis of the texts) with Laboulle's interpretations of character in the play. The East German critic, Schumacher, in contrast to his studies of other Brecht plays of the early period, is care less and unsound in his treatment of this one. I see little reason, for instance, for his contention that the Brecht- Feuchtwanger Bearbeitung of Marlowe also draws on material from Shakespeare's Richard II. Though the king in Shake speare's play is indeed similar to the king in Marlowe, there is no evidence that Brecht needed to delve into Shakespeare's play for any element whatsoever for his own play. Considering Schumacher's usual carefulness, it is odd to note also that he nowhere mentions the fact that the Stiicke version of the Brecht play differs appreciably from the late 1923 version. Considering, too, the multitude of changes that Brecht works in the major characters of the play and in the metaphysical tone of the piece, it is a little strange to find Schumacher maintaining: Die Bearbeitung durch Brecht brachte zunachst eine Straffung der sehr umfangreichen, komplizierten und wortreichen Marloweschen Fassung, ohne jedoch das Wesentliche zu verandern. 109 It would appear that Schumacher, a Marxist critic who always seeks "fortschrittliche" meaning in Brecht's plays, is simply baffled by a play that just does not lend itself to nice clear-cut political interpretation. Perhaps this is why he hastens out of the difficult area of the play's "ideological weaknesses" into an excellent formal analysis of the philological bases of the play's frequently stunning effects. Accounting for much of the deliberate formal raw ness of the play's language, Schumacher writes: Zu den besonderen Mitteln gehort hier die Voranstellung des Genitivs, die Trennung des Genitivs vom Nominativ, das Weglassen der bestimmten und unbestimmten Artikel sowie der Fiirworter und Endungsvokale. Die Sprache besteht aus zahlreichen Hauptwbrtern und Infinitiven, Gerundien, Partizipien und Adjektiven, die in Substan- tiva verwandelt sind. Die Satzstellung erinnert an wbrtliche tJbersetzungen aus fremden Sprachen. (p. 89) Though this brief survey of major criticism on the relationship of the two plays is by no means exhaustive, it does, I believe, cover the major points of view and serve to introduce my comparative discussion of the texts them selves. Additional reference to the critics will 16Schumacher, Die dramatischen Versuche. p. 83. 110 necessarily be made wherever pertinent to my examination of particular points in the primary texts. Turning now first to changes in the plot or fable, we find several things. Young and Old Mortimer have been in combined in Brecht. In Brecht's version of the events, nine years elapse between the outbreak of civil war and the death of the king's favorite, Gaveston. In Marlowe, this time span is unclear and possibly quite short. Brecht never does have his king abdicate, nor does his king ever give way to the earls and give up his favorite. These deceptively few and seemingly minor changes in the main line of the piece give little hint of the fundamental changes in char acter of individuals and in the metaphysical character of the whole play that Brecht has achieved. However, a major clue to the tone changes made by Brecht is provided when he states: Wir wollten eine Auffuhrung ermoglichen, die mit der Shakespearetradition der deutschen Buhnen brechen sollte, jenem gipsig monumentalen Stil, der den Spie£- biirgern so teuer ist. In order to smash the plaster monument style, Brecht, as one reviewer complained, placed "ein Konigsdrama im Ill 18 Hinterhof." A further clue to the semi-justification (though no justification is, of course, needed) by Brecht of the transferral of the playing locale of the piece is given in Brecht's view of the character of the king as being "ganz unfixiert." What Brecht would seem to mean by this is partly explained when he continues, the king in Marlowe "kann ebenso ein starker boser Mann wie ein schwacher guter 19 sein." From his reworking, it is clear that Brecht views the king as being quite strong. From Marlowe's text, how ever, it only seems possible to draw (as the arguments which follow will show) a weak, fickle, vacillating man. The king in Marlowe has almost no mind of his own. When, for instance, the Archbishop of Canterbury asks the king if he consents to Gaveston's exile, the king replies: "I see I must, and therefore am content: Instead of ink 20 I'll write it with my tears. (Subscribes)." Then, once the peers and the Archbishop are safely out of earshot, the l^Tailleur, BBA 1692/36. Unfortunately, Tailleur gives no notion of the name of this perceptive reviewer nor any idea of where and when the review appeared. 19Sehriften. I, 240. 20Christopher Marlowe, Edward the Second in Christopher. Marlowe: Five Plays, , ed. Havelock Ellis (New York, 1956), Act I, scene iv, p. 279. 1X2 king rails: Proud Rome; that hatchest such imperial grooms, For these thy superstitious taper-lights, Wherewith thy antichristian churches blaze, I'll fire thy crazed buildings, and enforce The papal towers to kiss the lowly ground'. With slaughtered priests make Tiber's channel swell, And banks raised higher with their sepulchres'. (I, iv, pp. 279-280) The soaring, mighty line for which Marlowe is justly famous, though it sounds magnificent and appropriate in the mouth of a Faustus, a Tamburlaine, a Barabas, or even in the mouth of Young Mortimer in Edward II. sounds only comical and pathet ic in the mouth of Edward, a man largely incapable of carry ing out any of the bloodcurdling threats he utters. To hear Edward use the mighty line is like hearing Thersites use the words of Agamemnon or Achilles. The contrast between Ed ward's mighty words and his puny deeds comes out most clearly in one battlefield scene where Young Spencer urges the king to fly and Edward replies: What', was I born to fly and run away, And leave the Mortimers conquerors behind? Give me my horse, and let's reinforce our troops: And in this bed of honour die with fame. To which another companion of the king, Baldwin, responds: 0 no, my lord, this princely resolution Fits not the time? away*, we are pursued. (IV, v, p. 318) 113 At which point, the resolute prince flees ignominiously. It might be argued that a significant exception in Marlowe's play to Edward's otherwise chronically weak and vacillating behavior occurs in the first battle of the play. I say perhaps because Edward's own part in this first battle is totally unclear in Marlowe. All we know is that the king's forces actually win. Whether they win because of or in spite of their monarch, we are never told. Young Morti mer obviously does not have a very high opinion of the king's prowess on the battlefield for, at one point, he exclaims scornfully and directly to the king: When wert thou in the field with banner spread, But once? and then thy soldiers marched like players, With garish robes, not armour; and thyself, Bedaubed with gold, rode laughing at the rest, Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest, Where women's favours hung like labels down. (II, ii, p. 295) A similar vision of Marlowe's king as fop rather than war rior is presented by Gaveston at the very beginning of the play. The king’s favorite, after having rejected a plea by three rough soldiers for employment, says, and his words are a reflected portrait of the king: These are not men for me: I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string 114 May draw the pliant king which way I please. Music and poetry is his delight? Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night, Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows; And in the day, when he shall walk abroad, Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad; My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay. Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape, With hair that gilds the water as it glides, Crownets of pearl about his naked arms, And in his sportful hands an olive-tree, To hide those parts which men delight to see, Shall bathe him in a spring. . . . (I, i, p. 270) The pursuit of pleasure, with a strong preference, obvious ly, for homosexual pleasure, and a rejecting of the demands of responsibility of his high office, characterize this wanton, pliant, and perhaps tragic king of Marlowe's pen. Marlowe's portrait is a magnificent one of the court fop with jaded appetites and slack will. It is difficult indeed to see in this man the potentially strong man Brecht claims to find there. The weakness of will of Edward, shown already in his reluctant banishment of Gaveston and his being persuaded to fly the battlefield, is matched by other forms of weakness in a number of scenes in the play. In one scene, the king says to the lords of State and Church: Make several kingdoms of this monarchy, And share it equally amongst you all, 115 So I may have some nook or corner left, To frolic with my dearest Gaveston. (p. 279) Then, when asked why he should want to go so far for his favorite, the king replies: "Because he loves me more than all the world" (I, iv, p. 279). The Gaveston of Marlowe's play, with his cynical ambition to "draw the pliant king which way" he pleases, sounds more like a cynical oppor tunist than a man who genuinely loves the king. The king is probably wrong in assuming Gaveston1s love for him, as indeed Gaveston may be wrong in assuming that the king genu inely loves him. One significant development in the play makes the king's "love" appear as little, if anything, more than a homosexual passion largely indifferent to any quality but sexual attractiveness and, the condition of attractive ness being met, indifferent as to the object of that pas sion. It will be remembered that when Gaveston first re turns from exile, the king shows his love for his favorite thus: I here create thee Lord High Chamberlain, Chief Secretary to the state and me, Earl of Cornwall, King and Lord of Man. (I, i, p. 273) These honors, far exceeding, as the king's brother protests, 116 Gaveston's worth and birth, are obviously given to Gaveston only because of the king's "love" of him. Yet, precisely at the moment at which he hears of the death of Gaveston, the king, after railing in his usual bombastic manner at the earls who have killed his favorite, turns to Young Spencer and says: And in this place of honour and of trust, Spencer, sweet Spencer, I adopt thee here: And merely of our love do we create thee Earl of Gloucester, and Lord Chamberlain, Despite of times, despite of enemies. (Ill, i, pp. 308-309) It would seem that Gaveston is instantly replaceable. The clear implication in Marlowe is that one homosexual love object is to be replaced by another. Even in his homosexual loves the king is fickle. The only area in which he is con sistent at all, it would seem, is in his devotion to homo sexual passion itself. If Gaveston is really not loved, the king's offer to give up the kingdom so that he can keep his love might be offered as evidence of another weakness of the king: his chronic lack of foresight in this matter. It is clear in Marlowe's play that the earls are actually willing to tol erate the king's sexual quirks as long as he does not in fringe on their positions or ruin the kingdom in gratifying 117 his urges. Indeed, the Elder Mortimer cites classical precedent to justify the king's behavior and urges caution and forbearance on the earls: Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible, And promiseth as much as we can wish, Freely enjoy that vain, light-headed early For riper years will wean him from such toys. (I, iv, p. 287) Not content with the passion itself, however, the king must ruin the kingdom for his favorite, allow Gaveston to insult earls and clergy, and thus force himself into the absurd position of offering to divide the kingdom among the earls "so that he can have some nook or corner left,/ To frolic with his Gaveston." Had the king shown the least spark of common sense earlier, he could obviously have had (if the Elder Mortimer is to be believed) both kingdom and nook and corner for his homosexual frolics. By his shortsightedness (attributable perhaps, as the Elder Mortimer suggests, to his youth), he stands to lose the kingdom and, a point of even more importance perhaps, by so doing virtually doom the Plantagenet line to extinction. When one turns to the Brecht-Feuchtwanger Eduard and compares him with the monarch just described, one is amazed by two seemingly contradictory elements in the German text. 118 On one hand one sees at once that the king (as have the other characters) has undergone a complete transformation of character. On the other hand, one immediately notes that a great deal of the original (Marlowe-Heymel) dialogue has been retained, and retained in a form close enough to the original as to suggest only moderate alteration. It is this paradox, it seems to me, that is at the very heart of Brecht's reworkings of Marlowe and of other authors. Many critics, ignoring this paradox, have been led to maintain, in black and white terms, that the Brecht of the Bearbei- tuncren must be either wholly original or wholly unoriginal. In contrast, I maintain that in each case, even in the case of word-for-word borrowings, these borrowings must be placed in context, must be adjudged against the backdrop of the total aesthetic gestalt, must be scrutinized for the type of paradoxical originality (change without change) which the play exhibits, and the whole play must, finally, be qualitatively adjudged as good, bad, or indifferent aes thetic construct. To return to the specific paradox of vast change achieved with little change in the character of Eduard, we find a major clue to this paradoxical achievement in the fact that Brecht-Feuchtwanger have largely closed the gap 119 which I mentioned earlier, the gap between the mighty line of Edward and his minute achievements. In Eduard, we have a man who speaks fewer mighty lines, makes fewer mighty threats, but usually carries out what he says he plans to do. By toning down the baroque prodigality of the king's language, by having him commit fewer weak acts, by never allowing him to be persuaded of anything by flatterers or anyone else, and by giving the king a generally ruder tone than that found in Marlowe, the reworkers make the new king a strong man, a man who, though he still speaks many of the "same" lines as his model, speaks lines that fit with his actual achievement. Illustrative of both the narrowing of the gap between words and deeds and the resoluteness of Brecht's king is his behavior in the scene where the earls and the archbishop demand the banishment of Gaveston. In Marlowe, as I have previously noted, the king offers, rather stupidly, to divide the kingdom so that he can keep his favorite and mutters in an aside: "It boots me not to threat— I must speak fair" (I, iv, p. 279). In the "same" scene in Brecht, after categorically refusing to sign an order for the ban ishment of Gaveston, Eduard exclaims: Wolit ihr nicht weitersingen? Schaut ihr Auf einen Konig als auf euer Schlachtvieh? Kann ein Geschlecht so leben? Komm, Gaveston. Noch bin ich da ^ Und hab den Fufi fur einige Natterrikopfe. The deliberately cruder language of Brecht's version car ries with it an almost total reversal of emphasis and char acter. Marlowe's Edward, in decorous and servile tones, denotes his willingness to sign the order for Gaveston's banishment. Brecht's Eduard (though he does weaken once in this scene) seems unwilling not only to give up Gaveston but to accept any insult whatsoever to his own kingliness. It would almost seem, in the scene as Brecht presents it, that the fact that a demand has been made specifically for Gav eston 's banishment is secondary to the fact that a demand per se has been made of him. This king will countenance no abridgement of his own authority, which he views as abso lute. Yet, it must be mentioned also that the change in the two kings is not polar, for Brecht still allows his king some odd weaknesses. At one point, in the scene that ends with his flat rejection of the earls' demands, he weakens and bursts inexplicably into tears. In view of 21St\icke. II, 40. this combination of traits, the king in Brecht must be seen as complex, as psychologically disturbed rather than the type of the strong man of action. Further evidence of psychological disturbance is offered by Laboulle, who notes Whereas Marlowe's Edward trembles with fear at the approach of Lightborn and tries to bribe the assassin with his last remaining jewel, Brecht's hero says ec statically: "Lobet/ Mangel, lobet MiShandlung, lobet/ Die Finsternis."22 This abnormal lauding of the profoundest degradation (par ticularly in a man so sensitive in earlier scenes to any insult to his kingship) leads Laboulle to the conclusion that "Brecht's hero is a diseased character, a man of strong, sometimes abnormal, appetites. . . ." (p. 216). It is this psychological complexity of the king that prevents my wholehearted agreement with Tailleur, who sees the king 23 simply as "der kraftige Naturbursche." Though it is an oversimplification to speak of Brecht' king as "der kraftige Naturbursche," he is, in direct con trast to Marlowe's king, definitely manly, clearly firm in resolve, clearly careless of honor, and he moves, after the 22MLR. LIV (1959), 216. 23BBA 1692/38. 122 opening scenes of the play, in an atmosphere of incredible squalor. Marlowe's king may be unmanly, fickle, even, pos sibly, stupid, but he moves among the outer trappings of kingliness. In direct contrast, the outer trappings of Eduard's kingliness are, as comes out clearly in his wife's description of his camp immediately after his departure from it, "halbgegessne/ Kiichenreste und ein locheriges Strick- 24 bett." As he obviously prefers a camp such as this to the court, it is no wonder that one reviewer of the play (as I have previously noted) complained bitterly that Brecht 25 had mounted "ein Konigsdrama im Hinterhof." We could not imagine Marlowe's lover of pomp and pageants uttering a speech anything like the Hinterhof speech of Eduard who, contemplating his own miserable camp, is yet moved to utter: Vier gute Jahre. Leben in Zelten ist Und Heeresziigen angenehm zu schmecken. Pferde sind eine gute Sache. Wind reinigt die Lunge. Und wenn die Haut auch schrumpft und Haar ausfallt Der Regen wascht die Nieren und alies ist besser Als London. It is obvious that Brecht's king has left literally and 24£ fc ik k £ , 11, 9 3 . 2^Tailleur, BBA 1692/41. See footnote 19. 265tucKe, I I , 85. 123 figuratively the material and linguistic court and court liness of Edward in Marlowe. As clearly illustrative as any scene in the plays both of the degree of this psychological change of character and the paradoxical closeness of physical situation, is the famous dungeon scene in the two versions. In Marlowe we read: This dungeon where they keep me is the sink Wherein the filth of all the castle falls. And there in mire and puddle have I stood This ten days' space; and, lest that I should sleep, One plays continually upon a drum. My mind's distempered, and my body's numbed, And whether I have limbs or no I know not. (V, v, p. 339) The Brecht-Feuchtwanger version of the scene runs: Die Grub, drin sie mich halten, ist die Senkgrub Und iiber mich her, seit sieben Stunden, fallt Der Kot Londons. Doch sein Abwasser hartet Meine Gliedmaften. Sie sind schon wie Holz Der Zeder. Geruch des Abfalls macht mich noch Maftlos vor GroSe. Gutes Gerausch der Trommel LaSt wachen den Geschwachten, dafi ihn nicht Anlangt sein Tod in Ohnmacht, sondern in Wachen.27 Changing one detail of the physical situation itself (he 27stiicke. II, 156. 124 substitutes seven hours for ten days as the time spent in the dungeon), he then makes every detail of the punishment serve a diametrically opposed psychological function. Brecht's king is hardened rather than softened by the sewage falling upon him and even the dreadful smell elevates him. The drums he welcomes for he wishes to be aware of his imminent end. The character change thus achieved could hardly be greater, yet the changes in actual situation could hardly be fewer. Precisely the same magic is worked in the passage where the king makes his final comment on the metaphysical gestalt of his world. Marlowe's king says: Come, Spencer; come, Baldock, come, sit down by me; Make trial now of the philosophy, That in our famous nurseries of arts Thou suck'dst from Plato and from Aristotle. Then, turning to an abbot, the king continues: Father, this life contemplative is Heaven. O that I might this life in quiet lead! (IV, vi, p. 321) Contrast this passage, then, with the following one of Brecht: Komm, Spencer! Baldock, komm! Setz dich zu mir! Mach die Probe jetzt auf deine Philosophie Die du aus Plato sogst und Aristoteles 125 An den Ammenbriisten hochberiihmter Weisheit. So far the speech obviously follows Marlowe virtually word- for-word, but Eduard goes on to say: Ach, Spencer Da Worte roh sind, nur trennen Herz von Herz Und Verstandigung uns nicht geschenkt ist In solcher Taubheit bleibt nur korperlich Beriihren Zwischen den Mannern. Doch auch dieses ist Sehr wenig und alles ist eitel.28 From the "same" beginning, a radically different conclusion is drawn. The bitter conclusion sours the entire passage, makes the references to the classical philosophers bitter and ironic, and thus invests these words with a quality only remotely hinted at, if hinted at at all, in Marlowe. "Mar lowe's words" become alien to the whole "Elizabethan world picture" of Marlowe's plays and become directly relevant to Brecht's world and to the world of Garga and Schlink in Brecht’s own play of this same period, Im Dickicht der Stadte. As radical and economical as the change made in the part of Edward are those made in Edward's chief opponent, Mortimer. By combining the young and the old Mortimer of 28Stucke. II, pp. 98-99. 126 the earlier play, Brecht creates neither an Old Mortimer as circumspect and almost as windy as Polonius, nor a Young Mortimer as hotheaded as Hotspur, but, rather, gives us a young old scholar, a man capable of action but only after he has failed to achieve his desired ends by debate. Rob bing his character of the fire and attractiveness of youth, Brecht makes him world-weary, bitter, disillusioned. The total unsuitability of seeing in Brecht's Mortimer the Young Mortimer of the earlier play, even though both characters follow much the same pattern of physical events or Laufbahn in both plays, is best illustrated by comparing the first and last scenes in which each character appears. Early in Marlowe's play, upon being urged to bridle his anger, Young Mortimer bursts out: I cannot, nor I will not; I must speak.— Come, uncle, let us leave the brain-sick king, And henceforth parley with our naked swords. (I, i, p. 272) Obviously Young Mortimer is a man of action. Proud of his own position in the nobility, he will brook no infringement of his rights. Seeing Gaveston's position as a clear threat to his own birthright, Young Mortimer exclaims at one point: While others walk below, the king and he 127 From out a window laugh at such as we, And flout our train, and jest at our attire. Uncle, 'tis this makes me impatient. (I, iv, p. 288) Making clear that his objections at least in part depend on Gaveston's birth being so much lower than his own, Young Mortimer, in the same speech, says flatly: Uncle, his wanton humour grieves not me; But this I scorn, that one so basely born Should by his sovereign's favour grow so pert, And riot it with the treasure of the realm. (I, iv, p. 287) For Young Mortimer, glory is life itself. Proud of the elevation he has, he yearns feverishly for more. Contemp tuous of the king, fully aware of his own martial prowess, he early dreams of an assault on the highest pinnacle of power. More physically active and less conniving than Shakespeare's Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Marlowe's Young Mortimer, nevertheless, forcefully reminds one of Shake speare's tortured searcher for supreme pomp and power. Like a comet, Young Mortimer blazes for a moment above the heads of all before plunging into darkness. In both his rise and his fall, he is the very prototype of the Elizabethan over- reacher (to use Harry Levin's apt term), the very image of Elizabethan ideas of the heroic. Brief though his moment 128 of glory may be in Marlowe, this moment seems enough for his Mortimer. With nowhere further to climb, no further glory to be obtained, he plunges almost willingly into death. At his apogee and contemplating his imminent fall, he exclaims: Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel There is a point, to which when men aspire, They tumble headlong down; that point I touched, And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher, Why should I grieve at my declining fall?— Immediately continuing then with his last three lines of the play, he exits thus: Fairwell, fair queen; weep not for Mortimer, That scorns the world, and, as a traveller, Goes to discover countries yet unknown. (V, vi, pp. 342-343) Even death is to be for Mortimer striving and discovery. Head high, still chivalrous, still intensely proud, he strides out of the play and life, clearly thinking his brief transcendent glory worth the price paid for it. In Brecht, instead of first seeing a hot-headed, glory- seeking Mortimer urging the peers into action, we meet him first as he sits alone in the library of his own home wait ing for the peers who are to try to urge him to act. The first words of the Brecht-Feuchtwanger Mortimer are un equivocally not only unheroic but positively anti-heroic. 129 Commenting through Caesar on action, the making and the makers of history, on fame and on greatness, Mortimer muses: DaB Leute seines [Caesar' s] Wuchses ihren Ruhm Zogen aus dem eigentiimlichen Mangel An Einsicht in die Nichtigkeit menschlicher Dinge und Taten, gepaart mit einem Erstaunlichen Mangel an Ernst: kurz, ihrer Oberflachlichkeit.^9 At the outset, already at the opposite pole from the over- reacher, Brecht's "hero" muses as one weary of life, sus picious of fame, doubtful of the efficacy of action. The classical hero of Marlowe has turned in Brecht into a con temptuous commentator on classical notions of the heroic. Classical reference in the mouth of this new Mortimer serves not to justify present action but only to puncture pomposity and to illuminate the worst side of the past and present. At one point, Mortimer says with obvious distaste and con temptuous rejection of the peers' call to civic action on his part: Die Klassiker erzahlen: Alexander Magnus Liebte den Hephastion, den Alkibiades liebte Der weise Sokrates, und urn Patroklus ward Achilles krank. Soil ich Ob solchen Spaftes der Natur tragen mein Antlitz 29£fciick£, II, P. 24. 130 Auf den Markt des schweiftigen Volkes? (p. 25) When we compare this reaction with that of the Elder Morti mer in the earlier play, we see that from the "same" mater ials a totally different moral has been drawn. Consoling his young relative in the earlier play, Old Mortimer says soothingly: The mightiest kings have had their minions: Great Alexander loved Hephestion; The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept; And for Patroclus stern Achilles dropped And not kings only, but the wisest men: The Roman Tully loved Octavius; Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades. The Elder Mortimer concludes with the already-quoted lines: Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible, And promiseth as much as we can wish, Freely enjoy that vain, light-headed earl; For riper years will wean him from such toys. (I, iv, p. 287) Obviously, for the Elder Mortimer, classical precedent is sufficient to virtually demand contemporary approval. In Brecht, the "same" classical precedent virtually demands contemporary disapproval. In another speech which uses classical reference in a disapproving fashion, Mortimer, in a scene having no prece dent in Marlowe, addresses parliament and the king and 131 indirectly demands the banishment of Gaveston thus? Als Paris Menelaus Brot und Salz a6 In Menelaus Haus, schlief mit ihm— also Vermelden die antiken Chroniken— Des Menelaus Weib, und er hatte sie Nach Troja segelnd, noch auf seinem Strickbett. The deliberately coarse re-telling of the ancient tale then deviates from the chronicles and takes us into a scene where one sailor attacks another and bloodies his nose. In Morti mer's version of materials that have been used to forge some of the most beautiful poems in any language, the epic action is stripped of anything "heroic," is made sordid, stripped of grandeur; the "heroes" even of Homeric epic are made to play out their lives in the Hinterhof. on a Strickbett. Having no particle of reverence for the heroic, indeed treating the great man theory of history with as much scorn as the Tolstoy of War and Peace, it is not surprising that the Mortimer of Brecht1s play does not care much for per sonal honor. As we have seen, for Young Mortimer, it is his own pride that rebels against the relationship of the king with Gaveston. Marlowe's Mortimer is willing to plunge the country into civil war not so much because the king's 30Stucke. II, p. 34. 132 mode of life is ruining the country's finances and costing the lives of the king's subjects but because his own pride is injured in the process. Contrast this with the curt realist in the Brecht-Feuchtwanger play. Resisting the arguments of the peers who want war because their pride has been injured, he says: Weil einige Hiite heut am Boden kleben Vor einem Hund Stofit dieses Volk seine Insel In den Abgrund. (p . 26) This Mortimer so scorns heroes and conventional no tions of "honor" that it is fully to be expected that his treatment of women should differ slightly from Young Morti mer's chivalrous treatment of the queen. Anticipating some what my discussion of the queen, the following exchange amply illustrates that Brecht's Mortimer's treatment of her is closer to Mackie Messer's treatment of Polly and Jenny than it is to the conventional treatment by knight of dam sel. Finding the queen distressed at her treatment by her husband, the frankly suggestive Mortimer bluntly states: Madame, die Haut wird schlecht von zuviel Tranen. Verwaiste Nachte machen alt. Tranige Gefuhle Erschlaffen den Leib. Schafft euch, Mylady Befriedigung. Das rohe Fleisch Gewohnlich, will benetzt sein. 133 To which Anna (Isabella in Marlowe) says (fur sich): Sehr elender Eduard, wie erniedrigst du mich DaB ich diesem nicht ins Gesicht schlagen darf Sondern muB stillhalten, bloBstehn Wenn er mich anspringt in Geilheit. laut Ihr nutzt mich aus im Elend, Mortimer. (p. 29) Contemptuous of greatness, rough and unfeeling with the queen, viewing the king as simply despicable, Mortimer in Brecht does have, as the English critic Gray has noted, one positive trait. It can be argued, I think, that he has a clear social consciousness even if no clear idea as to how to ameliorate the lot of the common people of England. Inhibited by a view of history that denies great men any power to lead, he thus takes from himself any hope of genu inely improving social conditions by his own striving. Nevertheless, asking for the king's abdication and reiterat ing his own reluctance to become involved in the complex and perhaps meaningless affair of ruling a kingdom, Mortimer begs: Ich seh Euch roh verstrickt in Euer Selbst. Wahrend ich, vom Geschmack des Herrschens langst Nicht mehr befleckt, auf meinen Schultern Die Insel trag, die ein werktaglich Wort Aus Euerm Mund wegreiBt vom Biirgerkrieg. Vielleicht platt im Gefiihl, doch vielerlei wissend Wohl nicht koniglich, aber vielleicht gerecht 134 Wenn Ihr wollt, auch das nicht, sondern nur Der rohe, stammelnde Mund des armen Englands Verlange ich von Euch und bitte es auch: Entsagt. (p. 150) The king, unwilling, as we have seen earlier, to brook any interference with his office, refuses. Mortimer, committed to the path of the lesser evil, must now have the king killed. As happens so often in Brecht and in politics, the humane path demands an inhumane act. Violence is only to be avoided by violence. Regicide is obviously preferred by Mortimer to genocide. If we are to believe Mortimer, as I do and as Gray does not, he seeks not power but England's peace. As a realist, he is prepared to pay a bloody price for that peace. Though probably aware of the deadly danger he places himself in by his action, he orders the king's death. Keeping to the main plot line of the original, the murder of the king in Brecht brings about the downfall of Mortimer through the outraged and swift reaction of the young heir to the throne. Yet again the "same" act is pro foundly modified by context in the new play. Facing the prospect of being condemned to death, Mortimer, contemptuous as ever of pride in himself or others, begs (as Young Mor timer would never dream of doing) for his life. Unwilling 135 to stride dramatically into death, Mortimer begs: Nehmt mir das Siegel'. Geschwader auf Geschwader Speit nach der Insel Frankreich. In der Normandie Die Heere sind verfault. Verbannt mich In die Normandie als eueren Statthalter. Then, his demands becoming ever less, he goes on: Oder als Kapitan. Als Werber, Eintreiber. Wen habt ihr, der euch so mit nacktem Arm Die Heere gegen den Feind peitscht? Schickt mich als Soldat, der vorgepeitscht wird. (p. 163) When his appeal for even the lowliest of positions fails and he knows nothing will save him, he speaks the following speech, taken over from the earlier Mortimer but differing totally in its metaphysics, as Grimm has also noted, from that of the earlier version: 's ist, Knabe, die schlumpichte Fortuna treibts Ein Rad. 's treibt dich mit nach aufwarts. Aufwarts und aufwarts. Du haltst fest. Aufwarts. Da kommt ein Punkt, der hochste. Von dem siehst du 's ist keine Leiter, 's treibt dich nach unten. Weils eben rund ist. Wer dies gesehn hat fallt er Knabe, Oder laBt er sich fallen? Die Frage Ist spaBhaft. Schmeck siel (p. 165) Where Marlowe's Mortimer "aspired," Brecht's Mortimer is passive, is carried willy-nilly by the wheel. Where Young Mortimer saw the highest point as a point of glory, the cynic Mortimer views it as a bitter and macabre metaphysical practical joke. His whole unwilling career in politics 136 yielded him no triumphs and no joy, only the metaphysical perplexity of the ultimate rhetorical question. The ques tion is as hopeless in its implications as the king's con clusion that "alles ist eitel." Again Marlowe's basic scene, situation or fable is twisted (linguistically and metaphysically) to reflect a view of the world having almost nothing in common with the "Elizabethan world picture" that is at the heart of the Marlowe play. The conclusion is as vague, as troubled, and as troubling as the conclusion of Der aute Mensch von Sezuan or En attendant Godot. In my comparative analysis of the character of the king and of Mortimer, I necessarily anticipated somewhat my dis cussion of Gaveston. It will be remembered that Gaveston in Marlowe’s play speaks of a fickle king whom he wishes to maneuver. I find in Marlowe's Gaveston nothing to offset this remark, nothing to make of Gaveston anything but an opportunist, and, therefore, nothing to indicate any genuine affection on his part. Never does this character ask to be sent away in either the best interests of the king (whom he supposedly loves) or of suffering England (which he appar ently simply ignores). It is surely no accident that Gav eston is made a Frenchman by Marlowe and hence, in Eliza bethan convention, an hereditary enemy of England. In 137 Brecht, he becomes an Englishman and this may account in part for his concern for England in the Brecht-Peuchtwanger reworking. It is surely no accident either that the court fop and minor noble of Marlowe is turned, in Brecht's ver sion, into a butcher's son, into a representative of the class that suffers most as a direct result of court exces ses . The appropriateness of the changes in Gaveston to the general metaphysical and social tone of the play cause me to wonder whether this character or the play has been under stood by some of the critics. One of the more sensible observations is made by Ley, who, in his dissertation, writes: Brecht has heightened, enhanced, and attempted to purify the homosexual relation between the loveless king and the hapless Gaveston. The latter is no long er, as with Marlowe, an ambitious schemer who essays, by means of the strange hold he has over the monarch, to gain control of the kingdom for his own aggrandize ment, but rather a confused and frightened commoner unable to fathom the reason for the king's affection.3^ Less sensible is Laboulle's comparison of the two favorites. She writes: 3^-Ralph John Ley, "The Marxist Ethos of Bertolt Brecht and Its Relation to Existentialism" (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Rutgers Univ., 1963), p. 62. 138 Marlowe's Gaveston, although despised as an upstart, is at least of noble birth and possesses wit and imagi nation; his counterpart in the German play is the son of a butcher who lacks the intelligence to take advan tage of his position and even the wit to understand the king's affection for him (cf. ii, 31). In battle he is unmanly, in captivity pathetic. He is a mere bone of contention, and the king's affection for him explicable only as a homosexual infatuation.3^ That Gaveston does not understand the reason or reasons for the king's love of him does not, in my opinion, necessarily make him a fool. Nor does failure to take advantage of his position make either Gaveston or Brecht a fool. In answer ing the first charge, it might be argued that the problem of why one person should love another one specifically and no one else has defied the best minds for millennia and is, therefore, insufficient evidence on which to condemn someone as a fool or unintelligent. The second charge, that he fails to use his position to advantage, ignores the fact that one may have misgivings about exploiting the person one loves. To my mind, one extraordinary statement of Brecht's Gaveston prevents any attempt either to dismiss him as a booby or to compare him unfavorably with Marlowe's charac ter. Aware of the unrest his position causes and in an ■^Laboulle, p. 217. 139 almost Greek rejection of excess in any form, Brecht's Gaveston, totally alone, writes in his last will and testa ment (a scene having no parallel in Marlowe): Ich, Danyell Gaveston, alt zwanzig Jahr und sieben Sohn eines Schlachters, durch giinstige Umstand Erledigt, ausgemerzt durch zuviel Gluck, vermache Kleider und Stiefel denen, die zuletzt Um mich sind. Den dummen Frauen von Sankt Jamesstreet Die Erzabtei von Coventry, dem guten Ale trinkenden Volk von England mein schmales Grab Dem guten Kbnig Eduard, meinem Freund Gottes Verzeihung. Denn ich bin sehr betrubt, daft ich nicht einfach Zu Staub ward.33 Contrast this highly reasonable and sensitive statement with its obviously unaffected declaration of affection for his Freund (this word meaning so much more, of course, than any single word in English can render) with the arrogance and guile and highly questionable affection of Marlowe's Gaves ton. Add to the above statment of Gaveston his observation (on the page before his testament) that he is "ohne Lust am Schlachten" (and this from the son of a Schlachter'.), and one has a picture of a man who, in his own words, "trotz dummen Kopf," does have some awareness of the chaos he causes and does wish to be out of it all, to become dust 33Stiisk£, II, 32. 140 and to cause no further suffering. According to my reading of the Brecht-Feuchtwanger play, this man is far worthier of the nine years of affection he receives than is the flat terer in Marlowe's play of even the little affection he receives. My objections to Laboulle's conclusions on Gaveston hold also for her fulminations on Brecht's queen. I cannot find any ground (in her article or in the plays) for her conclusion that Brecht's queen "abandons her husband with 34 less compunction than Isabel." In my own view of the queens in the two plays (a view supported, I believe, by the texts themselves), the unscrupulous striving of Young Mortimer in Marlowe is matched by his Isabella, whereas in Brecht, Mortimer's reluctance to move against the king and his political and metaphysical disinterestedness are paral leled by Anna. As I hope my earlier analysis of the rela tionship of Anna to Mortimer demonstrated, the queen shows no regard for Mortimer and indeed only even tolerates his indecent suggestions because her husband leaves absolutely no other path open to her. In contrast, in Marlowe's play it would seem plain that this queen, also rejected by her 34Laboulle, p. 217. 141 husband and yet at first reluctant to leave him, certainly finds, her initial compunction once overcome, an affair with young, handsome, manly and sexually attractive Mortimer an excellent alternative. As the relatively unbiased Kent, brother of the king, observes: "Edward, this Mortimer aims at your life'." Then, a few lines later: . . . Mortimer And Isabel do kiss, while they conspire; And yet she bears a face of love forsooth. Pie on that love that hatcheth death and hate! (IV, v, p. 319) Evidence of the truth of Kent's contentions that "Mortimer and Isabel do kiss, while they conspire," and that the queen's love for Mortimer is real and for the king feigned abounds. Clearly indicative of the direction and cause of the queen's desires is the following interchange in Mar lowe's play: Q. Isab. You know the king is so suspicious, As if he hear I have but talked with you, Mine honor will be called in question; And therefore, gentle Mortimer, be gone. Y. Mort. Madam, I cannot stay to answer you, But think of Mortimer as he deserves. fExeunt all except Queen Isabella. Q. Isab. So well hast thou deserved, sweet Mortimer, As Isabel could live with thee for ever. (II, iv, p. 300) So much for desire; now for the duplicity that Kent claims to see in Isabella. Late in the play, we find the following exchange: 142 Y. Mart. Speak, shall he presently be despatched and die? Q. Isab. I would he were, so 1twere not by my means. Yet, a few lines later the queen says to a messenger (of death): Q. Isab. Whither goes this letter? to my lord the king? Commend me humbly to his majesty And tell him that I labour all in vain To ease his grief, and work his liberty; And bear him this as witness of my love. Gives a ring. Mat. I will, madam. Exit with Gurnev. Y. Mort. Finely dissembled. Do so still, sweet queen. Here comes the young prince with the Earl of Kent. (V, ii, p. 330) Where love and injured pride drive Isabella to Young Mortimer, it would seem that injured pride without love (but with some lust) drives Anna to Mortimer. With his customary crudity, Mortimer says to her at one point: Mit offnen Knien und geschlossnen Augen 35 Schnappend nach allem, seid Ihr unersattlich Anna. It is really no wonder that this woman, rejected by her husband and treated with consistent harshness by the crude Mortimer, should finally seek refuge in alcoholism and that we find her, towards the end of the play, laughing "ob der Leere der Welt" (p. 126). In this laugh, the main meta physical theme of this play, sounded by the king, by Morti mer, and even by Gaveston, is sounded yet again. 35Stucke. II, 122. 143 Significantly, the despair of the play and its charac ters is far closer to Brecht's Im Dickicht der Stadte than it is to Marlowe’s Edward the Second. The passage of Morti mer from typical Renaissance adventurer to cynical political realist; the movement of the king from the foppish type of the perhaps over-simplified homosexual to the crude, hearty, and psychologically disturbed man, Eduard; the queen's de generation? and the self-consciousness of Gaveston; all serve to present a radical shift in world view, a totally different set of political values and aesthetic indices, and to form, taken together, a totally different play from the one that Marlowe created. To cite a complex classical parallel to what Feucht- wanger and Brecht have achieved with their reworking, we might see the relationship of their text to that of Marlowe as similar in kind and degree to that obtaining between, on one hand, the "heroic" treatment of the Orestes theme in both the Choephoroe of Aeschylus and the Electra of Sopho cles, and, on the other, the Electra of Euripides, made de liberately "non-heroic," set deliberately in the Hinter- 36 hof. The squalor and fishwife arguments of the Euripides OC JOHans Mayer, probably confusing the Orestes of 144 play, combined with the deliberately non-heroic slaughter of Aegisthus, and with the insertion of realistic detail, make the "same" story a totally different aesthetic and meta physical experience from that provided by the two more con ventional "classicists." Despite the reliance of the German authors on the actual wording of Marlowe-Heymel at times, I feel that the changes made in the use of Marlowe-Heymel as raw material justify as good a claim being made for the "originality" of the Brecht-Feuchtwanger Bearbeitung as can be made for the Electra of Euripides, for literally hundreds of the plays of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods (cer tainly including many of the plays of Shakespeare and Mar lowe), many of the plays of the Spanish Golden Age, the plays of Pushkin in Russia and for the plays of Racine or Moliere in France. To claim "originality" for a Bearbeitung is not neces sarily, of course, to claim excellence for the new play. I do not hold that newness is close to holiness. "Original ity," as used above and below, means to me significant dif ference in any or all of the following: character, fable, Euripides with his Electra, is perhaps attempting to make the same point as I make here. See Mayer, Brecht und die Tradition, p. 61. 145 language, mounting, and over-all aesthetic impact of the play. Using this definition of "originality," I deliberate ly, for the first stage of my analysis, try to view differ ence as quantitative, not qualitative. Now, having estab lished such a difference, a difference as free as possible of judgments of value, I am free to pass on into a more important area of criticism, qualitative consideration of quantitative changes made. The unity which is often held to be an essential qual ity of a work of art is clearly present in the Brecht- Feuchtwanger play. Plot or fable work well with language and character to give the play unity of tone or vision. Preserved and even extended in the reworking is the dramatic conflict of character or personality rather than an exten sion of the conflict of ideologies that also ran as an undercurrent through the earlier play. How easy it would have been for the later Brecht, the Communist Brecht, to have taken this play in the opposite direction. The later Brecht would almost certainly have deepened and extended ideological conflict in the play rather than, as did the pre-conversion Brecht, expend his creative talent on drama tic figures rather than cardboard cut-outs for use in illus trating a lecture in speculative sociology. Fortunately, the Brecht who creates Eduard and Mortimer is not yet sub jugating aesthetic and/or human considerations to ones of propaganda for the sake of propaganda. This is in direct contrast to several of the other Bearbeitungen that I shall examine, Bearbeitungen that fall in his conversion periods. In 1924, lacking as yet "answers" but not lacking at all questions concerning the misery of the human condition, Brecht does not cast the king as simple villain and reduce him to wholly contemptible marionette, nor does he elevate Mortimer to social reformer incapable of wrongdoing. Moving in a complex world where the wholly right or wrong is non existent, the characters of this early play of Brecht's re late to our own gray world and to the ambiguity of motiva tion and character that distinguishes the greatest figures in Marlowe's and Brecht's dramatic art. Shunning the un conscious melodrama of propaganda, the play has the round ness, the wholeness of character and of metaphysical vision, and the open-ended ambiguity that is the hallmark of the best in drama. It is clear that for all the major characters in the Brecht-Feuchtwanger reworking, this is the worst of all possible worlds. Each character, the king by his uncon trollable and logically inexplicable and inexorcisable passion, and all the others as a direct result of this passion are crushed by "die schlumpichte Fortuna." Locked aesthetically, physically, and linguistically in the close embrace of lovers and enemies, the king, Gaveston, the queen and Mortimer move swiftly, knowingly but unwillingly to their bitter end. In creating these characters, Brecht has employed a remarkable combination of reverence and audacity, of affinity and antipathy to Marlowe's text. Though his reliance on Marlowe for much of his phrasing and selection of incidents is as obvious as Euripides's use of Aeschylus, Brecht has turned everything to his own aesthetic purpose. Working with a bold but careful and skilled hand, Brecht here creates a play that is original, that has aesthetic unity, that is as deserving of critical attention and of careful (and bold and skillful) staging as the great text upon which it is based. His transforming power, with that of Feuchtwanger, succeeds in making of the old Stoff his (their) own aesthetic vision. Unfortunately, for all its excellence, this play remains largely unknown. No English translation of the play is generally available. No produc tion of the play in any language except German has been known since 1933. CHAPTER IV GORKY AND BRECHT Speaking of Brecht's early work (which includes, of course, the subject of my last chapter, Leben Eduards des Zweiten). Martin Esslin correctly observes that "The process of nature is seen as one of incessant birth and decay, with human consciousness powerless to break the eternal cycle. Granted the aptness of Esslin's interpretation of works such as Baal. Im Dickicht der Stadte. and Eduard II. it is diffi cult to conceive of a greater change in viewpoint than that which obtains between the outright nihilism of the early works (those written before c.1929) and the clear Partei Politik message that colors virtually every line of plays of Brecht's "conversion periods" (c.1929-1936 and c.1947- 1956). Right in the middle of the first of these periods falls the subject of this chapter, Brecht's 1932 reworking ^Esslin, Brecht. p. 239. 148 149 of Gorky's 1907 novel, Mat1 (Mother). In order to under stand the transition from despair to unrelieved hope that marks the first of these periods, some notion of the back ground of Brecht's change from Saul to Paul is essential. Though in one sense the plays of the first pre- and post-conversion period are polar opposites, there is an important linking strain that helps to explain the transi tion. In all the early plays we find not only compassion for suffering humanity but hatred for those characters (usually of the nobility or "herrschende Klasse") who cause (in Brecht's view) the suffering, and, in addition, despair arising from the feeling that because man is basically in humane suffering and cruelty will continue. In Marx and the other Communist Klassiker Brecht found not only a com passion for the suffering "masses" that matched his own, but also a way to break the cycle of despair, to give rest to the heavily laden. In the golden dream of Communism which promised that the state would wither away, that human inter course would be dictated by friendliness rather than greed, Brecht found salvation from nihilism. In the speculative sociology of the Klassiker with their contention that the class structure would have to collapse of its own weight, he found much that appealed to what he liked to think of as the 150 practical, hard-nosed realist side of his nature. Marxism promised Utopia and proved to Brecht's satisfaction that the dream was not an empty one. Seeing all about him the cha otic disintegration of the capitalistic structure, and see ing in this chaos the death throes of capitalism and the confirmation of Marx's predictions, Brecht followed the same dream, as did many another sensitive and compassionate soul in this same period. In 1926 when Brecht wrote to Elisabeth 2 Hauptmann, "Ich stecke acht Schuh tief im 'Kapital'," the dream of heaven on earth was not as yet shattered in the Soviet Union. Lenin had but recently died and Stalin's position was not as yet strong enough for him to use the totalitarian methods that so darkened the following decade. In Brecht's main area of interest, the theatre, for instance^ the Soviet Union in 1925-1926 was still a haven for the theatrical innovator trying out radically new modes of the atrical expression. There is absolutely no doubt that the Russian theatre right through the 1920s was both haven and heaven for all that was finest, all that was most fruitful ^Elisabeth Hauptmann, "Notizen uber Brechts Arbeit 1926," in Sinn und Forms Beitraoe zur Literatur: Zweites Sonderheft Bertolt Brecht (Berlin, 1957), p. 243. Hereafter to be referred to as Sinn und Form II. 151 in the theatrical arts. Though theatrical experimentation was certainly also encouraged in Berlin during the same period, it was clearly Russia that provided the main impetus for experimentation both for its own sake and for experi mentation with theatre as a medium for influencing the political life and thinking of the epoch. Brecht, man of the theatre and compassionate observer of the plight of millions crushed in the economic disaster of the late twen ties, passionately embraced the combination of lovely dream and promising reality that was Communism in the 1920s. Willett is surely correct when he notes: "'What attracted Brecht above all was the humanism of Marxist theories (as 3 he often expressed it) . . Or, as the West German critic Niessen has noted, there is in Brecht a consistent moral strain, a consistent dissatisfaction with the immoral- 4 ity and inhumanity of the world. I am well aware that for the non-Communist reader with memories of the show trials, the purges, the brutal stamping out of rebellion in Hungary and East Germany, howls of ^Cited by Willett in TheatreT p. 194, with no source given. 4carl Niessen, "Brecht auf der Buhne" (diss., Cologne, 1959). See particularly p. 5. 152 execration are the only response they can muster when the contention is seriously made that there is anything human istic about Communism. Yet, in my far from unique view, theoretical Communism at least is indeed profoundly human istic. It must be remembered that the "Marxism" that Brecht fell heir to in the 1920s was a Marxism nowhere near as cold, clear, rational, and inhuman as most critics of Brecht's Communism would seem to assume. Along with the pseudo-rational and semi-scientific notions of the nine teenth-century economist came humanitarian elements unload ed from the sinking ship of the Judaeo-Christian tradition and, freshly labelled, loaded aboard the proud "new" vessel flying the scarlet banner, a vessel bound for Eden, and— so said the apostles of the new religion— bound to get there. Speaking of Marxism as religious creed, B. D. Wolfe writes: It made a true gospel of its particular brand of salva tion. It possessed singleness, exclusivism, dogma, orthodoxy, heresy, renegation, schism, excommunication, prophets, disciples, vocation, asceticism, sacrifice, the ability to suffer all things for the sake of faith. Heresy or rival doctrine was worse than ignorance; it was apostasy. To the disciple even of so rational a doctrine as that of Marx, an ipse dixit was an irrefu table proof.^ 5Bertram D. Wolfe, Three Who Made a Revolution (Boston, 1955), p. 35. 153 It was this movement, religious in its fervor, demands, and intolerance, that, in my view, attracted Brecht. We might label this kind of fanatical but theoretical Marxism, Marx ism A. In Brecht's case, Marxism A describes a somewhat naive humanitarian drive that saw the future in apocalyptic and Messianic terms, a frame of reference that reflected Brecht's own dreams and aspirations with reference to the eventual happiness and peace of humankind. There is another brand of "Marxism" that is much more familiar to the average "Western" reader than the naive humanitarian dream of the nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Marxists of type A. The second kind of Marxism, Marxism B, is the Marxism of the Apparatchik. The Apparat chiks are the men who are both committed to Marxism at its most abstract, and to the problem of trying to reconcile the bold and utopian dream with the dirty reality of the every day real world. Whether this man be Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Gomulka, Kosygin, or Ulbricht, his problem is the same: reconciliation of the dream of A with a present that demands and perpetuates the ruthlessness and lack of humanity that would seem to be an essential characteristic of Marxism B. Many, like Gide, Spender, Isherwood, Wright, and Koestler, after they had found to their horror that they could not 154 have one twin without the other, rejected both. Brecht too, with the blindness and rapture of the neophyte, embraced twin A. But in embracing A (though he perhaps did not know it at the time), he embraced also A's Siamese twin. What separates Brecht, however, from the group of writers who finally rejected both the Shen Te and the Shui Ta of Com munism, is his continuing faith. Though it wavered at times and may indeed have wavered between 1936-1947 and again from 1953-1956 far more than can as yet be substantiated, his faith survived the Nazi-Soviet pact, the purges of the 1930s and the brutal suppression of the revolts of the 1950s. Probably the most accurate reflection of Brecht's faith is the following undated "political fragment" found in the Archive in East Berlin: "man kann nicht sagen: in dem arbeiterstaat russland herrscht die freiheit. aber man kann g sagen: dort herrscht die befreiung." Less sympathetically phrased is a comment by Siegfried Melchinger on Brecht's thinking. Melchinger writes: Eine der handlichsten Kriicken, deren sich Intellektuelle zu bedienen pflegen, um trotz der ihnen kaum verborgen ^BBA 77/03. Mappe entitled, "Politische Aufsaetze und Fragmente." Brecht almost always used only the lower case when he typed. 155 bleibenden Realitaten dieses Herrschaftssystems Kommu- nisten bleiben zu konnen, liefert das dem dialektischen Marxismus zugrundeliegende Gesetz der Progression. Man braucht sich nicht zu der Wirklichkeit zu bekennen, die eben jetzt erreicht ist. Man kann seine Blicke in die Zukunft richten, auf das Paradies, dessen Verwirklichung die marxistische Lehre ja erst in ferner Zukunft ver- heifit. Man kann Anhanger eines utopischen Kommunismus sein und scharfe Kritik an den regierenden kommunisti- schen Machthabern der Gegenwart tiben.7 Like many another Western (read non-Communist) critic, Melchinger seems incapable of entertaining the notion that the position which he by implication ridicules can perhaps be held in good faith. Though it might conceivably be just to dismiss most Christians as stupid for failing to see the gap between their own behavior and an ideal kind of Chris tian behavior, it would not be just to dismiss all such Christians as hypocrites. The Communist who can combine brutality and faith might well have taken lessons from the leading figures of the Counter-Reformation, men equally adept at pointing to a perfect future as unquestionable justification for a less than perfect, somewhat less than Christ-like mode of behavior in the present. If we can grant such blindness to the fanatics of one religion, I see 7"Brechts Weg zu Brecht," in Das Argernis Brecht (Basel and Stuttgart, 1961), p. 18. 156 no reason to feel that such blindness could not crop up in another (and closely related) religious movement. Melchin ger may be right in his assumption that Brecht was hypo critical; it is much safer and sounder, however, simply to admit that we do not (and perhaps may never) know. Not knowing, and with only limited evidence on which to base a judgment, it is surely soundest to reserve judgment on Brecht's personal commitment, and to return to the texts themselves and to the vision that the plays reflect. It is my view that Brecht in the thirty-odd years in which he concerned himself with practical and theoretical Communism had different opinions of Communism at different times, and that the plays reflect these differences. At times they reflect Partei Politik Communism of Type B. At other times they reflect only the humanistic core of theoretical Com munism, a core that Marxism A shares with a great number of other systems of thought of the ancient and modern, western and eastern world. If the validity of the dual vision of Marxism I have presented above is accepted, we have come a long way towards breaking up the basis for the Either/Or reasoning that seeks to make Brecht and his plays either totally Communist or totally anti-Communist, i.e., Humanist. There is, in my 157 view, no need to purge him of Communist affiliations in order to find in him the humanist that many western writers find (correctly, I think) in many of Brecht's plays. Nor is there a need to make him a rigid party man, as many eastern writers seem intent on doing; Humanism is not the exclusive domain of either major camp. Though I do not agree with the critic Ley's tendency to forget the often inhumane twin B, I must wholly agree with his delineation of and rejection of two major schools of Brecht critics when, in describing his study of Brecht, he writes: This thesis represents an attempt to refute two mutually contradictory assertions by non-Communist critics of Brecht. The first, made by critics who regard Brecht as one of the major literary talents of this century, is that Brecht's commitment to Communism was, at best, superficial, and had little direct bearing on the ulti mate significance of his work. The second is advanced by critics who see in Brecht a second rate writer pre cisely because his adherence to Marxism was anything but superficial— such an adherence automatically con demning the writer to the artistic limbo of the semi damned . ® As a footnote to Ley's comment, I would add that I feel that the Brecht who clings tightly to twin A may well have much ®Ralph John Ley, Abstract of his dissertation, "The Marxist Ethos of Bertolt Brecht and Its Relation to Exis tentialism," in Dissertation Abstracts. XXIV (1963), 2909. 158 to say to us, but I have my doubts about some of the utter ances that smack of that ugly and useful twin B, a character whom Ley all too often ignores in his all or nothing attempt to prove Marxism and Brecht humanistic. In many of the better known plays of Brecht, there rises a cry of pain against human suffering, but this cry is, in the best plays, a cry that goes unanswered in a uni verse where suffering and pain are inflicted by even those with the most humane intentions, where (despite extravagant claims made for some of the remedies on the market) no pana cea against suffering has been found. In Die Heiliae Jo hanna der Schlachthofe. pain and death grow out of goodness. In Leben des Galilei, it is the "bad" coward who is respon sible for progress. In Der aute Mensch von Sezuan. the "good" Shen Te, to keep goodness alive, brings into being the "bad" Shui Ta. In Der kaukasische Kreidekreis. the "villain" Azdak, the corrupt and amoral judge, serves as a representative of the highest moral good. In the complex world of these plays, the moral search at the heart of the play is the pursuit of happiness, a striving for peace, goodwill on earth and for friendliness, that lovely quality which came to represent the highest good, higher even than love in Brecht's scheme of values. Learning from the 159 parable of the two "mothers" in Der kaukasische Kreidekreis. let us not harm this delicate child whose name is friendli ness by pulling it violently into either camp. The great works, the brain children of twin A, are, it seems to me, at home wherever there is a genuine search for the kind of social justice for which the plays so eloquently plead. With each of the remaining Bearbeituncren I shall ex amine, I shall attempt to assess the extent to which these plays reflect either the transcending vision of the humanist strain in Marxism or the narrowly sectarian and humanly questionable elements of the same creed. I hold that there is no basis whatsoever for concluding, as too many western critics do, that because much Kitsch is produced by those "religious fanatics" behind the curtain, Communism (embrac ing A and B) is, by definition, hostile to the production of great art. Immense quantities of Kitsch are produced by any massive religious movement; Christianity and Buddhism have thrown off tons of dross for every tiny enduring par ticle of high art. I approach Communism as religious move ment with its Lenin icons as tacky as anything to be seen in the shrines that line the roads in Mexico, Spain, Italy and, yes, even Poland. I approach it also, however, as a movement broad enough in its scope and deep enough in its 160 convictions to be at least as theoretically capable of pro ducing as much high and enduring art as any of the movements and any of the artists that have, down the centuries, pro duced art having the momentum of conviction, yet without the excessive specificity of a typical bust of Lenin or of a dashboard Jesus. In a perceptive assessment of the dangers of political commitment to a poet, Feuchtwanger defends Brecht against the charge of his having ruined his art by embracing twin B and claims that Brecht only embraced A. Feuchtwanger writes: It so happened that Brecht, being a true poet, was in terested in the history of his time, but not in daily politics. Some of his works have had political reper cussions, but their content and influence transcend day-by-day politics. If isolated reviewers regard Brecht's plays as purely political, one is reminded of those Danish sailors in Hamburg who broke up a perfor mance of Hamlet because they considered the drama as propaganda hostile to the Danish government.^ If not in general, at least with reference to Die Mutter. I must confess myself to be one of the "isolated reviewers" Feuchtwanger refers to. I agree far less with the biased and unreliable ^Lion Feuchtwanger, in The Nation. November 10, 1956, p. 388. 161 criticism of Brecht of Willy Haas. In a comment intended to embrace all Brecht's post-conversion plays, the fine ones as well as the mediocre ones, Haas makes a point wholly relevant to Die Mutter and wholly irrelevant to Brecht's best plays when he writes: Der Fanatismus des Konvertiten hatte ihn ergriffen, dem das "credo quia absurdum" das wichtigste aller Dogmen schien; die direkte, primitive, unnachsichtige, schullehrerhafte Parteipropaganda das einzige Ziel, das Opfer des eigenen Intellekts, der eigenen Fein- heit, fast seines ganzen eigenen Talentes das Unab- wendbare, Unabdingbare. The extra-literary, primarily right-wing political objections of the western critic Haas find echoes on the other side in the criticism of Schumacher. For the eastern critic, Brecht's Die Mutter is of interest primarily, it would seem, for certain historical "errors" and certain odd ideological quirks he finds in the play. Illustrative of the tone and preoccupations of Schumacher's writing on the play is his observation, following a scene where Brecht has the mother's political ministrations rejected by a group of factory workers, "Brecht differenzierte in dieser Szene wie in der vorangegangenen zu wenig zwischen dem internationalen lOBert Brecht (Berlin, 1958), p. 76. Hereafter cited as Haas, Bert Brecht. 162 Proletariat."^ Calling the "reality" of another aspect of the play into question, Schumacher notes that the play was produced in a manner bearing certain resemblances to the then popular and accepted, now denounced as formalistic, Agitprpp-Theater of the twenties. Schumacher writes: Vergleicht man Brechts Lehrstuck Die Mutter mit dem Agitprop-Theater, wie es nach dem ersten Weltkrieg von proletarischen Spieltruppen geschaffen wurde, so gibt es einige Obereinstimmungen, aber auch wesent- liche Unterschiede. (p. 420) Schumacher's strictures on the historical accuracy of the play and his attempts to clear the play of the charge of deviationism or heresy, i.e. the use of Agitprop methods, is important not only as a representation of a major crit ic's view of Brecht but also as a typical example of the extra-literary view of the plays behind the Iron Curtain. Showing somewhat more insight than Schumacher into Brecht's reasons for introducing changes but still basically extra-literary in its orientation is the viewpoint of the Russian critic and friend of Brecht, Tretiakov. Tretiakov writes: Gorky's Mother merely supplied the initial impulse for 11Ernst Schumacher, Die dramatischen Versuche. p. 412. 163 a new work which went beyond historical novels and which was addressed to all proletarian mothers of present-day Germany. At first sight Brecht's Mother deals with the revolutionary development of the Tver working woman Pelegea Vlasova. But this is misleading. It would be wrong to re gard it as a historical play about a Russian working woman. Such an interpretation involves one absurdity after another. . . . Of course none of this is Russia. It is Germany. Change the Russian names in the play to German ones and you will have the story of a contemporary German professional revolutionary woman doing her bit to enlighten millions of German Vlasovas who have not yet recognized reality.^ At least there is in this interpretation of Tretiakov some notion of the problems facing Brecht in presenting Gorky's Mother on a German stage. Unfortunately, the Communist critic Tretiakov does not address himself to the critical problem lying beyond the question of simple change, the question of whether the revised Mother is a viable aesthetic gestalt. A much sounder piece of Communist criticism is that of the East German, Werner Mittenzwei. Though I disagree with much that is said in his book on Brecht, I must agree with two comments he makes on the relative merits of the Gorky and the Brecht treatments of "The Mother." Of Brecht's ^Tretiakov in Demetz, Brecht. p. 25. 164 version Mittenzwei notes: Bei Brecht hob sich sozusagen der politische Aspekt aus der Handlung, aus der Menschengestaltung solistisch her- vor, wurde didaktisch unterstrichen, wahrend bei Gorki litische Seite der Handlung den Gestalten immanent Though when he turns to Gorky's work he speaks mainly of the political value of the piece, I feel his comments at least as aptly explain the aesthetic value of the novel. Mitten zwei writes: . . . die groBe propagandistische Rolle, die Gorkis Roman in der revolutionaren Arbeiterbewegung der ganzen Welt spielte, zeigt, daB die politische Wirkung nicht durch eine mehr oder weniger starke Betonung des poli- tischen Moments, nicht durch solistische Hervorhebung des Gesellschaftlichen erzielt wird, sondern dadurch, daB der Dichter die Gesamtheit des menschlichen Wesens erfafit. (p. 97) Mittenzwei would clearly seem to imply that Brecht's crea- tion, in contrast to that of Gorky, does not embrace "die Gesamtheit des menschlichen Wesens." Perhaps the best general comment on the over-all re lationship of Brecht's work to that of Gorky is that of the English critic H. F. Garten, who writes: v l^Werner Mittenzwei, Bertolt Brecht (Berlin and Weimar, 1965), p. 96. 165 The action is set in Russia, starting with the abortive rising in 1905 and ending with the revolution of 1917. The style is deliberately arid and matter-of-fact, en livened only by some songs of purely didactic character. ( The rich local colour and emotive appeal of the original are studiously eliminated. In fact, the whole play is little more than an expanded Lehrstiick. designed to pro mulgate Marxist doctrine.^ Garten's wholly negative conclusion is representative of the major portion of western criticism of this play. Unfortu nately, most of the criticism is, like Garten's, not based on the text (or texts) as aesthetic constructs. Textual problems are simply ignored.^ Whereas the relationship of Marlowe's play to that of Feuchtwanger-Brecht posed no problems in establishing a definitive text of the Feuchtwanger-Brecht play, with the two versions of The Mother. difficulties abound. At the primary level, we have Gorky's novel, first published in 1907 in Russian. At the next stage, there is a highly ac curate German translation of the novel by Adolf Hess. Beyond this, we find an unpublished dramatization in German 14Modern German Drama (New York, 1962), p. 210. ^Further criticism on these lines is to be found in the Stiicke. V, where Brecht reprints the largely negative reviews which the play received when it was first produced in Berlin and in New York. 166 by Stark and Weisenborn of the Hess translation of the Russian novel. Stark and Weisenborn compress and excise fairly freely and change several significant elements in the main outline of the original fable. Basing his version on the dramatization of Stark and Weisenborn (as I shall short ly prove), Brecht adds and deletes freely to form the ver sion of the play that was played in Berlin in 1932 and was printed in 1933 in Heft Sieben of the Versuche. With some changes, the play was then reprinted in Volume V of the 16 collected plays. A second text of the play is, however, extant. The history of this text is important but has so far been almost entirely ignored. This neglect is no doubt due, at least in part, to the fact that the text is not available in published form. The lack of a published text of the second version of l^For a good discussion of the most important differ ences between the 1933 Versuche version of the text and the later Stiicke version, see: Daniel Frey, "La Mere de Gorki h . Bertolt Brecht k travers trente ans d'histoire," in Etudes de Lettres. Bulletin de la Faculte des Lettres de l'univer- site de Lausanne, Serie II, Tome 6, No. 2 (Avril-Juin 1963), 125-151. Unfortunately, however, M. Frey does not seem aware of the existence of yet another text, the Berliner Ensemble acting version. In my further discussion of the text I confine myself to the Stiicke and Berliner Ensemble versions because, for reasons adequately explained in my text, I believe these two versions to have the best claim to manuscript authority. 167 this play produces some odd textual problems. In the Ber liner Ensemble publication, Theaterarbeit. there are a num ber of essays on the Ensemble production of the second ver- 17 sion of the play. These essays (particularly Brecht's own essay on Ernst Busch) make no sense whatsoever unless the second version of the play can be consulted. Unfortu nately for many a puzzled Brecht scholar, this text can only be found in East Berlin. The last known version, and a very different version it is from the one given in the Stiicke. remains totally unexamined. Yet it would seem that a good case can be made for considering this second version as possessing as much manuscript authority as the Stiicke text. The demonstration of this contention takes us into the rather complicated stage history of this play in the 1950s. From the records of the Berliner Ensemble we know that Ruth Berlau mounted Die Mutter in Leipzig early in 1950. According to Ernst Kahler, who played Pawel, the male lead, in this production, Berlau used "das Modell der Berliner 17Theaterarbeit; Sechs Auffiihrunaen des Berliner En sembles . hrsg. v. Berliner Ensemble (Leitung: Helene Wei gel), (Dresden, 1952). Neudruck (Berlin and Frankfurt, 1961). Hereafter referred to as Theaterarbeit. 168 18 Inszenierung aus dem Jahr 1932. When, in the same year, the company returned to Berlin, the play was put into re hearsal again, this time for a Berlin production, with Brecht as director, and with Brecht's old friend Ernst Busch cast in the role of Semjon Lapkin, a role so small that it receives no separate mention in the 1933 Versuche and the later Stiicke versions of the text. The role was not to remain small for very long, however, for Brecht proceeded to alter the play to fit Busch. In this he was following his practice of very long standing. From Bernhard Reich, for instance, we learn: Die Proben unter Brechts Leitung verliefen kurios. Dem Regisseur Brecht gefiel irgendein Schauspieler, ergo muBte er mehr gezeigt werden. Der Dichter Brecht zog flugs ein Stuck Papier heraus und schrieb fur den Schau spieler neuen Text. In 1950 an older Brecht proceeded to switch the lines of the 1932 text around in such a way that his old friend Busch was shown to better advantage. Busch's gain, however, turned out to be Pawel's (Ernst Kahler's) loss. Kahler himself describes what happened thus: 18Theaterarbeit. p. 149. ^Bernhard Reich, "Erinnerungen an den jungen Brecht," in Sinn und Form II. p. 432. 169 Wahrend Lapkin [played in Berlin by Busch] sich in der Leipziger Auffiihrung in keiner Weise von der kleinen Gruppe der revolutionaren Arbeiter abgehoben hatte, sollte er jetzt eine Sonderstellung einnehmen, ausge- zeichnet vor den andern durch eine unerschiitter liche Entschlossenheit in Theorie und Praxis des Klassen- kampfes. Diese Haltung hatte bisher Pawel eingenommen. Um der neuen Funktion Lapkins innerhalb des Stiickes gerecht zu werden, war es notig, seine Rolle zu ver- groflern. Da Brecht okonomisch arbeitet, gab er dem Lapkin, was bisher des Pawels war; mit anderen Worten: den grofiten Teil "meines" Textes ubernahm L a p k i n .20 Though Kahler makes no mention of who was playing the role of Lapkin in Brecht's 1950 production and implies by this omission that the changes were made regardless of who was playing what role, it is virtually certain that the changes were made because of Busch's playing the role of Lapkin. In an interview with me in East Berlin, Elisabeth Hauptmann stated flatly: "When we got Busch to play the worker, Brecht took care to make sure that his lines, his part, 21 fitted the great actor Busch." Hauptmann further noted that the part was then "changed again in 1954 when Busch did not play it any longer." When I then asked how it was decided as to which text, the 1932 (1954) version or the 2QTheaterarbeit. p. 149. 2lFrau Hauptmann's comments in this paragraph made in an interview with me in 1966 in East Berlin. 170 late 1950 version, should be printed in the Stiicke. she said simply: "It was Brecht's decision. He decided to republish the original 19 32 text as a classic text." Thus the Ber liner Ensemble text of late 1950 was not printed, even though, as Elisabeth Hauptmann added, "We have always wanted and it was my idea to print Berliner Ensemble versions of Brecht's plays." Since we know that Brecht mounted the play for the last time (1954) without Busch and used the 1932 text with but minor changes, and since we know further that he was the one who decided to print the 1932 version with only moderate changes rather than the heavily reworked 1950 version in the Stiicke. it would seem plain that the Stiicke version should be treated as definitive and the 1950 Berliner Ensemble version as one that had been rejected in favor of the "clas sic text." One major difficulty prevents my taking this easy way out. We simply have no way of knowing whether the decision to print the slightly modified 1932 version in the Stiicke was perhaps dictated not by aesthetic considerations at all but rather by political ones. From materials in the Brecht archive (BBA Mappe 238/18) not yet cleared for pub lication, it is clear from Brecht's defense of the play that it was under severe aesthetic and (as is usual in the DDR) 171 22 political attack. At one time, after the play had been attacked as "a Formalist aberration," the play was only kept on the Berliner Ensemble's proposed program for a tour of Poland by direct intercession on Brecht's part with a highly placed official in the East German government. A key part of Brecht's plea at the time was the contention that his 1932 version of the play had been "autorisiert" by Gorky himself. Given the rigidly Stalinistic political-aesthetic situation in the years immediately before Brecht's death, it would not seem too far-fetched at least to wonder how much his choices as to what was to go into his collected works might not have been dictated by what was politically- aesthetically acceptable at that time. It may have been that the "classic text" of Die Mutter, the text that had been authorized by the politically and aesthetically reli able (in Communist terms) Maxim Gorky was the most sensible ^Materials on this point to be found in BBA 238/18. A politically harmless version of the defense contained in BBA 238/18 is printed in the Schriften. VI, 314-315. Taken out of its original context, the Schriften version, even though it retains the reference to Gorky, fails to give any notion of how politically important and how aesthetically unimportant the reference was in the original. It is the presence of doctored statements such as this that cause me to wonder about the completeness of both the Stucke and the Schriften? though they may tell the truth, they may fail to tell the whole truth. text to print in those troubled times. It is certainly possible that the sainted name of Gorky had to be evoked in order to save a play that was already under fire for ex hibiting, as Schumacher apologetically noted, Agitprop or Formalistic tendencies. If political considerations played an important role in the decision (and until the archive is fully opened there will be no way of establishing this), then it would seem that for the critic concerned with plays as plays rather than with plays as reflections of any par ticular political situation, the Berliner Ensemble 1950 version of Die Mutter (ready for use in the Ensemble's files) is as deserving of critical attention as the Stiicke version of the text. Until we have a clearer notion of the role purely extra-aesthetic considerations played in the choice by Brecht of one version over the other, it is neces sary to deal with two different plays with two different Pawels, two plays, one with a Semjon Lapkin in a major role and the other with no mention whatsoever of any Semjon Lapkin. Though quite enough critical problems are raised by the existence of two texts with perhaps equal claims to "authenticity," a critical discussion of the Brecht version of Gorky's text is further complicated by the nagging 173 question: are either of the Brecht versions actually based even semi-directly on a German translation of Gorky's novel? From my own examination of the materials on hand, it would seem more accurate to conclude that both Brecht versions are actually Bearbeitunaen of the previously mentioned dramati zation of the Gorky novel by G. Stark and G. Weisenborn. The Stark-Weisenborn version of the play exists, as far as I have been able to discover, only as a Biihnenmanuskript. The seventy-nine typewritten pages of the manuscript are to be found in BBA Mappe 441. A comparison of Brecht's play with the contents of Mappe 441 leads to the inescapable con clusion that the contents of this Mappe were of great value to Brecht in constructing his own versions of the same theme. So numerous indeed are the borrowings from Stark- Weisenborn that the question can seriously be raised: did Brecht ever have to read Gorky in order to write his own two plays? Taking up first the version of Die Mutter printed in the Stiicke. one is struck by the complexity of the interre lationship of the Stark-Weisenborn play and the Brecht play. As with the Feuchtwanger-Brecht reworking of Marlowe-Heymel, everywhere there are major similarities; everywhere there are major differences. Though Brecht selects from the mass 174 of materials that Gorky presents mostly the very scenes that Stark-Weisenborn used in their dramatization, he also leaves out some of their scenes and adds some scenes that would appear to be entirely of his own invention. Much of the dialogue of Stark-Weisenborn (based on Hess's German trans lation) reappears almost word for word in Brecht but some times with important changes in the context in which the borrowed words are used. The only really thorough way to illustrate the importance of Stark-Weisenborn to Brecht is to show how Brecht often parallels Stark-Weisenborn in in stances when they diverge from Gorki-Hess. To illustrate the point that Brecht used materials from Stark-Weisenborn rather than going directly to Gorki-Hess, let us turn first to the important scene where the police raid the Vlasova home and, in the same scene, where Pelegeya Vlasova volunteers to take the revolutionaries' pamphlets to the factory. The fact that Gorky orders his materials in one way, Stark-Weisenborn in another, and that Brecht's version parallels that of the dramatizers rather than that of the novelist demonstrates clearly that Brecht's reworking is one of Stark-Weisenborn rather than of Gorky. A scene in the original Russian text runs thus (Jegor Ivanovich is addressing the mother on the topic of the recent arrest of 175 her son Pavel): "Vy podumayte: byl Pavel— byli knizhki i bumazhki, net Pavla— net ni knizhek, ni bumazhek'. Znachit, eto on seyal knizhechki, aga-a? Nu, i nachnut oni est' vsekh,— zhandarmy lyubyat tak okornat' cheloveka, chtoby ot nego ostalis' odni pustyaki'. — Ya ponimayu, ponimayu'. — tosklivo skazala mat' . — Akh, gospodi*. Kak zhe teper?"23 Not until the next page of the novel, not until after she has not only slowly grasped the significance of what she has been told but has worked out a way that she herself can help her son does she offer to take the pamphlets to the factory herself. Hess's translation of the little Russian scene I have just given runs as follows: "Uberlegen Sie einmal: Solange Pawel da war, wurden diese Biichlein und Blatter verbreitet, nun, wo er nicht mehr da ist, kommt nichts mehrAlso hat er doch die Dinger verbreitet, nicht wahr? Nun, dann werden sie sich einfach alle vornehmen. Die Gendarmen lieben es, den Menschen so zu bearbeiten, daB nicht viel von ihm iibrigbleibt." " Ich verstehe, ich verstehe'." sagte die Mutter be- triibt. "Ach mein Gott, was soil nun werden?"^ 23Maxim Gorky, Mat'. in Izbrannve Proizvedeniva (Kiev, 1964), p. 283. Mat' was first published in 1907. 24Maxim Gorki, Die Mutter. trans. Adolf HeB (Berlin, 1961), p. 59. Hess's translation of Die Mutter was first published in Germany in 1923 and was then reprinted in 1927 and 1929. All subsequent references to the Hess transla tion will be given as Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter. 176 In Stark-Weisenborn, we find the following change in person and emphasis: Pawe1: Ihr wisst, daft Ssidor heute verhaftet wurde. Ssidor hat unsere Flugblatter in der Fabrik verteilt. Wenn die Flugblatter nach seiner Verhaftung ausbleiben, weiB die Polizei, daS er sie verteilt hat. Also rmissen die Flugblatter morgen in der Fabrik wieder verteilt werden,25 In the Stiicke version of the play, the same switch in char acter takes place and the language also leans heavily on Stark-Weisenborn: Andrei: Wenn heute kein Flugblatter mehr verteilt werden, wissen sie doch, daft es Ssidor gewesen sein mu£, der gestern die Flugblatter verteilt hat. Anton: Schon darum ist es notig, daft auch heute wieder Flugblatter verteilt werden.2* > Though a different character speaks some of the words in Brecht, the deliberate change introduced by Stark-Weisen- born, i.e., having Pavel present instead of in prison, is kept by Brecht. A close comparison of another part of the same scene in Brecht reinforces the notion that the "Brecht" scene relies more heavily on Stark-Weisenborn than it does on 25Stark-Weisenborn, Die Mutter. BBA 441/09. 26Stiicke . V, 20. 177 Gorky. In Gorky we find: — Ty, Nakhodka, privlekalsya uzhe k doznaniyu po politicheskim prestupleniyam? — sprosil ofitser. — V Rostove privlekalsya, i v Saratove. . . Tol'ko tain zhandarmy govorili mne — "vy" . . . Ofitser mignul pravym glazom, poter ego i, oskaliv melkie zuby zagovoril: — A ne izvestno li vam, Nakhodka, imenno vam, — kto te merzavtsy, kotorye razbrasyvayut na fabrike prestupnye vozzvaniya, a? khokhol pokachnulsya na nogakh i, shiroko ulybayas', khotel chto-to skazat', no— vnov' prozvuchal razdrazh- ayuschiy golos Nikolaya: 27 — My merzavtsev pervyy raz vidim. . . Hess's reasonably accurate German translation of the same passage runs: "Nachodka, bist du schon mal wegen politischer Ver- brechen in Untersuchung gewesen?" fragte der Offizier. " Ja, in Rostow und in Saratow . . . Aber die Gen- darmen haben dort 'Sie' zu mir gesagt ..." Der Offizier blinzelte mit dem rechten Auge, rieb es sich und meinte lachelnd, wobei seine kleinen Zahne sichtbar wurden: "1st Ihnen— ich sage Ihnen— bekannt, welche Schurken in der Fabrik die verbrecherischen Aufrufe verbreiten?" Der Kleinrusse wiegte sich auf seinen Beinen und wollte, den Mund zu einem breiten Lacheln verzogen, etwas sagen, da erklang wieder Nikolais aufreizende Stimme: 2q "Schurken sehen wir zum ersten Mal . . ." In Stark-Weisenborn, the same passage is slightly altered 27Gorky, Mat'. p. 266. 28Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter. p. 41. 178 and reads: Fedjakin: Das ist Andrej Nachotka, der Kleinrusse'. Kommissar: Nachotka'. Andre j Nachotka'.? Du bist wegen politischer Vergehen schon in Haft gewesen? Andre j: Ja'. in Rostow und Saratow . . . aber die Gen darme haben mich da "Sie" genannt'. Kommissar: Ist . . . Ihnen bekannt, welche Schurken in der Fabrik diese verbrecherischen Flugblatter verteilen? Pawel: Schurken sehen wir hier zum ersten Mal1 .29 Containing the same inserted first line and the same switch of the closing line from Nikolai to Pavel, the passage in Brecht reads: Polizist: Das ist Andrej Nachodka, der Kleinrusse. Kommissar tritt an den Tisch: Andrej Maximowitsch Nachodka, du bist schon einmal wegen politischer Ver gehen in Haft gewesen? Andrej: Ja, in Rostow und Saratow, aber da hat mich die Polizei mit "Sie" angeredet. Kommissar zieht ein Fluablatt aus der Tasche: Ist Ihnen bekannt, welche Schurken in den Suchlinow-Werken diese hochverraterischen Flugblatter verteilen? Pawel: Schurken sehen wir hier zum erstenmal.3® The more one reads of Brecht's text in close comparison with that of Stark-Weisenborn the more one becomes convinced that the novel itself was of little or no importance to Brecht. I find no significant instance where he departs from Stark-Weisenborn to return to Gorky to use an element 29Stark-Weisenborn, Die Mutter. BBA 441/11. 3 °Stucke. V, 17. 179 left out by Stark-Weisenborn in their dramatization. As far as the Brecht play is concerned, one can go so far as to say that the Russian novel and Hess's German translation of it could have been completely destroyed after Stark and Weisenborn did their dramatization without this destruction of the novel causing Brecht any difficulty whatsoever in constructing "his own play." In view of the significant work done by the two earlier writers in reducing the lengthy novel to the length and form of a workable play, the single reference to Weisenborn and none to Stark in the Stiicke and no reference whatsoever to either in the seven volumes of the Schriften seems to me to be far too little. It would certainly be fairer if the following note, found on a manu script in the Brecht archive and in the Versuche version of the text were to have appeared in the Stiicke version also: "Die Mutter" mit einer Musik von Eisler ist der 15. der "Versuche", eine Dramatisierung des Romans von Maxim Gorki. Benutzt ausserdem eine Dramatisierung von G . Stark und G. Weisenborn. Though it is clear that Brecht relies on the Stark- 31-This comment found in BBA 195/03. Mappe 195 is Brecht's Reaiebuch for his last production of Die Mutter and contains his handwritten Randbemerkungen. The same acknow ledgment of Stark and Weisenborn is found in both the Alt- druck (1933) and Neudruck of the Versuche 13-19, 5-8. 180 Weisenborn text for much of his own version, it is equally clear that he also diverges from it quite often. Wherever Brecht does diverge from the earlier dramatization, however, he diverges also from Gorky. This single fact is the key to the contention that Stark and Weisenborn were actually more useful to Brecht than was Gorky. Nevertheless, once this contention is demonstrated it is then necessary to go on to a consideration of an even more important question: how does Brecht's text differ from the play which he used as a model? This question cannot really be answered at all, however, without a clear idea of where Stark and Weisenborn adhere very closely to Gorky. Only if this is clear can we see where Brecht breaks clear from all possible models and shapes and transforms the mother "Stoff" to fit his own purposes. The first place, obviously, to look for such changes is in the character of the mother herself. Though it can be demonstrated that Stark and Weisenborn do make some minor changes in the character of the mother (I am thinking here particularly of the fact that she saves Ssidor rather than her son in their version), it can also be demonstrated that they leave her basic character unchanged. The mother of their play is, for instance, as religious, as pious as the woman that Gorky presents. Likewise, her 181 relationship to her son remains fundamentally unchanged. In the novel and in the early dramatization the mother plays the role of follower in revolutionary activity. Only grad ually, in novel and play, is she won over to her son’s position and, what is even more important, only very gradu ally does she reinvest her specifically Christian piety in the new religion. For Gorky and for Stark and Weisenborn, the profound Christianity of the mother is not something to be ridiculed or exorcised but rather something that can be usefully channeled into revolutionary activity. Before going on to Brecht's text, however, and to my demonstration that his mother (in both his versions) differs fundamentally from the character he took over from Gorky via Stark and Weisenborn, it is necessary for me to demonstrate textually the two major traits of the mother that come to the fore in the texts which Brecht used. The specifically Christian orientation of the mother in Gorky's text, and the fact that her Christian feeling passes almost imperceptibly into Communist feeling, is clearly shown in her thoughts on the cowardly (un-Christian) crowd on the first of May, immediately after her son's ar rest. She thinks: "Gospoda nashego Iisusa Khrista ne bylo 182 32 by, esli by lyudi ne pogibli vo slavu ego. . Hess renders this as follows: "Christus, unser Herr, ware nicht, wenn nicht Menschen zu seinem Ruhm in den Tod gegangen 33 waren ..." It is clear here that the mother confuses Christian with Communist devotion. There is even the fur ther implication that she confuses Christ's sacrifice with that of her son. The same confusion is clearly present in Stark and Weisenborn's version. At one point in their text the mother exclaims: "Es scheint, Andrej, daB man mitmachen muB, von ganz innen an. Ihr lebt ja fast wie die Recht- 34 glaubigen'. Was muB das fur ein groBer Glaube sein'." For the mother in both these texts, her son’s friends, though they call themselves Communists, are, to her way of thinking, as truly Christian as the True Believers. Her naive faith in a Christ who cared for the poor, the fallen, those in need of rest, is easily transferred to a movement that not only preached the same sentiments, but lived and died for them. It must be remembered here that Gorky and Stark and Weisenborn only have the mother come in contact 32Gorky, Mat'. p. 354. 33Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter, p. 134. 34Stark-Weisenborn, Die Mutter. BBA 441/24. 183 with the most fundamentally Christian kind of revolutionary. Pavel and his revolutionary friends in the novel and the early dramatization are the Martin Luther Kings rather than the Malcolm Xs of the movement. Presenting only the human istic face of Marxism to the mother's astonished view, the dedicated men and women who are prepared to die a martyr's death for what they believe demand of the mother by their superb example that she abandon the "Christians," those who have lost sight of the profound humanitarian aspects of Christ1s teachings and that she reinvest her genuine Chris tian belief in what is (as long as only the humanistic mask of the movement is seen) a truly "Christian" way of thinking and living. Essential, however, to her passionate belief in the apostles of the "new" religion is that she have a passionate, genuine, and naive belief in the efficacy of Christ's message in its unsullied form in the old religion. She says at one point (almost at the end of the novel and long after she has committed herself heart and soul to Com munism) : "Naschet boga — ne znayu ya, a vo Khrista veryu. . . I slovam ego veryu — vozlyubi blizhnego, yako sebya, — v eto veryu'. . ."35 35Gorky, Mat'. p. 436. 184 In German Hess gives this as: "Ob es Gott gibt, weiS ich nicht . . . Aber an Christus glaube ich und an seine Worte. 'Du sollst deinen Nach- sten lieben wie dich selbst' — ja, daran glaube ich'. In order to live this commandment the mother in Gorky, in Hess, and in Stark-Weisenborn commits herself to a movement that appears to her to be passionately engaged in fulfilling Christ's dictum. Thus the strength of Christianity is used in jiu-jitsu fashion. Christian sentiment is used to upset an ostensibly Christian regime. This jiu-jitsu use of Christianity is violently re jected by Brecht in his version. We need only look at the tone of the tenth scene of Brecht's play to see his attitude towards Christianity. At no time is Brecht's mother any thing short of contemptuous of Christianity. In Brecht she comes to Communism through logic rather than through the devious (but well motivated) channel that Gorky used. Where Gorky's mother saw only the good side of Communism, Brecht's mother chooses only to see the bad side of the Bible and of Christianity. For the non-biased observer, neither mother would seem to be seeing the whole picture. In my view, 36Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter, p. 221. 185 however, the passion and warmth and psychological soundness of Gorky's mother's error is far more humanly appealing than is the logic that is not at all logical of Brecht's mother. Where the simplicity of Gorky's mother's illogic disarms, the brash know-it-all tone of Brecht's mother puts one on one's guard, and makes one begin to wonder whether she really knows anything. This radical change in the mother's tone brings us to the next major change made by Brecht: the change in the mother's structural function in the two ver sions of the play. It must be remembered that though Gorky calls his novel simply Mat'. it is at least as much the story of her son Pavel. Mother and son are inextricably intertwined in Gorky. Under the impetus of her son's ideological develop ment and commitment and the dangers in which his commitment comes to involve him, the mother emerges from being a pas sive but deeply committed Christian to becoming an active and deeply committed comrade. Some of the loveliest and most human qualities of Gorky's mother are her own somewhat ugly appearance, her love of her son, her pride in his achievements, her anxiety for his safety, and her self- sacrifice in order to guard his well-being. In contrast to the very human mother that Gorky paints, his picture of the 186 son is perhaps a touch too saintly, too brave, too dedi cated, too smart, too ascetic to be as human as his mother. To draw a Russian parallel, Pavel is, like Stolz in Gon charov's Oblomov. too good to be true, whereas the mother comes closer to the perfect non-perfection of Oblomov him self. Whatever his drawbacks as aesthetic construct, how ever, the fact I would like to point out here is that the figure of Pavel bears as much structural weight in the novel as does the mother herself. In the 1932 version of Brecht’s play, much of the structural importance of Pawel is retained. Even so, the figure of the mother is heightened, and much of the addi tional height is taken away from Pawel. The reduction of Pawel's part in the play only partially accounts, however, for the mother's increased role in the first Brecht version. By continuing the story beyond Pawel's death and thus having no one to offset the mother's dominance, Brecht substan tially increases the structural importance of the mother's role in the total gestalt of the play. The changes made in 1950 increase the mother's role even more, and, at the same time (as has previously been discussed at some length), Pawel is almost taken out of the play, as his lines are given to the new character, Semjon Lapkin. Almost all the 187 lines that established Pawel's leadership qualities, for instance, are given to Lapkin. In the last (1950) version Brecht has moved Pawel from the play's structural center to the outer fringes of the play where, with a slight addi tional shove, he could be put off the stage completely and his absence hardly noticed. The change in the role of Pawel from hero, saint and leader to somewhat timid and callow neophyte results in two other major changes. First, Semjon Lapkin becomes (as has been noted) a pillar of the play's architecture, and second, motherly devotion to the son and pride in his activities is removed as the mainspring of the mother's action in joining the movement. In attempting the Entheroisierung of Pawel, Brecht achieves as a by-product an elevation of the heroism of the mother. From a story with two equal pillars, Brecht has constructed a play with a central pillar (Pelagea Wlassowa) towering over the rest, and with two far smaller side pillars (Pawel and Semjon Lapkin) playing literally and figuratively supporting roles. Understandably enough, Semjon Lapkin, rising from the total obscurity of the 1932 text, does not rise high enough even with most of Pawel's lines to challenge the pre-eminence of the mother's role in the play. Why this should be so becomes clear when one 188 remembers that Pawel*s role was weaker in the first Brecht version than it was in Gorky and that, in the later version, Lapkin gets only some of Pawel's lines. The hard and strong woman, the dominating woman, with, supposedly, a heart of gold, incisive intelligence, intel lectual commitment and a vicious tongue becomes the new type. This woman (could it be that it is Helene Weigel her self?) reappears elsewhere in Brecht— as Frau Kopecka in Schweyk. the Widow Begbick in Mann ist Mann, the mother in Mutter Courage, the wife of the governor in Der kaukasische Kreidekreis. Frau Carrar in Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar. the strong and bitter "women" of Furcht und Elend des Drit- ten Reiches. Antigone in Antigone. and Volumnia in QofiioIan. All these roles are suited or tailored to Frau Weigel, an actress described by Esslin thus: Helene Weigel combines the emotional intensity of a great, though always intellectual, actress, with an acute and cultivated mind and prodigious organizing ability.37 37Esslin, Brecht. p. 55. Willy Haas, in his Bert Brecht (p. 59), notes: "Helene Weigel, die wir zuerst in dem Schauspiel 'Die Mutter' sahen, war eine sehr gute, warme, liebenswiirdige Schauspielerin ..." It is difficult to know whether Haas is being ironic here. Weigel would no doubt be insulted to be called a "warm actress." From my own observation of her as actress for and directress of the 189 It is this small, thin woman with the powerful personal charisma and the intangible leadership qualities of an actress used to leading roles that comes to the fore in the last version of the play. Brecht's Pelagea Wlassowa in 1950 is at least as much Helene Weigel as Helene Weigel is the mother. The part is suited and tailored to the actress. In contrast, it is interesting and important that Gorky's mother is described in the novel as "round." Her roundness contributes, of course, to her archetypicality, her eleva tion to "mother" in its most generic sense. Even the Rus sian title contributes to this by its lack of either defi nite or indefinite articles; Gorky's work is entitled simply Mother. In Brecht, the part, as tailored to and as played by Helene Weigel, has a certain coldness, thinness, hard ness, and incisiveness that calls to mind the German actress and excludes the rotundity and archetypical motherliness of the Gorky character. Where Gorky's mother is passionate, demonstrative in affection, easily hurt in personal rela tionships, religious, and tearful, Brecht's mother is Ensemble, I would say that she is neither a particulary warm person nor a warm actress. Esslin's description of her as an intellectual actress seems to me to be more accurate than Haas's description. 190 fanatically anti-religious, dedicated to the movement with cold rather than passionate intensity, intellectually com mitted rather than emotionally so, totally undemonstrative in personal relationships, and she has a stiff upper lip, straight back, and an ability to lead, control, and organ ize. Grimm was surely correct when he noted of Brecht's mother that "In ihr herrscht . . . das Organisierte, Partei- 38 mafiige und Klassenbetonte ..." rather than the unorgan ized motherly qualities of the mother. These general con tentions as to the character of the two mothers are sup ported by the following texts. One of the very first appearances of the "mother," Pelegeya Vlasova, in Gorky's novel contains the following scene/image. Pavel has returned home after the death of his father and begins to act in the crude and demanding way that had characterized his father. Pelegeya Vlasova reacts thus: "Mat1 podoshla k nemu, sela ryadorn i obnyala syna, pritya- 39 givaya golovu ego k sebe na grud'." In the German trans lation, this reads: "Die Mutter kam, setzte sich neben ihn, 38Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 57. 39Gorky, Mat*. p. 237. 191 40 umarmte ihren Sohn und zog semen Kopf an ihre Brust." Rejecting this motherly gesture and attempting to assert himself as man of the house rather than son of the house, Pawel "stemmte die Hand gegen ihre Schulter, straubte sich und schrie: 'Mama— mach schnell'. 1 " (p. 11). The Russian version runs: "On, upirayas' rukoy v plecho ey, sopro- tivlyalsya i krichal: — Mamasha, -- zhivo1 . . ." To which Pelegeya Vlassova responds: " — Durachok ty'. -- pechal'no 41 i laskovo skazala mat', odolevaya ego soprotivlenie." Hess gives this as: "'Mein dummer Junge'. 1 sagte die Mutter 42 traurig und zartlich, seinen Widerstand iiberwindend." Hess's rendition of the affectionate diminutive "dyrachok" by "mein dummer Junge" is insufficiently warm. The Russian term is much more motherly than Hess's German suggests. In English it might be conveyed by some warm and affectionate phrase like, "dear little foolish one." What is important here about the exact rendition of the phrase is that from it it can be seen that the mother reacts, from the very begin ning of Gorky's tale, as archetypical mother. 4®Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter. p. 11. 41Gorky, Mat'-, p. 237. 42Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter, p. 11. 192 In contrast to Gorky's character, Brecht’s mother, in the very first scene of the play, is placed in the center of the action and is made to upstage her son by the commo tion she makes about serving tea to Pawel's revolutionary friends. In Gorky and in the Stark-Weisenborn version of the tale she serves tea quietly and unobtrusively and creates no difficulties whatsoever. Though the earlier mother certainly has forebodings of the danger of these people to her son, she does not actively oppose their pres ence. She would not dream of saying in front of them, as Brecht's mother does, "Pawel, es ware mir sehr unangenehm, wenn der Hausbe- sitzer merken wiirde, daft hier friih um fiinf Uhr Leute zusammenkommen und etwas drucken'. Wir konnen sowieso die Miete nicht bezahlen."4' * Nor would Gorky's character say flatly, as does Brecht's mother: "Pawel ich verbiete dir, diese Flugblatter zu ver teilen" (p. 19). Nor would Gorky's Pavel either fail to respond to such an outburst or tamely carry out the order his mother has given him. The outburst of the mother and Pawel's reaction to it indicate a relationship based upon strict parental control. 43Stiicke. V, 12-13. 193 Contrast this scene with what is roughly the same scene in Gorky: the one immediately following the brutal police raid. Observe the switch from first person worry in Brecht to second person worry in Gorky. Note also the difference in tone, the lack of concern for the house, and the lack of shrillness and/or domination in Gorky's mother's reaction to danger to her son. Gorky has simply the following scene between mother and son alone: "Ona podvinulas' k nemu, zaglyanula v ego litso i tikhon'ko sprosila: -- Obideli 44 tebya?" "Sie trat auf ihn zu, sah ihm ins Gesicht und 45 fragte leise: 'Hat es dich gekrankt?'" Two lines later 46 Gorky writes: "Stutno chuvstvuya ego bol'." "... dumpf 47 fiihlte sie seinen Schmarz . . ." Given the character of the mother in Brecht that the above citations point to, it is not surprising to find a radical change in the way she takes over the job of dis tributing the pamphlets. As I have already stated, in Gorky Pavel has already been arrested when the mother offers 44Gorky, Mflt', p. 268. 45Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter. p. 43. 4^Gorky, Mat'. p. 268. 47Gorki-Hess, Die Mutter, p. 43. 194 to distribute the leaflets. Her offer is made with the greatest reticence and only because she hopes by so doing directly to benefit her son. In the Stark-Weisenborn ver sion she offers to distribute them in order to save Ssidor. Nevertheless, the hesitation of Gorky is retained and the offer is shyly made. Again it is made to help Pawel, for, if she does not deliver the leaflets Pawel will have to do it. Because he is under suspicion already and the mother is not, it makes sense for the mother to make her offer. In Brecht all, it would seem, are under equal suspicion. This makes the mother's act one of gratuitous heroism and not even very practical heroism at that, as (in contrast to Stark-Weisenborn) the mother does not have an already pre pared plan to get the pamphlets into the factory. Pelagea Wlassowa in Brecht simply demands: "Gebt die Flugblatter 48 her, ich, nicht Pawel, werde gehen und sie verteilen." Only after the abrupt demand, only after everyone has bowed to her will is a method found to get the leaflets into the factory and a rationale found for giving her the job. The "same" task, because of Brecht's mother's approach to it, becomes totally different in Brecht. 48Stucke. V, 21. 195 Although Pelagea Wlassowa makes enquiries of the other revolutionaries as to the fate of her son in Brecht's play, she really shows very little other concern for him, nor does she behave in a way that might be characterized as either "motherly" or very human. The clearest example of an actual rejection of motherly behavior in favor of revo lutionary behavior is shown in the scene where Pawel first sees his mother after he has escaped from a gang being taken to exile in Siberia. In the Stucke version of the text, Pelagea Wlassowa, on seeing her son, cries "Pawel1" and the stage direction reads, "Sie umarmt ihn" (p. 83). In the Berliner Ensemble manuscript of the 1950 version, however, this perfectly natural reaction is cut and the mother no longer hugs her son. Also, in the same scene in the revised version, the mother does not, as in the printed version, 49 help him on with his coat at his departure. In this whole scene, in both versions of the play, but in the last more than the first, her behavior indicates a clear rejection of traditional notions of motherhood. When, shortly after his arrival, Pawel has to leave again to continue his flight from the tsarist forces, Pelagea Wlassowa suggests at his 49See Stucke. V, 88. 196 departure that only for the present is she more "revolu tionary" than "motherly." She says: "Hoffentlich kann ich dir das nachste Mai das Brot abschneiden," to which Pawel replies, with all but the first word addressed to the com pany at large rather than to his mother in particular, 50 "Hoffentlich. Auf Wiedersehen, Genossen!" The clear implication on both sides is that only for the moment must normal family behavior be interrupted. The only difficulty with the above contention is that Brecht's mother simply does not seem capable of motherhood in a traditional and/or in a non-tyrannical sense. The woman Brecht presents us with is, from the title to the closing words of the play, center stage. She dominates everyone she comes in contact with. Her self-assuredness becomes naked arrogance and its only justification is that she "knows that she is working for the right." As the teacher (whose home and life Pelagea Wlassowa has taken over completely in Brecht's play) says at one time: "Ich werde es aufgeben, mich mit Ihnen zu streiten. Sie sind schreck- lich tyrannisch" (p. 84). No stage direction and nothing in the context of this statement indicates that it is meant 50££ii£]i£, V, 88-89. 197 ironically. Indeed, Pelagea Wlassowa's reply to the charge seems completely serious. She says: "Ja, das miissen wir sein, allerdings" (p. 84). Immediately after this inter change with the teacher, she, with her usual center-stage position and her usual air of command, boasts of how she has "borrowed" a piece of felt to quiet the thudding press. Asked why she complains so loudly of the woman from whom she "obtained" the felt, she replies: "Weil sie mich gezwungen hat, ihn zu stehlen, denn haben miissen wir ihn doch. Und fur ihre Kinder ist es sehr gut, dafi solche Zeitungen gedruckt werden. Das ist die lautere Wahrheit'." (p. 86) Whatever Pelagea Wlassowa says and to whomever she says it, she always conveys the impression, implicitly or explicitly, that she is the guardian of and speaker for "die lautere Wahrheit." Gone is the modesty of Gorky's character. Brecht's mother is the carrier of the flag, the representa tive of folk wisdom, the tireless, cunning and unentbehrlich worker for the cause. In the words of a song entitled Lob der Wlassowas (which is "Rezitiert vom Gutsmetzger und seinen Leuten" in her presence), Wlassowa is all of the following: Das ist unsere Genossin Wlassowa, gute Kampferin. Fleifiig, listig und zuverlassig. 198 Zuverlassig im Kampf, listig gegen unsern Feind und flei&ig Bei der Agitation. Ihre Arbeit ist klein Zah verrichtet und unentbehrlich. (p. 79) What is flatly wrong with the claim made in this song is that Pelagea Wlassowa, this chronicle of all the revolu tionary virtues, should be considered as a representative example of women with her background (i.e. in the laboring class) everywhere. Yet, we are told before the very first speech of Pelagea Wlassowa in the play that she is in ac tuality "Die Wlassowas aller Lander" (p. 7). But it is clear that Brecht's virago, with her cunning, intelligence, and courage, is a born leader. As such, she is unique; as such, she can hardly, except in the most blinkered vision of the most dedicated and fanatical exponent of "the working class," be considered typical. Brecht has, in his own way, painted, in Pelagea Wlassowa, as romantic a picture of his "working class heroine" as anything that is to be found in classic romance. In her devotion to the Communist cause, she is as elevated, as flawless, as pure, and as useful as any of the Nordic types that appeared in "art" in Germany between 1933 and 1945 or the tractor-driver heroines of Russia up to this day. This "mother" is stripped of the qualities that made Gorky's mother so very human, typical 199 and appealing, i.e., her motherliness, her religious feel ing, her reluctance to become involved in the unlawful, her roundness, her lack of good looks, and a certain touching feminine weakness. Though the Vlasova of Gorky's novel is basically Russian, with all her human traits, she becomes a true and representative example of an enormous and inter national class. The domineering "mother" of Brecht is, and we must be thankful for this, representative of an inter national but far smaller class. If my description of the mother in the novel of Gorky and in the two versions of Brecht's play be accurate, I would argue from this that the woman Gorky presents is human and, as such, is more sus ceptible to being identified with by vast numbers of women in large parts of the world than is Brecht's heroine. The mother as Brecht presents her belongs in a modern Communist version of the medieval stained glass window, or saint's tale. If one does not believe in the unsullied purity of saints or in the undoubted righteousness of Pelagea Wlas sowa 's cause, then one cannot believe in Brecht's Pelagea Wlassowa or, because she is the play, in the play itself. When we have disposed of Brecht's contention that his mother is representative of "woman everywhere," we are still left with the aesthetic problem of whether this woman and 200 this play have any aesthetic merit or whether the play is simply a pifece d'occasion. Our final question, therefore, with reference to Brecht's play must be: does he exploit his heightened and atypical figure of woman to achieve and illustrate some aesthetic purpose? Perhaps because Picas so's cubistic portraits or El Greco's or Byzantine or Rus sian saints are anatomically unsound (in a most literal sense) they interest us as art. But can the same be said of Brecht's figure? At roughly the same time as Brecht became converted to Communism, he became ever more deeply involved in non literal, deliberately stylized modes of dramatic and poetic expression. As I noted in my chapter on Brecht's literary and theatrical background, it was around 1930 that Brecht developed and extended an interest in oriental theatre and 51 in non-literal staging at its most refined and extensive. It was at this time that he almost certainly saw Paul Claudel's Christophe Colomb and at this time that he became 5^-It is interesting to note that at least one problem of collaboration can be solved in this study. In conversa tion with me, Elisabeth Hauptmann flatly claimed that she was personally responsible for the one clearly Noh element in Die Muttert the opening speech of the mother, addressed directly to the audience. 201 fascinated with Waley's and Wilhelm's translations from the Chinese. His Bearbeitunq of Die Mutter falls precisely into this period and fits precisely with the dominant type of Brecht play of this period, the so-called Lehrstiick. It also helps perhaps to an understanding of the play to remember the position of the Communist Party in Germany in 1932. Hitler and his private armies already ruled the streets of many of the major cities. They already had open or tacit police support and could already effectively (legally or extra-legally) suppress any movement hostile to the Nazi Party. In this atmosphere, an openly Communist play ran the gravest danger of being closed down either by Nazi rowdies or by Nazi-oriented governmental suppression. The Brecht play, therefore, had to be written in such a way that not only could it easily lend itself to being moved from all to hall but it even had to be written so that it could masquerade as non-play in order to get around official harassment. As Esslin observes of early performances of the play: The Mother began to move from one district party center to the next through the Berlin working-class quarters. The government of the day tried to stop these perform ances, even if only on the ground that the halls in question had not been passed for theatrical performances and did not comply with fire regulations. This led to 202 the actors' giving mere readings of the play, closely watched by the police lest they begin to impersonate the characters.^2 Brecht, as Esslin notes, making, as usual, a virtue of necessity, was charmed by the "epic" nature of these "read ings." Political necessity merges here, as is so often the case with Brecht, with aesthetic theory and purpose. Out of necessity and inclination, Brecht experimented then in dra matic form with the clear and simple dramatic statement. He fills his play with clear and simple statements (uttered by the mother) of his own recently acquired faith. This radi cally simple content merges with and superbly supports the radically simplified dramatic form he had recently derived from Oriental theatre and Agitprop theatre. One of the clearest examples of this simplicity of both content and form of presentation of this content is the songs; the first stanza of the Lob des Lernens. for instance, runs thus: Lerne das Einfachste, fur die Deren Zeit gekommen ist Ist es nie zu spat'. Lerne das ABC, es geniigt nicht, aber Lerne es' . ^3 52Esslin, Brecht. p. 49. 53Stiacfce, v, 57. 203 Or, in exactly the same tone, in the song Lob des Kommu- nismus. we find the following drastically simplified exhor tation: Er ist verniinftig, jeder versteht ihn. Er ist leicht. Du bist doch kein Ausbeuter, du kannst ihn begreifen. Er ist gut fur dich, erkundige dich nach ihm. Die Dummkopfe nennen ihn dumm, und die Schmutzigen nennen ihn schmutzig. Er ist gegen den Schmutz und gegen die Dummheit. Die Ausbeuter nennen ihn ein Verbrechen Wir aber wissen: Er ist das Ende der Verbrechen. Er ist keine Tollheit, sondern Das Ende der Tollheit. Er ist nicht das Ratsel Sondern die Losung. Er ist das Einfache Das schwer zu machen ist. (p. 49) Because of content and form such as this, a represen tative of the pro-Nazi, anti-Communist press wrote: Rotestes, allerrotestes Parteitheater im Zeichen von Hammer und Sickel— Gorkis uralter Roman verstumperd fur Analphabeten, papriziert mit "Songs."54 Or, as a more sensitive reviewer in New York, seeking some thing nice to say, wrote of the Theatre Union production: 54BBA 404/19. Taken from the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger. January 17, 1932. Signed Stx. (Ludwig Sternaus). It might be noted that the tone of this comment is typical of both the reviewer and this particular newspaper. 204 "The style of the production is considerably more interest- 55 ing than the drama." Of the play's reception, Brecht himself wrote: Da von den Auffuhrungen einige vor fast nur burger- lichem, andere (die meisten) von nur proletarischem Publikum stattfanden, konnten wir den Unterschied zwischen dem Reagieren der beiden Arten von Zuschauern genau beobachten. Er ist ungeheuer. Wahrend die Ar- beiter auf die feinsten Wendungen der Dialoge sofort reagierten und die kompliziertesten Voraussetzungen ohne weiteres mitmachten, begriff das biirgerliche Publikum nur miihsam den Gang der Handlung und iiber- haupt nicht das Wesentliche.^6 What Brecht of course ignores in his observations here and what I cannot possibly ignore is the assumption that Pela gea Wlassowa speaks THE TRUTH, that the play embodies THE TRUTH, and that THE TRUTH is self-evident for anyone who views the play with his eyes and mind open. Brecht seems wholly unaware in his declaration above that his arguments are not overpowering but, rather, oversimplified. If Brecht asks (and he so often did) that his audience be alert, in formed, and critical, he surely has to reckon with the possibility that he may end up with an audience that is just ^-*BBA 403/34. Comment made by Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times. November 20, 1935. See also footnote 15 of this chapter. 56Schriften. II, 231. 205 that. He ignores the fact that the workers who saw the play were hardly, in the Germany of 1932, or indeed in the East Germany of 1950, dispassionate, informed and critical. They, in their own way, were as biased and unthinking as the bourgeoisie scorned by Brecht for their failure to think. The most complicated Voraussetzung. in my view, that the play demands is that you already be passionately (i.e., un thinkingly) committed to the Communist cause. However sym pathetic one may be to the fascinating formal experimenta tion, derived from oriental and Agit(ation)-Prop(aganda) sources, one cannot entirely ignore the play's content, however much of a formalist one may be. One may wonder at and thoroughly enjoy Brecht's use of direct address (taken, via Elisabeth Hauptmann, Waley and Wilhelm from Noh conven tions), the scattering of "songs" throughout the text, and the use of background projection to bring in the facts and figures of the world beyond the play. But one cannot help but wonder if all this is "iiberhaupt nicht das Wesentliche." Finally one must ask what the aesthetic devices are being used to say. Finally one must wonder whether what is said is said only for an in group, only for the faithful. Yet for all its effort to be fine propaganda, the play is not absolutely successful in its aim. Perhaps the style 206 of presentation (stark, evocative, highly stylized) works well still on the western side of the Iron Curtain, while its content (inseparable from its style) alienates an audi ence that might appreciate its style. In the East, the reverse is true; though its content (with some significant reservations) is acceptable, the style of writing and of necessary presentation is too "formalistic" to be made to fit with Socialist Realism. But even if "Socialist Realism" is finally thawing out (and there are many signs that it is), there is yet another problem with playing this play behind the Iron Curtain. In the closing lines of the piece, the ambiguity that is so prominent and magnificent a fea ture of Brecht's best plays and is otherwise almost entirely lacking in this one, comes for a moment to the fore. The two-edged sword of the humanist rather than the one-edged sword of the party-type Communist is, for a moment, un sheathed. All those whose power is founded on force, not consent, must ask if the shoe fits when they hear the lines: Das Sichere ist nicht sicher So, wie es ist, bleibt es nicht. Wenn die Herrschenden gesprochen haben Werden die Beherrschten sprechen. Wer wagt zu sagen: niemals? An wem liegt es, wenn die Unterdriickung bleibt? An uns. An wem liegt es, wenn sie zerbrochen wird? Ebenfalls an uns. 2 07 Wer niedergeschlagen wird, der erhebe sich1 . Wer verloren ist, kampfe'. Wer seine Lage erkannt hat, wie soil der aufzuhalten sein?^7 The Herrschenden (here, for once in the play, unnamed) can wear many faces and those can be on either side of the Berlin wall. For an instant, the play lifts itself into ambiguity, into universality, into timelessness, into art, but the moment is too little and too late. The one soaring moment is enough, perhaps, to ruin the play in the East but not enough to save it in the West. This one touch of uni versality is not enough to carry the play alive down the sea of time. Like the countless Lehrstiieke of Christianity, Brecht's versions of Die Mutter will almost certainly soon be forgotten. In reworking material received indirectly from Gorky, Brecht, in my judgment, though he creates a work different enough even from Stark-Weisenborn to be deemed "original," does not, as Gorky managed to do, create a work having more than local interest and significance. The play is, despite the interest of its radical structure, clearly a representative example of Marxist drama at its most narrow and least humanistic. Brecht's versions of The Mother are 57SttickQ, V, 116-117. quite literally and figuratively the mother as Brecht paints her: flat-chested, cold, domineering, with her intelligence rendered questionable by her rather narrow and exclusive beliefs. CHAPTER V HASEK AND BRECHT If we may consider Brecht's version of Die Mutter to be a clear call to action directed towards the establishment of the new millennium, then Brecht’s reworking of Hasek's Schweik might well be thought of as the Geaenstiick to his reworking of Gorky's great novel. Along with Mutter Cou rage . Schweyk^ must be thought of as being made on the same non-doctrinaire, same anti-heroic, pattern as other plays of Brecht written between c.1938-1945, plays such as Leben des Galilei. Der gute Mensch von Sezuan. and (with the ex ception of its prologue) Der kaukasische Kreidekreis. The Schwevk Bearbeitunq is of particular interest as it was ^-Distinction must be made here between the Stiicke re working written in 1943 and the 1927 Bearbeitunq Brecht did for Piscator— work described by Brecht in his "Tagebuch- notizen" (entry for 24.6.43), in Spectafculum III? Sieben moderne Theaterstucke (1960), p. 338, as "eine reine mon tage aus dem roman." 209 210 created at the same time as the very plays upon which Brecht’s worldwide reputation rests. Aesthetically and chronologically, Schweyk belongs to Brecht's greatest period of productivity, most brilliant evocation of the poignancy of the human condition, and least blatant expression of 2 party line politics. Seeking to explain an alteration of ideological commitment that (1) is absolutely clear if one compares plays of the first "conversion period" (beginning c.1927 and ending perhaps, at least in its most blatant form, somewhere in the first four or five years of exile, i.e., between 1933 and 1938) with those of the exile years, and (2) can be guessed from Brecht's personal decision to spend the war years in America rather than in the Soviet Union, Fassmann writes: Er [Brecht] wird, wie die Mehrzahl der emigrierten deutschen Kommunisten, iiber den Nichtangriffspakt von 1939 erbittert gewesen sein. Er hatte viberdies vom spurlosen Verschwinden seiner einstigen Freundin Carola Neher in der Sowjetunion gehort. Und dann waren die 1938 abgeschlossenen Sauberungsprozesse noch in frischer Erinnerung; Brecht, so wird zuver- lassig berichtet, hat sich in der Emigration gelegent- lich scharfstens gegen die Blutjustiz Stalins ausge- sprochen.3 ^This is, perhaps, not true of Brecht's personal life. See Resting, Bertolt Brecht, pp. 108-109. 3Kurt Fassmann, Brecht: Eine Bildbioaraphie 211 Fischer then poses the question: "War Brecht in seiner tJberzeugung schwankend geworden?" (p. 94). Noting the tone of the post-1938 (pre-1946) plays, Fischer then postulates a possible connection between non-ideological plays and a possible alteration of personal ideological commitment. While also noting the events of the 1930s that may not only have weakened Brecht's ideological commitment to Communism in its strict party form but also strengthened Brecht's fear of staying in the USSR, Marianne Resting then adds a very practical and plausible explanation of why Brecht chose 4 to spend the war years in America. She writes: Es ist moglich, dafi sich fur Brecht in Moskau auch keine Arbeitsmoglichkeit bot. Er war in RuSland nicht bekannt, man las ihn nicht, er rechnete allenfalls zu den sympa- thisierenden biirgerlichen Intellektuellen, die weiter (Munchen, 1958), pp. 93-94. 4Though it is perhaps not strictly germane to my theme, I would like to note one item of previously unpublished in formation that came to my attention in the course of my in vestigation. Frau Feuchtwanger assured me that it was her husband who provided the funds for Brecht to leave Moscow and travel to America. The funds were in frozen currency and derived from the Russian sales of Feuchtwanger's books. Brecht had no such funds of his own in the Soviet Union, as he was virtually unpublished and unknown there. This fact clearly supports Marianne Resting's thesis as to why Brecht did not choose to remain in the Soviet Union. It is quite possible that economic factors played as big a role in the decision as political uncertainty or simply fear. 212 kein Gehor bei der Arbeiterschaft hatten. Man bereitete ihm nicht jene liberwaltigenden Empfange, mit denen andere Schriftsteller uberrascht wurden,^ Whatever Brecht's reasons may or may not have been for not settling in the Soviet Union, it is clear that he did not choose America over the Soviet Union because he saw in America either the promised land or a place where he could easily sell his work. It is clear that neither was Brecht overjoyed with America nor America with Brecht. Though he was openly harassed by anti-Communist forces only towards the end of his stay, more difficult to fight than the stu pidity of the Un-American Activities Committee were the constant rejection slips that greeted his most sincere at- tempts to write Hollywood Kitsch. Of all Brecht's "lies" (as he called his scenarios designed to please Hollywood 7 taste), only one was purchased and actually filmed. In his 5Kesting, Bertolt Brecht, p. 106. ^Bertolt Brecht, "Hollywood," in Hundert Gedichte (Berlin, 1951), p. 308. 7 In an undated fragment in BBA 77/12 we find (as usual, Brecht uses only lower case letters in his manuscript): "ich dachte, das filmschreiben lernen zu konnen, sehe aber, dass ich dazu nicht mehr als einen vormittag brauche? die technik ist auf einer ganz primitiven stufe. dagegen lerne ich etwas anderes. obgleich kortner mich ganz auf gleich und gleich behandelt, bringt es doch die art meiner arbeit 213 diary, Brecht notes of this work: der langfilm (jetzt heiBend "hangmen also die") hat mir luft fur drei stiicke verschafft (DIE GESICHTE DER SIMONE MACHARD, DIE HERZOGIN VON MALFI, SCHWEYK).8 This film, dealing as it does with the resistance movement in Czechoslovakia in World War II, may well have provided not only the impetus for Brecht to return to the theme of Schweyk but the money that made such independent work pos sible . All of Brecht's work of the middle and most fruitful period of his working life falls, as does Schweyk. between two ideological stools. In the plays written on time bought from the sale of "lies" to anyone (East or West) willing to buy them, Brecht wrote plays for himself and for a small circle of emigre friends. Freed from a need to subscribe to any firm political position, Brecht was free in these mit sich, dass ich als angestellter zu fiihlen beginne. ich habe mir den stoff, den ich bearbeite, nicht selber gewahlt, habe auch gar keine beziehung dazu und weiss nicht, was aus meiner arbeit wird, wenn sie auf den markt kommt. ich habe nur meine arbeitskraft zu verkaufen, was damit gemacht wird, geht mich nichts an." It is clear Brecht's best efforts were not expended in film writing and he failed to sell many of his "lies" des pite his boast that the trade could be learned in half a day. aBrecht, Spectaculum III, p. 338. 214 plays to address himself to the theme of man's inhumanity to man without having to prescribe any panacea for the cure of men's ills. Whether Brecht was, as many of his biogra phers have suggested, less firm in his personal political beliefs in the dark late thirties and early forties is a problem for the biographers to bicker over. What concerns me here is only the difference between the aesthetic con struct Schwevk and the other aesthetic constructs that form the basis of this study. A comparative study of the relationship of Brecht's German play, Schwevk im zweiten Weltkrieg. to Hasek's un finished novel in Czech must needs begin with an attempt to establish any intermediary texts that may have influenced Brecht's work. Fortunately, the path of the Czech novel both into German and into play form is reasonably clear. The German version of the novel by Grete Reiner was and 9 remains the version most generally available in Germany. It is clear from a comparison of Reiner's version and the ^In a most thorough discussion of the reception of Hasek’s work in Germany, Haseks "Schweik" in Deutschland (Berlin, 1963), the critic Pawel Petr mentions (pp. 231-232) over twenty different German editions of Reiner's work (first edition 1926) and mentions no other German transla tion of the novel. I also have found no other translation of it. 215 two Brecht reworkings that it is Reiner's version that forms the basis both for the Brecht-Piscator 1927-1928 version done for Piscator's theatre and for Brecht's 1943 version of the text. In view of literally innumerable Ubereinstim- munaen between the Reiner translation and the 1927 and 1943 versions, I can only conclude that Hans Mayer is mistaken when he writes: "... der Schweyk-Stil, dessen sich Brecht bedient, nicht unmittelbar von Hasek herkam, sondern aus Lotte Eisners deutscher Schweyk-t)bersetzung."^ I simply have not been able to find a Hasek translation by Lotte Eisner. The staff of the Brecht-Archiv have never heard of any such translation by Lotte Eisner and are convinced that the relationship between the Reiner and the Brecht versions is too close to permit the admission of other possibilities. So much then for the identification of the translation that Brecht used. Though Mayer is almost certainly incorrect as to the translator of the version Brecht used, he is correct in observing that the translation Brecht used differed in some ways from its Czech model. Speaking of Reiner's translation in his excellent study, Haseks "Schweik1 1 in Deutschland. ^•^Mayer, Brecht und die Tradition, p. 86. 216 the East German critic, Pawel Petr, notes: Der erste wichtige Unterschied zwischen dem Original und der Ubersetzung der Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schweik besteht also darin, daft viele Ausdriicke, die als Verstofte gegen die literatursprachlichen Konventionen den tsche- chischen Leser schockierten, dies im Deutschen bei weitem nicht in einem so hohen Grade tun. Dazu kommt, daft die tibersetzerin auch an vielen Stellen von sich aus noch gemildert hat.H Illustrating this point, Petr also notes: In der deutschen Ubersetzung des Schweik findet man nicht nur bei Palivecs Redeweise, sondern auch an vielen anderen Stellen Beispiele fur eine Abschwachung der In- tensitat der Vulgar ausdriicke. Dabei ist festzustellen, daft diese Abschwachung zwei verschiedene Ursachen haben kann: einerseits sind vielfach Ausdriicke, die laut Worterbuch einander entsprechen, im Deutschen druck- fahiger als im Tschechischen, andererseits entschied sich die tibersetzerin fur Worte wie "Luder" oder "Dreck" auch dort, wo ein starkerer deutscher Ausdruck denkbar gewesen ware. (p. 65) Despite the more "ladylike" renderings of Grete Reiner that fail to meet the concentrated coarseness of Hasek's text, Petr concludes: Die tibersetzerin hat es ausgezeichnet verstanden, die syntaktischen Eigenarten der Sprechweise der Volksge- stalten im Schwejk wiederzugeben . . . (p. 66) Except, then, for some overly delicate renderings, the text is seen by Petr as an excellent rendition of the Czech novel Upetr, "Schweik" in Deutschland, p. 65. 217 into German. It is, as Petr also notes, completely accurate as to over-all completeness and as to retention of the proper order and length of scenes in the original novel. The first attempt to present Schweik in German on the stage seems to have taken place, appropriately enough, in Prague. Commenting on the transition from four or five evening of scenes to a single evening (with, presumably, more continuity), Max Brod, writing in Piscator's house organ Schulter an Schulter. states: Einer der ersten tschechischen Kiinstler, die Hasek in seinem ganzen Wert erkannten, war der Maler und Schau- spieler Longen. Longen und Burian fiihrten Szenen aus dem Schwejk im kleinen Adria-Theater (Prag) auf, lose Szenen, die vier oder noch mehr Abende fiillten. Die Idee der Neudramatisierung in einem einzigen Abend stammt von Hans Reimann, der mit ihr nach Prag kam, sich bei uns festsetzte und wochenlang das Milieu ein- schliir fte. ^ ^Max Brod, "Jaroslav Hasek und sein Schwejk," in the 1927 program notes, Schulter an Schulter:__Blatter der Piscatorbiihne. A complete copy of these notes is to be found in BBA 2092/07-08. It must be noted here that though there is in Brod's article a mention of Grete Reiner's translation there is no clear indication that it served either as the basis of the earliest (Longen and Burian) ver sion or the second (Brod and Reimann) version. No manu script of either of these versions is extant. Petr (p. 206) notes: "Nach einer brieflichen Mitteilung Max Brods sollen 'Die Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schwejk, nach J. Hasek', dramatisiert von Max Brod und Hans Reimann, im Biihnenverlag 'Die Schmiede' erschienen sein. Dieser Titel war jedoch weder in den Bibliographien noch durch den internationalen 218 The importance of Brod's note on the family tree of Brecht's play is that Reimann was apparently the father of the notion that the novel might be presented as one evening of drama. It should also be noted, however, that no changes, except for compression purposes, were to take place. The stage version was to consist quite simply of "scenes from the novel." Nevertheless, by the time Reimann and Brod returned to Berlin with the idea of presenting Schweik in one eve ning, the idea of simply presenting "scenes from the novel" seems to have been abandoned. Upon arrival in Berlin, Brod and Reimann (who had meanwhile obtained the stage rights for a Schweik Dramatisierung) presented the idea to Piscator. Whether Piscator had already thought of presenting Schweik on his revolutionary stage is unclear. What is clear is that he received Brod's and Reimann's basic idea of staging Schweik with great enthusiasm, but had his own notions of how this should be done. He felt that the stage version had to retain the political bite of Hasek's novel and should accurately reflect the novel. Commenting disparagingly on the Brod-Reimann version, Piscator's Mitarbeiter Gasbarra Ausleihdienst zu finden." I have been no more successful than Pawel Petr in the search for the Brod-Reimann manu script . 219 writes: Aus Schwejk, der alles ernst nimmt, bis es lacherlich wird, der alles befolgt, bis es zur Sabotage wird, der alles bejaht, aber in einer Weise, die es vernichtet, wurde ein Trottel von Offiziersbursche, der ahnungslos die Geschicke seines Ober leutnants zum Guten w e n d e t ' . The conventional method that had been used by Reimann and Brod of turning novel into boulevard drama— taking the hero out of the novel and putting him in a series of adven tures suited to boulevard stage presentation— was rejected by Piscator as politically and aesthetically unsatisfactory. Piscator's Mitarbeiter. Gasbarra, writes: Es ergab sich als Konsequenz, von der "Dramatisierung" der Figur Abstand zu nehmen und statt eines Theater- stiickes um Schwejk Teile des Romanes auf die Biihne zu bringen. (p. 148) This notion of Piscator*s collective would seem to be a direct return to the method used by Burian and Longen in Prague. Actually, Piscator had something quite different and much more ambitious in mind than the Prague experiments. What Piscator wanted was to bring the whole world of the Hapsburg monarchy (the world that forms the backdrop and gives the point to Schwejk*s humor in Hasek's novel) onto ^Gasbarra in Piscator, Das politische Theater, p. 183. 220 the stage with Schwejk. Speaking of what he sought, Pisca tor writes: Es war mir von Anfang an klar, daft eine Dramatisierung des "Schwejk" nichts anderes sein durfte als eine ge- treue Wiedergabe des Romans, wobei die Aufgabe Xautete, moglichst viele und moglichst einpragsame Episoden so aneinanderzureihen, dafi die ein totales Weltbild von Hasek ergaben.^ Major difficulties, of course, presented themselves as Pis cator sought to give dramatic body to his dream. One of the main difficulties was the character of Schwejk himself with his odd passivity. Describing this passivity, Piscator writes: . . . Schwejk wird transportiert— zum Gefangnis, vom Gefangnis— Schwejk begleitet den Kuraten auf seinen Wegen zur Messe, Schwejk wird im Rollstuhl zur Mus- terung gefahren, er wird im Eisenbahnzug zur Front ge- schafft, er marschiert tagelang, um sein Regiment zu suchen, kurz, um ihn ist eine standige Bewegung, alles ist dauernd in FluJJ. Grofiartig, wie in dieser Bewegt- heit des epischen Stoffes die ganze Rastlosigkeit des Krieges zum Ausdruck kommt. (p. 181) Commenting on the aesthetic and practical solution of the problem of presenting this Stoff on the stage, Gasbarra notes: "Mit einem sicheren Griff fand er [Piscator] das dem epischen Ablauf des Romans entsprechende Biihnenmittel: das ^Piscator, Das politische Theater, p. 180. 221 15 laufende Band." He continues: Damit weir das Problem nicht nur technisch, sondern auch dramaturgisch gelost. Die Bearbeiter brauchten nicht mehr nach irgendeinem dem Originalstoff fremden szeni- schen Aufbau zu suchen, sondern konnten sich darauf beschranken, die an sich dramatisch wirksamsten Szenen des Romans auszuwahlen und textlich spielfertig zu machen. (p. 184) Though we know from several sources that Brecht took part in the radical presentation of Schweik on Piscator's stage, we are not entirely sure how much of the work he actually did. As Petr correctly notes of the 1927-1928 Bearbeituner: "wie groft sein [Brecht's] eigener Anteil an der Textgestaltung dieses kollektiven Werkes war, laSt sich 16 heute nicht mehr feststellen." More important to my textual study, however, than an attempt to establish the degree of Brecht's participation in the collective work of 1927-1928, is the degree to which the text of the collective anticipates the Stiicke version, particularly as no Mitar- beiter are listed for the 1943 text. Of major interest here, of course, are changes of Hasek's novel made in 1927- 1928 that are carried over into the 1943 version. A direct 15Gasbarra in Piscator, Das politische Theater, p. 184. 16 Petr, "Schwejk!! in Putsch land, P- 101. 222 comparison of the 1927-1928 version and the 1943 version is made possible both by the presence in the Brecht archive of 17 a full transcript of the main 1927-1928 version, and by numerous alternate renderings described by Piscator in his Das politische Theater. The collective (1927-1928) text is divided into two distinct parts. The first part deals with the events pre ceding the Anabasis, the second with the Anabasis itself. Scenes loosely follow one upon the other, with no attempt made to draw them closer together than Hasek had them. The selection in this version of particular scenes from a host of other possible scenes in Hasek's novel is important for Brecht's later text. Among scenes appearing in both Pisca- tor's and Brecht's versions are: the discussion of the assassination, the dog-stealing scene, the wagon number trick, the scene of Schweik's arrest, Schweik's meeting with a kind old woman during the Anabasis, and (in the same section) his meeting with two deserters who invite him to join them but with Schweik's refusing the offer. In the collective version, however, there is no example of kindness or of thoughtfulness on Schwejk's part. Even Schwejk's one 17BBA 511. 223 18 kind act of the novel is not carried over to Piscator's version. As in Hasek, the dog is stolen with no thought for the fate of the Dienstmadchen. In the collective version, the Hapsburg monarchy is not only indirectly subjected to ridicule (through humor), it is explicitly and bitterly attacked. One such scene runs thus: Woditschka: Er ist blod, ganz blod. Er weisz vielleicht gar nicht, dass Krieg ist. Wenn er auf dem Manifest an seine Volker unterschrieben ist, so ist das Lug und Trug. Er kann schon iiberhaupt an nichts denken. (sie trinken) Schwejk: Er ist fertig, er macht unter sich und man muss ihn futtern wie ein kleines Kind. Woditschka: Schwejk, ich sag Dir, wenns nur schon so weit war und wir das elende Magyarengesindel endlich einmal verdreschen mochten, damit Oesterreich Ruh hat. Schwejk: So eine blode Monarchie sollt gar nicht auf der Welt s e i n . Yet, at another point in the play, the Schwejk who in the scene I have just quoted is clearly self-consciously and intelligently against the monarchy, acts thus: Marek: Mir ist nicht wohl, wie wars, wenn wir uns zuruckziehn mochten, kommst Du mit? Schwejk: Ich halt durch. Dazu ham uns unsere Mutter geborn, dass wir fur Seine Majestat den Kaiser und sein Haus fallen.28 18Jaroslav Hasek, Osudy Dobreho Voiaka Sveika. 2 vols. (Praha, 1953), II, 74-75. 19BBA 511/31. 20BBA 511/84. 224 In my opinion these "two Schwejks" are not effectively merged in the collective version. Where Hasek effectively trod the line between a knowing and an unknowing Schwejk, Piscator1s version has two Schwejks, one knowing and one unknowing. As difficult for the Mitarbeiter as the merging of Schwejk's fulfillment of his duty with his clear (in their version) hostility to that duty, is the resolution of the dilemma of what should finally happen to Schwejk. In this, of course, the unfinished novel gave them no guide other than the strong suggestion that Schwejk is quite possibly indestructible. Piscator seems to be aware that Schwejk is aesthetically indestructible but he does not seem to have been able to square this indestructibility with his own political conscience. A Schwejk who hinders the war should live and be allowed to return in peace to the Kelch, whereas a Schwejk who helps the war by his devotion to duty in the war should die for his sins. Caught in this extra-aesthetic dilemma, ,the resulting play is aesthetically incomplete. At one time endurance is suggested. We read: Schwejk: Bis der Krieg vorbei sein wird, so komm mich besuchen. Du findest mich jeden Abend ab 6 Uhr im "Kelch." Woditschka: Freilich komm ich hin, gibts dort 225 Hauereien? Schwejk: Jeden Tag kommts zu was, und wenns zu ruhig war, so wern wirs schon einrichten.2^ That Schwejk will introduce war into peace should he return to the Kelch is strongly hinted at here. Perhaps this is why, then, in the archive version, the play should end thus: Schwejk: Wie erklar ich ihm nur, dem Dummkopf, dass er mich nicht gefangen nehmen darf. Der Woditschka hat es immer gesagt: "Schwejk, Du kennst sie nicht, diese Magyaren".— ^ 22 --Granateinschlag— Schwejk fallt-- This ending, though it may have salved the collective polit ical conscience of the left-wing and pacifistic Mitarbeiter. obviously did not wholly meet with their aesthetic approval. An alternate ending was suggested and actually played once before the Sonderabteilung of the Volksbuhne "drama club." In this scene, the destruction of an indestructible Schwejk and the survival of a Schwejk who should die was made pos sible by a scene before God in heaven in which Schwejk appears with dozens of other mangled victims of the war. Piscator writes: Die Szene sollte Schwejk, nachdem er mit samtlichen irdischen Autoritaten gekampft hatte, am SchluB noch mit "iiberirdischen" Autoritaten konfrontieren, und 21BBA 511/41. 22BBA 511/85. 226 auch sie sollten sich in dieser Szene, ihm gegeniiber- gestellt, als wesenlos, nicht existent erweisen.23 Commenting on why this scene with its bloody victims was used but once, Piscator notes: Man hat spater behauptet, ich hatte diese Szene nicht spielen lassen aus Furcht, zu radikal zu wirken. In Wirklichkeit stellte sich auf den Proben heraus, dafi die Grauenhaftigkeit des Kriippelaufmarsches vor Gott am Schlufi fur das Stuck nicht tragbar war. (p. 187) The importance of this scene, though it was rejected for the close of Schweik in 1927-1928, is that it may have served Brecht later. We note, for instance, that immedi ately after Brecht's work with Schwejk. he began work on Die Dreicrroschenoper. In this play, the terrible passage in which "cripples" prepare to present themselves at the coronation may well reflect the rejected scene in Schweik. Likewise, the idea of confronting the denizens of the high er and lower regions, one of the most effective elements in 24 the 1943 reworking of Schwevk. might also be traceable to the same scene. When one turns from the 1927-1928 Bearbeituna of the 23Piscator, Das politische Theater, p. 187. 2^Note Brecht's change in the spelling of the name. Hasek novel to both the novel itself and to Brecht's 1943 play, one important feature of the interrelationship of the three works comes to light. It is plain that Brecht, given the collective dramatic version of the novel, need never have actually referred to the novel again. As was true of the relationship of Brecht’s Die Mutter to both the Stark- Weisenborn dramatization and Gorky's novel, where Brecht's play differs from the intermediate dramatization, it differs also from the original novel. In both cases, Brecht takes over, in the main, precisely those scenes from the novel that were used in the intermediary version. In both cases, therefore, it would seem fair to view Brecht's Bearbeitunaen not necessarily as reworkings of the original novels at all but rather as quite possibly Bearbeitungen of Bearbeitunaen. Just as, however, the Brecht reworking of Stark-Weisenborn differs radically in political tone and dramatic salience from its model, so does his Schweykf despite the several long scenes taken from Reiner's translation by way of the intermediary text, become a very full expression of a point of view wholly Brechtian and having surprisingly little in common (politically and aesthetically) with the work of Hasek-Reiner, or with the 1928 work of the collective made up of Brecht, Gasbarra, Lania and Piscator. The 228 usefulness of the intermediary text, it would seem, is simply that it reduced the rambling and disjointed Schweik "Stoff" to manageable and specifically dramatic proportions. Though it can be argued that Brecht, because of the 1927-1928 dramatic version of the Hasek novel, never had to have the actual novel in his hands, we do not know that he did not read it. It behooves me, therefore, to return now to the novel itself and to the relationship of the novel (in Reiner's translation) to Brecht's 1943 play. At the same time, as I pass on to my own close comparison of the two texts, I shall briefly note the point of view of those critics who have considered Brecht's relationship to Hasek. Martin Esslin, with his usual mixture of insight and error, observes: The immortal good soldier is here [in Brecht's 1943 version] transferred to German-occupied Prague. He still meets his friends in the same bar, Zum Kelch (The Goblet). But this now has an attractive land lady, Mrs. Kopecka, a young widow and ardent Czech patriot. The informer Bretschneider is now a Gestapo agent. Schweik's friend Baloun still has an insati able appetite, and the plot revolves around Schweik's attempts to satisfy it, lest Baloun feels fsic 1 com pelled to join the German Army for the sake of a square meal. Asked to steal a certain handsome dog, wanted by an S.S. leader for his wife, Schweik even tually lands in the German forces himself. . . . Brecht's pastiche of Hasek's language and character ization is most successful. There are also a number 229 25 of beautiful songs. It is obvious from Mr. Esslin's summary that he feels the character of Schweik is essentially the same in both novel and play and that the good soldier is quite literally “transferred to German-occupied Prague." It is my conten tion that not only are the events of the Hasek novel shifted in time but that the character Schweyk is subtly changed, and as a result becomes distinctly different from the orig inal Schwejk. I further feel that any discussion of Brecht's Schweyk that fails to note the completely humani tarian aspect of this character does no justice to Schweyk, to the Schweyk-like characters in many of Brecht's other plays, or to Brecht's skill as a dramatist in constructing fully rounded, very human characters. There is a humanitarian aspect of Brecht's Schweyk that Esslin wholly ignores and that is best illustrated by com paring Brecht's version of the character with Hasek's lik able rogue as they both react to the "same" situation. Though the similarities are numerous and obvious, many very real differences also exist. An excellent passage in ^5Esslin, Brecht. p. 308. 230 support of this contention is the dog-stealing incident which occurs in both the novel and the play. In many ways there is a word-for-word parallel, but the distinctions that do occur all serve to illustrate that Schweyk, as Brecht presents him, is a much more socially conscious, much more humanitarian fellow than Hasek's character. In Hasek, we find: ..Dovolte, slecno, kudy se jde na Zizkov?" Zastavila se a podivala se na neho, mysli-li to uprimne, a dobracky oblicej Svejkuv ji rekl, ze opravdu ten vojdcek chce asi jit na Zizkov. Vyraz jeji tvare zmekl a ona ochotne mu vyklddala, jak na ten Zizkov pu jde. MJd jsem teprve nedavno do Prahy prelozenej," rekl Svejk, „ ja nejsem zdejsi, ja jsem z venkova. Vy taky nejste z Prahy?" MJa jsem z Vodnan. " „Tak jsme nedaleko od sebe," odpovedel Svejk, , , ja jsem z Protivina." Tato znalost mistopisu ceskeho jihu, neJoytd kdysi pri man^vrech v tom kraji, napInila srdce divky krajanskihn teplem. „Tak zn£te v Protivine na namesti reznika Pejchara?" „Jakpak bych ho neznal. To je muj bratr. Toho tam maji u n^s vsichni radi," rekl Svejk, „von je moc hodnej, usluznej, ma dobry maso a dava dobrou v^hu." „Nejste vy JaresiSv," otctzala se divka, zacinajic sympatisovat s neznamym vojackem. „ Jsem." „A ktereho Jarese, toho z Krce u Protivina, nebo z Ra2ic?" „Z Ra^ic." „Jeste rozvazi pivo?" MPor^d." „Ale on uz musi mit hodne pres sedesat?" „Vosumasedesdt mu bylo letos na jare," odvetil klidne Svejk, „ted si zavopatril psa a to se mu to jede. Pes 231 mu sedi na voze. Zrovna takovej pes jako tamhle ten, co honi ty vrabce. Hezkej pejsek, raoc p6knej."^6 In Reiner's translation of this passage, we read: "Verzeihn Sie, Fraulein, wo geht man hier nach fcifckov?" Sie blieb stehen und blickte ihn an, ob er es auch aufrichtig meine, doch das gutmutige Gesicht Schwejks sagte ihr, dafi der Soldat wohl wirklich nach Zizkov gehen wolle. Der Ausdruck ihres Gesichtes wurde weich, und sie erklMrte ihm entgegenkommend, wie er nach fcizkov zu gehen habe. "Ich bin erst unlangst nach Prag versetzt worn", sagte Schwejk, "ich bin kein Hiesiger, ich bin vom Land. Sie sind auch nicht aus Prag?" "Ich bin aus Vodnan." "Da sind wir ja nicht weit voneinander her", antwor- tete Schwejk, "ich bin aus Protiwin." Diese Kenntnis des bdhmischen Sudens, die er sich einmal bei den Mandvern angeeignet hatte, erfiillte das Herz des MSdchens mit heimatlicher Warme. "Da kennen Sie wohl auch in Protiwin aufm Ring den Fleischer Pejchara?" "Wie denn nichtl Das is mein Bruder. Den ham bei uns alle gern", sagte Schwejk, "er is sehr brav, dienst- fertig, hat gutes Fleisch und gibt gute Waage." "Sind Sie nicht einer von Jareschs?" fragte das Mad- chen, das mit dem unbekannten Soldaten zu sympathisieren begann. "Ja." "Und von welchem Jaresch, von dem aus Krtsch bei Protiwin oder aus Razitz?" "Aus Razitz." "FShrt er noch mit Bier herum?" "Noch immer." "Aber er muB doch schon hubsch weit iiber sechzig sein?" "Achtundsechzig war er heuer im Fruhjahr", entgegnete Schwejk ruhig, "jetzt hat er sich einen Hund angeschafft 26Hasek, Sveika. I, 212. Ch. VI in all editions. 232 und da fahrt sichs ihm fein. Der Hund sitzt ihm am Wagen. Grad so ein Hund wie der dort, was sie Spatzen jagt. Ein hiibscher Hund, ein feines Tier."27 The scene (in Hasek-Reiner) ends with Schweik finding out what the dog likes. He then reports to Blahnik and Blahnik steals the dog. The "same" scene in Brecht is almost word for word that of Hasek-Reiner: Schweyk: Verzeihn Sie, Fraulein, wo geht man hier in die Palacky StraBe? Kati mifitrauisch: Gehns iibern Hawlitschekplatz. Komm, Anna. Schweyk: Entschuldigens, daB ich noch frag, wo der Platz is, ich bin fremd hier. Anna: Ich bin auch fremd hier. Komm, Kati, sags dem Herrn. Schweyk: Das is aber gelungen, daS Sie auch fremd sind, Fraulein. Das hatt ich gar nicht gemerkt, daB Sie nicht aus der GroBstadt sind und so ein nettes Hunter1. Woher sind Sie? Anna: Ich bin aus Protowin. Schweyk: Da sind wir nicht weit voneinander her, ich bin aus Budweis. Kati will sie wecziehen: Komm schon, Anna. Anna: Gleich. Da kennen Sie wohl auch in Budweis aufn Ring den Fleischer Pejchara? Schweyk: Wie den nicht'. Das is mein Bruder. Den ham bei uns alle gern, er is sehr brav, dienstfertig, hat gutes Fleisch, und gibt gute Zuwaag.28 The similarities between the Brecht and the Hasek-Reiner 27Jaroslav Hasek, Die Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schweik. trans. Grete Reiner, 2 vols. (Leek, 1960), I, 191- 192. The first edition of Reiner's German translation ap peared in Prague in 1926. 28Stucke. X, 58-59. 233 passages are obvious but also rather superficial, as the context is all-important here. In the Hasek novel, the dog is stolen in a social vacuum; no thought at all is given to the fate of the one who exercises the dog. Brecht, however, goes to great pains to arrange the dog-stealing incident in such a way that the servant girls are unharmed by the act. Brecht's Schweyk says specifically: "Der Votjta is gemein zu die Dienstmadchen, sie is schon die dritte seit Lichtmefi und will schon weg, her ich, weil die Nachbarn sie triezen, weil bei einem Herrn is, wo ein Quisling is. Da is es ihr gleich, wenn sie ohne Hund heimkommt, sie mufi nur nix dafir konnen." (p. 58) (My italics.) The Hasek incident takes place in the unreal world of come dy. Brecht very carefully places it within a socially con scious framework; the girls must be protected from harm. I do not wish to present the good soldier of Hasek as a com plete villain, for that is not the case at all. But I do wish to indicate that Brecht's Schweyk is both much more consciously doing good and avoiding doing harm than is 29 Hasek's good soldier. An illustration of the above point might be that in 29A1so see Petr's comments on Brecht's Schweyk's con scious social usage of the wagon number trick. 234 the novel, much the same way as in the play, Schwejk helps Baloun get out of a difficulty caused by Baloun's constant 30 preoccupation with filling his stomach. Yet, in the novel, Schwejk gets Baloun out of the difficulty in a way that does not make himself vulnerable, whereas in the play, Schweyk keaves himself wide open to the definite possibility of torture and even death by his defense of Baloun. He does not need to risk his life in defending Baloun from the S.S. during the Razzia. but nevertheless he does, and says: Schweyk da Baloun keine Antwort weift: Melde gehor- samst, Herr Scharfuhrer, daB der dumme Mensch unschuldig sein mufi, weil er nicht hineingeschaut hatt, wenns ihm gehern wird, dann mecht er wissen, was drin is.JA When Bullinger ignores Schweyk, continues to question Baloun and finally, in rage, brutally attacks Frau Kopecka, Schweyk again attempts to shield his friends, this time by shoulder ing the blame himself. Schweyk tritt vor: Melde gehorsamst, ich kann alles aufklarn. Das Packer1 gehert niemand hier. Ich weiB es, weil ich es selber hingelegt hab. Bullinger: Also du? Schweyk: Es stammt von einem Herrn, der mirs zum Aufheben gegeben hat und weggegangen is, aufn Abort, 3®See footnote 18 of this chapter. 319tticke, x, 84. 235 wie er mir gesagt hat. Es is ein MittelgroBer mit einem blonden Bart. Bullinger erstaunt uber eine solche Ausrede: Sag, bist du schwachsinnigt? Schweyk ihm ernst in die Augen blickend: Wie ich Ihnen schon einmal erklart hab, das ja. Ich bin amtlich von einer Kommission fur einen Idioten erklart worn. Ich bin auch ausn freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst deswegn herausgeflogn. (pp. 85-86) Although there is a good chance that Schweyk may (as he indeed does) get away with his deception and escape tor ture and death in a situation where Baloun and Frau Kopecka are completely helpless, the point remains that he really does not need to come to their assistance. The fact that he does, indicates a definite departure from the Hasek ver sion of Schweyk, who is (as Piscator noted) almost totally passive. It is true that here by fantasy, by exaggeration Schweyk hopes to save his own neck; but the significant difference as I see it is that Schweyk really does not need to stick his neck out at all. It is not his own skin he is saving here by his jiu-jitsu method of "opposition," but rather his own life that is being put in jeopardy for the sake of a friend. Brecht states in his Tacrebuchnotizen that this change in the character was a conscious switch on his part. Brecht writes: Gestern Nacht von N.Y. zuriick, erzahle Steff einiges von dem SCHWEYK-plan. Er sagt sogleich, der original- 236 schweyk wurde sich um balouns schwierigkeiten kaum kiimmern, ihm eher zum eintritt in die deutsche armee zuraten . . . Brecht then goes on to say: jedoch beschlieBe ich auf der stelle, diese unpolitische haltung Schweyks widerspruchlich in die kleine fabel (RETTUNG DES PRESSERS BALOUN) einzubauen.32 A further example of the humanitarian Schweyk of Brecht's play and further contradiction of Esslin's notion of simple transference from the novel is the incident with the Russian peasants whom Schweyk not only saves from the wrath of the Feldkurat but to whom he actually gives one of the Feldkurat1s overcoats, because he thinks they would be able to make better use of it. Feldkurat: Gibt sie zu, daB die Wodka haben? Schweyk: Du setz dich hin, ich wer verhandeln, und dann gehn wir weiter, ich will kein Skandal. Zur Frau, freundlich: Warura steht ihr so vor dem Haus? Haros grad gehn wolln? Die Frau nickt. Der Shawl is aber dinn. Hams sonst nix zum Anziehn? Das ist fast zu wenig. Feldkurat auf dem Boden sitzend: Nimm den Kolben, das sind lauter Gorillas, Heiden. Schweyk grob: Du halts Maul. Zur Frau: Wodka? Der Herr is krank. Schwevk hat alle Fraaen mit illustrativen Gesten be- glei.tet. Die Frau schuttelt den Kopf. Feldkurat bosartia: Schiittelst du den Kopf? Ich werd dirs geben. Mich friert und du schiittelst den 32Brecht, Soectaculum III, p. 337. 237 Kopf. Er kriecht muhsam hoch und torkelt mit erhobener Faust auf die Frau zu. Sie weicht in die Hiitte zuruck. die Tiir hinter sich zumachend. Der Feldkurat stofit sie mit den Fiiften ein und drinqt in die Hiitte: Ich mach dich kalt. Schweyk hat veroebens versuchtP ihn zuriickzuhaltenr Sie bleibn heraus. Es ist nicht Ihr Haus. Er folet ihm hinein. Auch die Alte geht hinein. Dann hort man die Frau aufschreien und die Gerausche eines Kampfes. Schweyk von innen; Sie tun auch das Messer weg. Willst du Ruh gebn. Ich brech dir den Arm, du Sau. Raus jetzt' . Aus der Hiitte tritt die Frau mit dem Kind. Sie hat einen Mantel des Feldkuraten an. Hinter ihr die Alte.33 Here, as in the scene with Baloun, Schweyk performs a humanitarian act that seems in no wise to be selfish. In neither of these incidents does there appear to be anything in it for Schweyk himself. In contrast, let us turn again to Hasek and examine a kind act of his Schwejk. I find in Hasek no scene paralleling the one with the Russian peasants and only a much less "heroic" parallel to the scene in which Brecht's Schweyk saves Baloun. In Volume II, 74-75 in the Czech and in Volume II, 109-110 in Reiner, Schwejk does take the blame on himself for an act of Baloun's. Schwejk claims that he, rather than the culprit Baloun, has eaten Lieutenant Lukasch's rations. Schwejk does not stand to suffer more than a box on the ear for this admission. 33Stucke. X, 116-117. Actually he is saved even from this as Baloun himself immediately admits his own guilt. On no other occasion in the two long volumes of the novel is there any example I could find of kindness or of an unselfish act on the part of Hasek's Schwejk. Except for the one instance I have mentioned in Hasek's novel, there always appears behind Schwejk's apparently selfless acts, selfish motivation. Always he seems to be thinking of his own comfort, of his own preservation. How different is this character from the Schweyk who voluntarily risks his life for his friend Baloun. It is true Brecht's Schweyk does not die for his friend, but he does place himself in a situation which can in no conceivable wise further any selfish ends. Brecht's Schweyk, intelligent and fully aware of the risk involved, voluntarily places himself in a situation which could easily bring about his death either immediately in the cellars of the S.S. or very shortly thereafter in the holocaust of the Russian front. After Schweyk's second arrest, one guest of the Kelch says flatly of Schweyk: "Der kommt nicht lehend davon" (p. 89). And Baloun says: "Meinen besten Freund hab ich so hineingerissn, dafi er mir womeglich heit nacht erschossen wird, wenn nicht, kann er von Glick sagn, und es passiert ihm morgen frih." (p. 90) 239 The distinction between the Hasek and the Brecht Schweiks seems particularly important if critics are to avoid carrying over a picture of Hasek's Schwejk to much of Brecht's work. Yet, as I have noted earlier, Martin Esslin assumes that Schwejk is "transferred to German-occupied Prague." Failing to make a distinction between characters whose differences are actually numerous, Mr. Esslin goes on to make error after error with reference to other works of Brecht and to the character of Brecht himself. Mr. Esslin speaks of "Brecht's Schweikian philosophy" as "a philosophy of enlightened self-interest based on the conviction that survival and success are more important than the striking 34 of heroic attitudes." The Schweyk who risks his life for his friends is in absolutely no way demonstrating a philos ophy of enlightened self-interest. Nor can this be said of the Schweyk who takes the coat of the Feldkurat in order to give it to the poor. Nor can survival and success be said to be principal tenets of faith of a character who elects to risk his life for his friends. These things, however, can be said, in the main, of Hasek's character. For any accurate critical evaluation of the work of ■^Esslin, Brecht. p. 35. 240 Brecht, one must have a very clear notion of the character Schweyk as Brecht presents him, for as Esslin finally states: Schweik is more than a mere character; he represents a basic human attitude . . . Brecht . . . made the Schweik- ian attitude his own. Many of the characters in his later plays show features of this ironic servility; the hired man in Puntila. the rascally judge Azdak in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the great Galileo himself. And these characters are all, in some way, self-portraits of Brecht. (p. 35) The Schweikian mentality of Hasek1s hero is not, as Martin Esslin would have it, the Schweikian mentality of Brecht. The only difference between the two Schweiks noted by the West German critic, Willy Haas, is that "Brechts 'Schwejk' hat die breite Gemiitlichkeit, aber nicht die hart- stirnige Resistenz des Originals."35 In contrast to Haas's view of the new Schweyk's Gemiitlichkeit. Siegfried Melchin- ger writes: Bei dem neuen Schweyk hat alle Gemiitlichkeit aufgehort. Er riickt in die Nahe der Mutter Courage (andererseits auch in die Nahe des Azdak und des Matti). Probably Melchinger is more accurate than Haas in his 35Haas, Bert Brecht, p. 78. 36"Der neue Schweyk," Theater Heute. II (Februar 1961), 4. 241 assessment of Brecht's Schweyk's character. Commenting less perhaps on the character of Schweyk himself than on the spectator's view of a Schweik figure in World War II, the East German critic Hans Mayer says flatly: "Brechts 37 Schweyk ist nicht mehr HaSeks Schweyk." Elucidating this contention, he goes on: Er dient zwar als Demonstration der These aus den FlUchtlinasaesprachen. daB man eine gute Sache auch immer lustig ausdrtlcken kttnne, ist selbst aber gar nicht lustig. Schon deshalb nicht, weil Schweyk im zweiten Weltkrieg und vor Stalingrad nicht die lachende Zustimmung des Lesers und Zuschauers dafiir finden kann, daB er die Macht durch scheinbares Einverst&ndnis Uber- windet. Schweyk im zweiten Weltkrieg ist keine Besta- tigung der Lehre aus dem Buch Taoteking: DaB das weiche Wasser in Bewegung Mit der Zeit den machtigen Stein besiegt. Du verstehst, das Harte unterliegt. Schweyks Einverstandnis mit der Gewalt demonstriert gleichzeitig die Unwirksamkeit seiner Kampfmethode. (p. 89) Mayer does not go on from here to address himself to the question of how Schweyk, rather than the situation in which Schweyk is placed, is changed by Brecht. Precisely the same limited examination is made by two other East German crit- - 5 7 Mayer, Brecht und die Tradition, p. 89. 242 38 39 ics, Andre Muller and Joachim Knauth. Not quite as limited on this point, however, is the work of another East German critic, the already cited Pawel Petr. Speaking at first of Brecht's Schweyk, Petr writes: Es steht fest, daS er, im Gegensatz zu Haseks Schweyk- gestalt, nicht aktiv an einer kommenden sozialistischen Revolution teilnehmen wiirde. Nach dem Sieg des Prole tariats wiirde er erst einen langsamen und schwierigen UmerziehungsprozeB durchleben m i i s s e n . ^ O In my own view, Brecht's Schweyk in no wise differs from Hasek1s on this highly speculative point. The following comment of the left-oriented Piscator (made, of course, of the Schweik figure Petr elects to see as potentially pro gressive) is equally true of both Schweik figures: Schwejk, so argumentierten wir, ist ein zutiefst asoziales Element, kein Revolutionar, der eine neue Ordnung will, sondern ein Typus ohne gesellschaftliche Bindungen, der auch in einer kommunistischen Gesellschaft ^®"Echte oder vorgetauschte Naivitat: Der Schweyk bei Hasek, Burian, und Brecht," Theater der Zeit. XIV, Heft 8 (1959), 15-18. 39"viele Wege fiihren zu Brecht. Schwevk im zweiten Weltkrieg von Bertolt Brecht in Erfurt," Theater der Zeit. XIII, Heft 4 (1958), 36-39. This article is aptly sub titled: "Inszenierungen kritisch betrachtet." Knauth sim ply dogmatically states that the play is a failure because the Hitler period must not be joked about. 40"Schweik" in Deutschland, p. 168. zersetzend und auflosend wirken wiirde. 243 When Petr leaves the field of speculative sociology and comments on the construction of Brecht's play and how it differs from that of Hasek's novel, he is much more satisfactory. Petr notes: Als verbindende dramaturgische Achse hat er [Brecht] drei Hand lungs strange, die am Ende des Stiickes zu einem gewissen Abschlufi gelangt sind: die Rahmen- handlung in den hoheren Regionen, die durch Hitlers Fragen nach dem "kleinen Mann" mit den Vorgangen in den "niederen Regionen" in Verbindung steht, die Be- schaffung des Fleisches fur Baloun und die Liebesge- schichte von Frau Kopecka und dem jungen Prochazka. So hat zum Beispiel auch Schweyks Verhaftung hier im Stuck eine dramaturgische Funktion— sie hat Auswir- kungen auf den Fortgang der Handlung— , wahrend sie in Haseks Abenteuern lediglich eine Episode war Petr is also aware that Brecht's Schweyk is clearly con scious of the social function of his actions. Petr writes: Die Eskamotage mit der Nummer 4268 ist bei Hasek ledig lich eine eigenartige Selbstverteidigung Schwejks gegen den Feldwebel, der ihn exerzieren laBt. Bei Brecht ist diese Episode dem politischen Anliegen des Stiicks unter- geordnet: Schwejk beginnt sein Gesprach mit dem Solda- ten in der Absicht, die materielie Versorgung der krieg- fuhrenden deutschen Armee zu schadigen. (pp. 151-152) Despite his occasional wanderings onto long stretches of 41Pas politische Theater, p. 193. 42"Schweik" in Deutschland, p. 151. 244 very thin ice, Petr's comments remain among the best on Brecht's transformation of Hasek's good soldier. Much less sensitive than Petr to the carefully wrought unifying elements introduced by Brecht is the West German critic, Carl Niessen. Niessen's final comment on the unity of Brecht's play reads: "So witzig und lebendig der Dialog in dem tyrannisierten Prag gefiihrt wird, so wenig ist doch 43 aus der Szenenfolge ein bleibendes Stuck geworden." Though Niessen fails, in my opinion, to give adequate credit to Brecht's structural achievements in turning a loose series of scenes into a quite tightly organized play, he is, like Petr, aware of some change in the character of the good soldier. He writes: . . . bei Hasek sabotiert Schweyk die militarischen Befehle, indem er sie getreu und eulenspiegelhaft aus- fiihrt. Dagegen kampft Brechts Schweyk mit der Dialektik des Witzes gegen die Gewalt und iiberlebt sie, weil er angeborenen Humor hat und sie keinen. (p. 52) The last critical commentary I shall examine on Brecht's treatment of the Schweyk theme is perhaps the best. The West German, Harold Lenz, in a brief essay entitled "Idee und Bild des Friedens im Drama von Bertolt Brecht," 43"Brecht auf der Buhne," p. 52. 245 has a number of very sound observations on Brecht's play. Tying Brecht's image of peace in Schweyk to the image pre sented in some of Brecht's finest and least propagandistic plays, Lenz writes: Was bestenfalls zu erreichen ware, so meint wohl Brecht, ist kein grandioses irdisches Paradies, sondern ein recht beschranktes, beschauliches aber menschenfreund- liches Dasein ohne Armut, Ausbeutung, Mord und Totschlag, auch ohne groBe Tugenden— wie bei Mutter Courage und wie bei Frau Kopecka "Zum Kelch" in Schweyk— nur daft man wohl weiterhin wie Shen Te, "der gute Mensch", einmal jeden Monat hart sein muB.44 After citing the moral drawn by the Song of the Kelch (a theme I shall return to later), that a small, shabby, peace ful place where one can drink and eat quietly is surely enough, Lenz writes: Die Wirtschaft, die hier ertraumt ist, hat nichts von Heroismus, sondern ist bescheiden, banal— und mensch- lich. Sie ist das Wunschbild des armen kleinen Menschen, dem schon in der Dreiaroschenoper Brecht das Motto dichtete: "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral." (p. 286) Absolutely aware both of the divergence of this view of "Utopia" from the Marxist view presented in the Lehrstiieke. 44In Der Friedef Idee und Verwirklichuncr; Festschrift fur Adolf Leschnitzer (Heidelberg, 1961), p. 287. Here after cited as Lenz, "Idee und Bild." 246 and of Brecht's frequent semi-blasphemous, semi-serious treatment of religious motifs, Lenz also observes: Seine Friedensvision ist nicht die kalte Ordnung und Tuchtigkeit der marxistischen Kommune, sondern die menschenfreundliche Spelunke k la Rabelais und Franpois Villon. Es wird darum auch wohl kein Zufall sein, dafi> die Spelunke im Schweyk den Namen hat: "Zum Kelch." So hiefi sie zwar schon in Brechts Quelle. Aber er hat in seiner Bearbeitung diesen Labungsort so in den Mittel- punkt des Geschehens verschoben, daB man das Emblem "Kelch" geradezu als "Becher des Heils" auffassen kann. Das ware sodann eine echt Brechtische Kreuzung des Erhabenen und des Trivialen, des Heiligen und des Pro- fanen: der Kelch von Frau Kopecka als heiliger Gral'. (p. 288) Though Brecht may not have thought of "The Goblet" as, in any direct sense, the Holy Grail per se, surely Lenz is correct in seeing it as an earthly, tangible equivalent thereof. After examining the major and minor criticism written on the two Schweiks. one realizes that a number of important themes have remained virtually untouched. No one except Esslin volunteers a judgment on Brecht's play as aesthetic entity. The play's construction is only discussed, and then incompletely, by Petr. The increased humanity of Schweyk is noted by none of the critics, though it is pointed to both in "Steff’s" comments (as cited by Brecht) and by Willy Haas. Nor do the critics mention the new dialectical 247 function of word for word citations from Reiner-Hasek in Brecht's text. The role of the "great" and "small" man in the play's philosophy is, with the exception of Lenz’s com ments, only fleetingly mentioned, as are major themes in the play such as warmth and food and how these relate to Brecht’s use of these materials in other plays. Finally, major points both of difference and sameness in the two treatments of the Schweik Stoff are never properly weighed. Yet, these points surely belong in a proper comparison of the two pieces. In a comment titled "Zur Inszenierung" and obviously intended to guide in the play's production, Brecht provides a useful insight not only into how the play might be staged but also how it is constructed. He writes: Das Zentrum des Buhnenhaus bildet die Wirtschaft "Zum Kelch" in Prag . . . Im dritten Akt erscheint dem Schweyk in Gedanken und Traum nur noch ein Teil des "Kelch", sein Stammtisch. Die Anabasis dieses Aktes bewegt sich im Kreis urn den "Kelch"-Rest . . .45 The Kelch is, in my view of the play, not only the play's physical center but its metaphysical and structural center also. For instance, using the Kelch as a perfectly logical 45Stucke. X, 132. meeting place, Brecht brings closely together characters having only a very loose connection with one another in Hasek's work. Brecht combines Hasek's characters: Blahnik (who helps steal the dog), the Sapper Woditschka (a close friend of Schwejk's), and Baloun (who in Hasek is only a fellow batman and not really Schwejk's friend) into the single figure of Baloun, Schweyk1s close friend in Brecht's play. Brecht then "ties" Baloun to the owner of the Kelch, Frau Kopecka, through his appetite, and to the serving girls from whom the dog is stolen (with Baloun's help) through an arranged meeting at the Kelch. The Kelch is further used dramatically as a centripetal force by staging the Razzia for the stolen dog there. Finally, even the Anabasis of the second part of the play is tied to the Kelch (as Brecht observes) by its dream function whenever there is a danger of Schweyk falling asleep and dying from exposure. The Kelch binds together both the play as a whole and the in dividual characters who play the play. This unity makes Brecht's text, at least structurally, a very, very distant relative of both the Hasek novel and the 1927-1928 collec tive dramatization, both of which, it will be remembered, consist of a wealth of characters and scenes connected to each other only loosely and indirectly by the figure of 249 S chwe jk hims e1f. As important as the Kelch is to the play's structure, it is, as Lenz has observed, perhaps of even more use as an expression of the play's philosophy. The play makes it quite clear that the Kelch is to be seen as peacefulness and sensibleness and is thus in direct contrast to the belligerence and stupidity of the denizens of the upper regions. The Kelch is where the little man (in Brecht, if not in Hasek) drinks his beer in peace and asks for nothing more than peace, food, drink and warmth. Mrs. Kopecka and the patrons of the Kelch are not interested in honor and glory or in politics; they want simply to be left alone. The Kelch is a friendly idyll in an otherwise senseless and bloody world. Unfriendliness only enters this world when representatives of the "discontented," the seekers of glory, wealth or power, members of or henchmen of the ruling class ("die Herrschende," to use Brecht's favorite term of oppro brium) enter the Lokal. Brettschneider, the Gestapo agent, is one such disturber of the otherwise perfect peace, as are the Germans who raid the Lokal and the Germans who in sist on talking politics there. Frau Kopecka, intent on maintaining both the means of her livelihood and the peace of the Kelch, says succinctly to an S.S. man who wants to 250 talk of the "higher regions" and thus of politics: "Da haben Sie Ihr Pilsner . . . Hier ist keine Politik. Ich bin Gewerbetreibende, wenn jemand kommt und sich ein Bier bestellt, schenk ichs ihm ein, aber damit horts auf."46 Making even plainer her view of the Kelch and inviting ex tension of its basic principles, Frau Kopecka sings in the song of the Kelch: Komm und setz dich, lieber Gast Setz dich uns zu Tische DaB du Supp und Krautfleisch hast Oder Moldaufische. Brauchst ein bissel was im Topf MuBt ein Dach habn iiberm Kopf Das bist du als Mensch uns wert Sei geduldet und geehrt Fur nur 80 Heller. Referenzen brauchst du nicht Ehre bringt nur Schaden Hast eine Nase im Gesicht Und wirst schon geladen. Sollst ein bissel freundlich sein Witz und Auftrumpf brauchst du kein IB dein Kas und trink dein Bier Und du bist willkommen hier. Und die 80 Heller. Einmal schaus wir fruh hinaus Obs gut Wetter werde Und da wurd ein gastlich Haus Aus der Menschenerde. Jeder wird als Mensch gesehn Keinen wird man iibergehn 46stucfce, X, 10. 251 Ham ein Dach gegn Schnee und Wind Weil wir arg verfrorn sind. Auch mit 80 Heller'. (pp. 121-122) For the eighty Heller, concludes the song, everyone, every where, should be able to enjoy warmth, food, and friendli ness. The plaintive wish is expressed that the whole earth should be like "ein gastlich Haus." On an earth such as Frau Kopecka envisions, it is clear the great will play no role. She says explicitly that "Ehre bringt nur Schaden," but that if you are friendly (though you may at the same time be dishonorable, ugly and stupid) you are more than welcome (if you have eighty Heller). Frau Kopecka obviously dreams here of a world where politics, honor, greatness, leaders, etc. are unnecessary because all human affairs are regulated by friendliness. She wants, both for herself and for her guests, an extension of the harmonious interrela tionships between the Kelch customers, an extension that will include everyone everywhere. Schweyk, who in Brecht even more than in Hasek virtu ally lives at the Kelch, obviously reinforces the Kelch philosophy of Frau Kopecka. He too longs for an "entheroi- siert" world, a world in which the little man can live in unproductive, disorderly, dishonorable peace. Schweyk 252 bursts out to Brettschneider, the representative of the great man Hitler: "Die groBen Manner sind immer schlecht angeschrieben beim gewohnlichen Volk, wie einmal der Redaktor von "Feld und Garten" geschrieben hat. Warum, er versteht sie nicht und halt alles fur uberfliissig, sogar das Heldentum. Der kleine Mann scheiBt sich was auf eine groBe Zeit. Er will ein bissel ins Wirtshaus gehn und Gulasch auf die Nacht. Und auf so eine Bagasch soli ein Staatsmann sich nicht giften, wo er es schaffen muB, daB ein Volk ins Schullesebuchel kommt, der arme Hund. Einem groBen Mann is das gewohliche Volk eine Kugel am Bein . . (p. 25) For the devious, artful Schweyk, it is obvious, the "great man" is even more "eine Kugel am Bein" for the "little man." Schweyk's description in "the lower regions" of the little man's view of "greatness" and "the great" is as ob viously true as Himmler's statement made in "the higher regions" is untrue. In answer to Hitler's question on how the little man throughout Europe views him, Himmler replies: "Mein Fuhrer, zum Teil betet er Sie an/ Wie einen Gott, und zum Teil/ Liebt er Sie wie eine Geliebte, genau wie in Deutschland'." (p. 8). It would considerably simplify analysis of this play (even if it would ruin the play it self) if it were now possible neatly to contrast the sen sibleness of the sentiments expressed in the lower regions with the phoniness and stupidity of those expressed by Hitler and his ilk in the upper regions. Unfortunately, 253 however, the play is so rich that no such division would really reflect either the exterior political realities on which the play is based or the political realities within the play itself. The "sensible" Schweyk, exemplar of the little man at his most canny, does not escape contributing to the effort he deems both stupid and none of his business. The "stupid" Himmler is likewise not altogether stupid. The armies that overran most of Europe and part of Africa and the navies that harassed Allied shipping on all seven seas were not made up entirely of malcontented "little men" driven into battle by unkind and stupid members of the "herrschende Klasse." It would seem that Brecht subscribes here to the official Communist wartime view and current DDR view that the guilty Germans were the industrialists and generals who supported Hitler and that the "common German people" were simply forced to fight for principles in which they did not believe. Therefore, the common German people, at least according to this view, did not share the guilt of 47 the inhabitants of "die hoheren Regionen." Though Brecht is neither the first nor the last German 4?See in this connection Brecht's notes on Arturo Ui in Volume IX of the Stiicke. to seek moral refuge in the above contention, he fails within the play to argue either its aptness or its truth. Surely "die dicke Frau" rather than Schweyk is morally cor rect in the following interchange in the Kelch: Die dicke Frau: Ich sag: mir sin mit schuld. Ich kennt mir vorstelln, daS man mehr machet als Slibowitz trinken und Witze. Schweyk: Verlangens nicht zu viel von sich. Es is schon viel, wenn man uberhaupt noch da is heutzutag. Da is man leicht so bescheftigt mit Ieberlebn, dafi man zu nix anderm kommt.48 Schweyk here, of course, rather understates his own posi tion. He does hinder the war in small ways. He does (and quite consciously) confuse the railway guard with the num bers trick; he does help keep Baloun out of the German army he does undermine Brettschneider; he does help the Russian peasants; and he does hinder the German war effort by ad vising the deserters he meets to take a machine gun over to the Russians with them. But, at the same time, he severely compromises all this by his support, no matter how half hearted, of the war. Expressing his philosophy towards obedience in the war, he says to the dog Ajax, for instance "Wenn du im Krieg ieberleben willst, halt dich eng an 48Stucke. X, 54. 255 die andern und das Iebliche, keine Extratouren, sondern kuschn, solang, bis du beifien kannst. Der Krieg dauert nicht ewig, so wenig wie der Friedn . . ." (pp. 124-125) In his address to the heroic mongrel Ajax, Schweyk does not take up the question of whether one should in one's "keeping close to the others" murder right along with them. Nor does he concern himself unduly with the fact that according to his own statement, other wars will follow, other wars will have to be fought by people just like him, people concerned with nothing more moral in the war than survival. As to how the revenge of the "little man" (Ajax-Schweyk) that the statement will be possible later, no hint is given. Schweyk's address to Ajax takes us to the center of the little man's dilemma. He wants no war, but to survive and enjoy peace once again he must (however half-heartedly) wage war. Yet, as long as he wages war, the peace for which he is fighting is postponed. In view of this, Schweyk would seem to be claiming too much for the little man en masse when, in reply to Hitler's contention: "wenn das Dritte Reich unterliegt/ Waren nur die Naturgewalten schuld an dem ^Schweyk's support of the war is even plainer in various alternate forms of the manuscript available in the Brecht-Archiv. Petr, in his "Schweik" in Deutschland, p. 149, gives one such ending. 256 Mi&geschick," Schweyk boldly claims: "Ja, ich her, der Winter und der Bolschewik."50 To put his own war contribu tion alongside of, for instance, the Russian defense of Stalingrad or Leningrad would seem to be as much in error as Schweyk's claim, made to "die dicke Frau," that survival is enough. In fairness to Schweyk and to the little man, however, it should be remembered that he perhaps used all means at his disposal to hinder the war. Whether he should and could have done more if his resistance had been more active takes us outside the scope of the play and of the character of Schweyk. Schweyk is Schweyk perhaps precisely because he does not do more, precisely because he hinders passively rather than actively and precisely because he is the embodiment of the simple, dreamlike, apolitical philos ophy of the Kelch. The dreams of Schweyk are precisely the ones expressed in the song of the Kelch and in that other song of praise to pacifism, apolitical philosophy, and indeed fatalism, the song that forms the political and structural heart of the play, the beautiful Moldaulied. Breaking into the realistic action, attempting to dispel the black mood of a 505t.UgKS, X, 127-128. 257 present hardly to be endured, this song cautions endurance, demands survival and points to the inevitability of a coming peace: Am Grunde der Moldau wandern die Steine. Es liegen drei Kaiser begraben in Prag. Das Grofle bleibt groB nicht und klein nicht das Kleine. Die Nacht hat zwolf Stunden, dann kommt schon der Tag Es wechseln die Zeiten. Die riesigen Plane Der Machtigen kommen am Ende zum Halt. Und gehn sie einher auch wie blutige Hahne Es wechseln die Zeiten, da hilft kein Gewalt. (p. 91) The song ends with the repetition of the first verse. Sung first at the darkest point of the play when endurance seems as futile as victory seems impossible, the song is repeated at the play's close when endurance seems certain and victory assured. The trouble, of course, with this beautiful song is that politically it cuts both ways. Though the little man is assured he will come back into his own, the great man can draw as much assurance from the same song. The song exactly matches Schweyk's statement to Ajax: "Der Krieg dauert nicht ewig, so wenig wie der Friedn . . ." (p. 125). Both Schweyk and Frau Kopecka foresee a world whose peace will regularly be shattered, a world where the Moldau song can always be repeated from generation to generation. All that will be necessary to bring the song up to date is to add another Kaiser to the total mentioned. The passivity 258 and fatalism of the Brecht play is an absolute reflection of the philosophy and tone of Hasek's novel. Likewise, this philosophy would seem to be specifically Brechtian in that it differs in no significant way from that of Mutter Cou rage, who muses at one point: "In einem guten Land brauchts keine Tugenden, alle konnen ganz gewohnlich sein, mittelge- 51 scheit und meinetwegen Feiglinge." The difficulty here is that the Schwejk who survives the Hapsburg monarchy, the 52 Mutter Courage who survives the Thirty Years' War, and the Schweyk who survives Hitler do not live undisturbed in a good country; their world is not one enormous and undis turbed Kelch where friendliness and good comradeship are the rule rather than the exception and where cowardice and stupidity are no handicap. Each tale of woe would seem to claim: "Es wechseln die Zeiten, da hilft kein Gewalt." In both these plays (as in other plays of the same period), 51§_tucks, VII, 89-90. 5^In view of the numerous XJbereinstimmungen between the views of Schweyk and of Mutter Courage, it is a little sur prising to find in Brecht's "Tagebuchnotizen" (24.6.43) in Spectaculum III, p. 338: "im groften den SCHWEYK beendet. ein gegenstuck zur MUTTER COURAGE." The view that (in direct opposition to Brecht's claim) Schweyk has much in common with Mutter Courage is cogently argued by Grimm in Weltliteratur. pp. 52-53. 259 there is nothing of the assurance and naivete of the coun seling of the use of force to "good ends" that was every where in the Lehrstueke. quite clear in the semi-Lehrstuck. Die Mutter, and that was to reappear, with varying degrees of clarity, in later plays such as: Die Taae der Commune, the incomplete reworking of Coriolan. in Don Juan and in Pauken und Tromneten. Schweyk's human problem, like that of Mother Courage herself, has a human complexity, a certain anarchical qual ity, completely alien to any organized political system. His only wish is to live simply in the anarchic but friend ly, lowly but warm, coarse but human world of the Kelch. He does not want any other Utopia; his Utopia is wholly passive and quite sordid. The organized world of Pelegea Wlassowa, with her hard work towards a definite goal of social improvement, gives way, and gives way to a return to what is very close to an earlier vision of Brecht's, that of Kragler in Trommeln in der Nacht. who says flatly, ignor ing a call to open revolution for social betterment: ". . . 53 ich bin ein Schwein, und das Schwein geht heim." How much closer is Kragler's statement to Schweyk's position than is 53Stucke. I, 204. 260 the pride, industry and courage of "Die Mutter" can be seen clearly in a number of statments made by Schweyk. In an interchange with the "dicke Frau" who wishes actively to oppose the forces of evil, we find echoes of Kragler the "Schwein." After Schweyk returns from his first visit to Brettschneider, "die dicke Frau" asks: "Sind Sie der, den sie gestern weggefiihrt haben von hier?" Schweyk replies: "Derselbe. In solchen Zeiten mu£> man sich unterwerfen. Es 54 is Ubungssache. Ich hab ihm die Hand geleckt." Later in the play a very similar exchange takes place. A kurz- sichtiae man states: "Man mufi ihnen [the Germans] nicht noch in den Arsch kriechen." The "far-sighted" Schweyk replies: "Sagens das nicht. Es is eine Kunst. Manches kleinere Vieh mecht sich freun, wenns einem Tiger hineinkam. Da kann er es nicht erreichn, und es fiihlt sich verhaltnis- mafiig sicher, es is aber schwer hineinkommen." (pp. 98- 99) The gross analogy drawn by Schweyk as illustration of the value of his methodology surely does not fit his subsequent place in the German army or the place he has just left, the cellars of the S.S. It is clear that these places are not 54stiicke. X, 43 . 261 verhaltnismafiia sicherer than the Kelch. Also, it is clear that the policy is absolutely passive with reference to the tiger of the first or second reply given above. In the interests of survival, any indignity must be suffered. There is even, indeed, an implication that any indignity must be sought out. In this quality of his being, Schweyk comes close to a number of other characters in Brecht's work. Azdak seeks out punishment and mistreatment. Eduard praises punishment and suffering, as does Baal in Brecht's very first play. All (paradoxically) actively seek to suffer passively. All are to a greater or lesser degree masochists. All differ radically from Pelegea Wlascowa, who is too proud to suffer and too sure of her objectives to be capable of remaining passive. Yet, this difference, at least with reference to Schweyk, is not polar but rather one of degree. The Schweyk who crawls does not simply save his own skin (as in Hasek) but the skin of at least Baloun and Frau Kopecka also. While crawling, while being despicable, while being a swine, he approaches heroism, pride and humanitarianism. By so doing, he falls somewhere between the Mother and Kragler. His heroism is more modest, less obvious than that of Pelegea Wlassowa, who can do no wrong. His swinishness is 262 not as bad as Kragler's, as it is modified by enough kind ness and friendliness, simple caritas. to set Schweyk off clearly from the earlier swine. The little man is humane in little ways. Even heroism in this play is "entheroi- siert." His "goodness" brings with it a measure of "evil"; his evil often produces a measure of good. Like Azdak and Galileo, he uses cowardliness and corruptness to achieve his own "good" ends. Like Shen Te-Shui Ta, he is not wholly good but rather good with one side of his being, good only when he can be, and evil when he has to be. His problem, like that of Brecht's other characters, is surely the per ennially modern one of how to be good in the midst of evil. Schweyk, like most of the rest of us, has no real answer. In Schweyk, though Brecht makes the lofty ludicrous, he does not make the lowly the chronicle of all the virtues. Baloun endangers his friends with his uncontrollable appe tite. With him, clearly, "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann 55 kommt die Moral." Likewise, Frau Kopecka is not simply the guardian of the haven of friendliness, warmth, and light; she very practically demands her eighty Heller. The fat woman and the short-sighted man, though they complain 55Stucke. Ill, 100. 263 of their own subservience and passivity, do nothing to im prove the situation. Precisely because of this Zweideutig- keit of the lower class characters, the play has drawn the fire of the party-discipline-oriented left. Yet, to the reader oriented more towards the problems of real men and women than to oversimplified solutions of problems by over simplified people, the very political ambiguity of Schweyk makes him both more humanly convincing and more aesthetic ally powerful than the characters of political melodrama beloved by the Socialist Realist school of thought. Brecht has invested his Schweyk with warmth, kindness, self- awareness, and courage alien to Hasek's "original." But with his "heroism" made very human by his pathetic need to crawl in order to save his own skin, Schweyk belongs with the host of human characters Brecht created during his two ideologically weak periods, periods of longing for a world ruled by kindness but of lack of clarity as to the strategy of establishing this rule of kindness on this earth. Viewed as a character of Brecht's creation rather than as a bor rowing from Hasek, Schweyk deserves to live his own life in literature and to not be dismissed blithely as most critics 264 56 thus far have dismissed him. Created in one of Brecht's two most productive yet politically (in the sense of party politics) unclear periods, the play, with its remarkable unity, its lovely songs, its dramatic contrasts of the brutality of power and the human warmth of the dream Kelch, its lower class characters fully rounded, its "unreal" Wag nerian use of "the higher regions" and of the music of Wag ner, is of the greatest formal and human interest. In Schweyk we have Brecht the artful artificer at his most skilled, most artistically successful, at his most human. Brecht's transforming power has shaped here his own work of art. As such, it must be seen, I feel, as fully and com pletely a play of Brecht and, indeed, as one of the richest, most interesting plays of Brecht. 56Please see: V. Rus, "Brecht's Schwevk im zweiten Weltkriea and Hasek's Good Soldier Schweik: A Study" (un- publ. Ph.D. diss., New York Univ.), Dissertation Abstracts. XXVI (1965), 1654-1655. Rus's work came to my notice after this chapter was completed and is, therefore, not discussed in the body of my text. As Rus seems, however, to parallel those critics who (1) view the Schweyk figure as largely a direct borrowing, and (2) see the "good soldier" himself as influencing Brecht's own Weltanschauung. I see no reason to modify my own work to accommodate Rus's point of view. CHAPTER VI SOPHOCLES AND BRECHT With the end of the war (so clearly pointed to in the closing scenes of Schwevk) an actuality, Brecht, in 1947, returned to Europe and to the theme of Stalingrad. Pausing in Switzerland before going on to Berlin, he returned to the theme of the victory that eluded the "great man," Hit ler. Of all places for "Hitler" to reappear and for the Battle of Stalingrad to be refought, the Greece of Antigone and Creon is perhaps among the strangest. I must wonder with this play, as I did with Eduard II. whether Brecht did in fact ever read the play. Perhaps he read not what was actually given to him but rather what he wanted to read into the play. As usual, misreading (either by accident or de sign) an "original" text, Brecht provides himself with a point of view that serves to turn his revision of the original play entirely to his own ends, making his play almost a Geaenstiick to that of Sophocles and giving it an 265 266 unmistakable Brechtian stamp. All this is again (as with Eduard II and with Schweyk) achieved with maximum borrowing or lines and entire scenes of the “original" combined with radically altered "readings" of these lines and scenes by the new context in which Brecht places them. It is interesting that nowhere in Brecht's notes in the archive or anywhere in the copious materials on Antigone brought together by Brecht's disciple, Werner Hecht,^ is there any explanation of why Brecht chose this particular play as an appropriate vehicle for re-establishing Weigel on the professional stage after her years of enforced idle ness in exile. All that the notes reveal is the background of the choice of a particular translation of the play rather than the basic choice of the play itself. In a statement (dated December 16, 1947) emphasizing the need for a role for his wife before returning to Berlin to play the role of Mother Courage, Brecht reveals how he came to use the Hol- derlin translation of the Sophocles play: Habe zwischen 30.11. und 12.12 eine Antigonebearbeituna fertiggestellt, da ich mit Weigel und Cas die Courage fur Berlin vorstudieren mochte, dies in Chur, wo Curjel sitzt, tun kann, dafur aber eine zweite Rolle fur die ^■Hecht, Materialien. See footnote 5 in Chapter II. 267 Weigel brauche. Auf Rat von Cas nehme ich die Holder- linsche Ubertragung, die wenig Oder nicht gespielt wird, da sie fur zu dunkel gilt.^ It would almost seem that Brecht, once Caspar Neher put him on the track of the Holderlin translation, was sufficiently fascinated by the play that he was determined to mount it even if the lead role was inappropriate (in conventional terms) for a forty-eight-year-old and far from sympathetic actress, and even though the theme had little indeed to do really with one of Brecht's most enduring preoccupations, the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Evidence for his fascination with the Holderlin version of the play rather than with the suitability of the play for showing off Weigel is provided by the continuation of the letter of December 16, 1947. Going on from his observation that he was steered to Holderlin‘s version of Aiytiaone by Caspar Neher, Brecht writes: "Ich finde schwabische Ton- falle und gymnasiale Lateinkonstruktionen und fiihle mich daheim. Auch Hegelisches ist da herum" (p. 114). Sheer joy in the work itself rather than in the practicality of that work as a showcase for Weigel would seem to be implied 2Brecht in Hecht, Materialien. p. 114. 268 in the next sentence in the letter: "Vermutlich ist es die Ruckkehr in den deutschen Sprachbereich, was mich in das Unternehmen treibt" {p. 114), Once involved in the work, Brecht proceeds, quite unselfconsciously, to shape it to his own ends. His pre-Christmas letter concludes: Was das Dramaturgische angeht, eliminiert sich das "Schicksal" sozusagen von selbst, laufend. Von den Gottern bleibt der lokale Volksheilige, der Freuden- gott. Nach und nach, bei der fortschreitenden Bear- beitung der Szenen, taucht aus den ideologischen Nebel die hochst realistische Volkslegende auf. (p. 114) Brecht ignores here: (1) the fact that Schicksal plays a very small role really in Sophocles's play and, therefore, does not need really to be eliminated at all; (2) that no Freudenaott per se appears at all in the Greek play or in Holderlin's translation of it; and (3) that the "realis tische Volkslegende" he essays to find in the play is, perhaps, almost entirely of his own creation. On all three points, Brecht sees (or fails to see) what he wants to see in the "original" play. As has proved to be the case with other plays examined, it would seem clear here that Brecht's own comments on what he was up to have very little relevance (and thus are exceedingly confusing) either to the original text as read by a relatively unbiased reader or to the re vision of that text. 269 Of less use even that Brecht's own commentaries on the plays are those of the two best known critics writing on Brecht in English, Willett and Esslin. Esslin, except for an unexceptional outline of Brecht's reworking, has nothing to contribute to scholarship in this area. Willett makes a negative contribution. In an otherwise undistinguished commentary on the reworking, Willett asserts that the re- 3 turning soldier in the Chur Prologue hangs himself. That the brother is hanged (in a fashion so barbaric as inevit ably to call to mind the brutal end of several of the twen tieth of July co-conspirators) is plain; that he is hanged by the S.S. is equally plain. Of more value than the work of the well-known English critics is the work in English of Frank Jones. Jones asks (but does not really answer) the question: "How can such a version produce a tragic effect? Is it not a mere political melodrama, with all the black on one side and all the white 4 on the other?" Developing further the idea that melodra matic qualities are present in Brecht's play (or even, as 3Willett, Theatre. p. 55. 4"Tragedy with a Purpose: Bertolt Brecht's Antigone.1 1 TDR. II, No. 1 (November 1957), 43. 270 he suggests, in both plays), Jones goes on: And yet the two playwrights have one important idea in common: a belief that justice is a part of the scheme of things, of the total situation in which any tragic action is contained. Sophocles locates this principle in deity, Brecht in humanity (vox populi vox Dei), but both their versions of the Antigone story are positive, or if you like melodramatic, in their insistence on a force in human affairs that punishes presumption. In Sophocles, Creon flouts religion and the family; in Brecht, he flouts justice and the people; in both, he is paid back in his own coin. Sophocles' Creon, having hurt a family, loses his own; Brecht's Creon, having hurt his city, loses that too. (p. 44) In what appears to me to be a particularly incisive and apt remark, Jones, after noting that the "... Sophoclean qualities— moral ambiguity and the sense of inevitable ruin — are absent in Brecht" (p. 44), goes on to say: His presentation of the story implies that the fall of Thebes could have been avoided if there had been a successful revolution against Creon. If more soldiers had deserted, as Polynices did, the Argives might not have been provoked to their final attack. (p. 43) My own interpretation and evaluation of Brecht's reworking will owe much to Jones's note on the ambiguity (in my view, moral and otherwise) of the Sophocles play and of the rela tive Eindeutiakeit of the Brecht play. Apparently unaware of the excellent work of Jones in English and of a number of important studies in German, Brecht's disciple, Werner Hecht, contends "... daft 271 Brechts 'Antigone' von der Literaturkritik bisher kaum ent- 5 deckt ist." Because of the fact that several excellent critics (Grimm, Bunge, and Witzmann) and one mediocre one (Rilla) have written on the play in German, Hecht's comment is surprising. It is even more surprising since Rilla, Witzmann, and Bunge wrote (as did Hecht) their studies in East Germany. One of the earliest, most thorough though least help ful studies (from an evaluative point of view) is Bunge's 1957 dissertation on the Brecht and Holderlin versions of g Sophocles's theme. Presenting the Holderlin and Brecht plays as parallel texts, Bunge goes on to measure the quan titative dependence of Brecht on Holderlin. Commenting (with approval, apparently, on Bunge's method and its re sults), Grimm writes: Er rechnet das Verhaltnis von Bearbeitung und Vorlage sogar nach Prozenten aus: demnach hatte Brecht 19,5% der Verse Holderlins wortwortlich, weitere 12,6% bei- nahe wortwortlich ubernommen.7 5Hecht, Materialien. p. 148. ^Hans-Joachim Bunge, "Antigone-Mode11 1948 von Bertolt Brecht und Caspar Neher, zur Praxis und Theorie des epischen (dialektischen) Theaters Bertolt Brechts" (diss., Greifs- wald, 1957). 7Grimm, WeItliteratur. p. 38. 272 Grimm fails, unfortunately, to go on to evaluate the aes thetic or qualitative values, if any, of such statistics. For Grimm (as for Bunge), the demonstration of a word for word borrowing would seem to imply clear dependence on the model and clear lack of "originality" in such "cited" sec tions. Only because Brecht adds other materials and alters certain elements of the fable does his version of the play become, in Grimm's view, "etwas vollig Eigenes und Selb- standiges . . ." (p. 38). Thinking that demonstration of borrowing is clear evidence of non-originality, Grimm's comments fail both to do justice to Brecht's powers of modifying by context and to recognize the shortcomings of Bunge's statistical study with its lack of comment on the significance, if any, of changes in context made by Brecht. Before returning, however, to somewhat more valuable com ments by Grimm on the relationship of Sophocles-Holderlin to Brecht, it is necessary to pass on to another, later and far more valuable commentary by Bunge on the interrelation ship of the classical and mid-twentieth century texts. In an essay written especially for the program of a West Berlin production of the play in the winter of 1965-66 273 g at the Schaubiihne am Halleschen Ufer, Bunge offers a series of comments that, in their emphasis on qualitative assess ment of Brecht's achievement in reworking the classic play, are at the opposite pole from his almost entirely quantita tive 1957 study. Bunge's more recent comments on the text are particularly useful because of two major circumstances of his career. First, after Brecht's death, it was Bunge who carried out the administrative responsibilities of the Brecht archive in East Berlin. His unique position there gave him access to materials not yet generally available to the scholar working in the archive. Second, by the time he wrote his comments in the program, he had given up his position at the archive and his direct allegiance to the authorities of the DDR, and was writing (presumably un hampered by any narrow political ideology) for a somewhat less ideologically hidebound "Western" audience. Posses sing, therefore, inside information but then evaluating that information from an untrammelled or "outside" position, Bunge deserves our respectful attention. In Bunge's dissertation (as Witzmann notes in his Q °Hans-Joachim Bunge, "'Hegelisches' in Brechts Anti gone?" in the 1965 program of the Berlin Schaubiihne am Halleschen Ufer. comparative study of the plays): 274 Bunge berichtet, daS sich im Nachlafi Brechts eine Fabel- erzahlung befindet, in der die ParaHelen zur Gegenwart hervorgehoben sind. Brecht hat diesen Text unterdruckt, um den Anschein zu vermeiden, es komme ihm auf derartige durchsichtige Analogien an.^ The "Fabelerzahlung" which Bunge refers to and which Brecht sought to suppress is not (as will be seen later) necessary in order to see the numerous contemporary "durchsichtige Analogien" which Brecht has built into his version of the play. The importance to an evaluation of Brecht's text of these "durchsichtige Analogien" is excellently summed up by Bunge in his 1965 work when, after praising the timelessness and poetic and political ambiguity of Sophocles's play, he goes on to remark of Brecht's reworking of the classic text: Brecht aber schrankt durch seine Berufung auf einen historischen Vorfall, der sich trotz der poetischen Verhiillung in aller Deutlichkeit aufdrangt, einerseits die Moglichkeit zur Verallgemeinerung ein, und anderer- seits streift er seinen Bezugspunkt zu oberflachlich, als daE> eine direkte Nutzanwendung— wann immer— denkbar ware.10 Well aware of Brecht's general appreciation of Hegel and Brecht's specific comment (quoted above) that he found the 9Witzmann, Antike Tradition, p. 77. 10Bunge, Schaubuhne program, p. [3]. 275 play "Hegelian," Bunge, continuing to probe the reasons for what he felt are the play's weaknesses in Brecht's version, observes: "In Wirklichkeit aber hat Brecht das 1Hegeli- sche', das heifit das, woran Hegel seine Denkweise demon- striert, gerade nicht ubernommen" (p. [3]). It will be remembered that what particularly attracted Hegel to the Sophocles play was the dialectal clash of irreconcilable points of view (each having moral value). Bradley, com menting on Hegel and his interpretation of Antigone. ob serves : The family and the state, the bond of father and son, the bond of mother and son, the bond of citizenship, these are each and all, one as much as another, powers rightfully claiming human allegiance. It is tragic that observance of one should involve the violation of another.^ It is precisely this highly ambiguous, tragic and poetically fruitful confrontation of legitimate points of view that is "Hegelisch" and Bunge is surely correct (as will be demon strated by my discussion of the play) in claiming that it is precisely this element that Brecht has excised. One critic without Bunge's usual thoroughness and ■^A. C. Bradley, "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," in Hegel on Tragedy, ed. Anne and Henry Paolucci (Garden City, New York, 1962), p. 372. 276 frequent insight is the East German, Rilla. Failing to closely discuss texts and simply echoing Brecht at his most rigid, foolish and doctrinaire, the most charitable course open to the critic commenting on Rilla is to note his exis- 12 tence and then to dismiss him. Of Rrlla's work, another East German critic, Witzmann, writes: Leider liberschatzt Rilla die poetische Kraft des Brecht- schen Antigonetextes. Brecht hat nicht immer die starken und eigenwilligen Pragungen Holderlins ubernommen. Das geschah nicht zum Vorteil der Brechtschen Fassung. Ver- gleicht man einmal Holderlins Text mit dem Brechts im einzelnen, wird man feststellen, daB die Bearbeitung oft hinter der Vorlage zuriickbleibt, daB sie glatter und kiinstlicher wirkt. Wer in beide Fassungen eingelesen ist, merkt leicht, wo Brecht Holderlin ubernommen hat und wo er Eignes gibt.13 The above comment by Witzmann serves as a good intro duction to the brilliant (even though also at times doc trinaire) work of this East German critic. Witzmann is at his best (and his best is surpassed only occasionally by Bunge or Grimm) when doing close textual analysis of the l^See P. Rilla, "Buhnenstuck und Buhnenmodell," in Literatur. Kritik und Polemik (Berlin, 1950). Reprinted in Hecht, M^teriallfin, pp. 106-110. l^Witzmann, Antike Tradition, pp. 88-89. In fairness to Rilla I might point out that Grimm (WeItliteratur. pp. 38-40) also feels that Brecht's version successfully com bines Brechtian verse with Holderlin's verse forms. 277 relationship of Brecht to Holderlin. He is at his worst when commenting on the direct social value of the Brecht Bearbeitung and when praising, for instance, the social value of Brecht's play over that of the reworkings of the same theme by Hasenclever and Anouilh. Ignoring questions of aesthetic value and concentrating entirely on utile. Witzmann writes of Brecht's play in comparison with the bourgeois treatments of the theme by Hasenclever and Anouilh: Das historische Moment in der marxistischen Verfahrens- weise zeigt den wesentlichen Unterschied gegeniiber der undialektischen (nichtmaterialistischen und nichthisto- rischen) Star re der burger lichen Auffassungen an.^-^ Determined to damn the "reactionary bourgeoisie" and deter mined to find something to praise about the work of the "progressive" writer Brecht, Witzmann fails either to see the very real aesthetic achievement of the French writer, or the changes in the Antigone fable made by the German Hasenclever, changes that may well have given Brecht much of the impetus for some of his own important changes in the 15 fable. Invariably the Marxist Witzmann overwhelms the 14Witzmann, Antike Tradition, p. 100. l^Witzmann ignores, for instance, the violently 278 careful scholar Witzmann in his discussion of the relative values of the three twentieth-century versions of the Anti gone tale. Finally, he simply dismisses Anouilh as beneath contempt from a Marxist viewpoint, for: Bei Anouilh ist das Historische vollig eliminiert. Schauplatz und Zeit sind ein ungefahres Irgendwo und Irgendwann. Der Widerspruch ist seines gesellschaft- lichen Inhalts beraubt, individualistisch abstrahiert und verinnerlicht. Der Stoff ist im Grunde nur noch ein mythologisches Muster, das Anouilh seinem Stuck als ein gangiges Ornament anheftet. (p. 98) Here Witzmann lapses into speculative sociology and simply mouths a party prescription which Brecht himself phrased thus: Die sozialistisch realistische Wiedergabe alter klas- sischer Werke geht von der Auffassung aus, daft die Menschheit solche Werke aufgehoben hat, die ihre Fort- schritte in der Richtung auf immer kraftigere, zartere und kuhnere Humanitat kiinstlerisch gestalten. Die Wiedergabe betont also die fortschrittlichen Ideen der klassischen Werke.^ anti-war tone of Hasenclever and Hasenclever's cataclysmic ending. Both tone and ending are too close to Brecht's version for a possible Hasenclever influence to be so simply ignored. As Witzmann himself, noting both the fame of Hasenclever1s play and the violently anti-war and anti tyrant tone of the play, observes: "Hasenclever erhielt fur seine 'Antigone' 1917 den Kleist-Preis; das Stuck, im gleichen Jahr erschienen, konnte jedoch erst am 18. April 1920 aufgefuhrt werden" (Antike Tradition, p. 92). 16BBA 12/47-48. 279 In complete contrast to conventional, empty and extra- aesthetic fulminations that at times mar Witzmann's (and Brecht's) work are Witzmann's careful and insightful re marks on the play as aesthetic construct. Witzmann writes: Die einschneidenden Anderungen des Inhalts des alten Stuckes lassen groBe Anderungen seiner Form, seines Aufbaus erwarten. Doch bei genauerem Hinsehen stellt man das Gegenteil fest. Die Bearbeitung tragt durchaus konservative Ziige. Brechts Text ist insgesamt urn etwa 100 Verse kiirzer als die Holderlinsche tJbertragung. Die Struktur des alten Gedichts wird durch die Bear beitung nicht zerstbrt.^7 A few lines later, however, Witzmann notes: Manche Szenengruppen sind stark zusammengezogen (z.B. die zwischen den Auftritten des Haimon und des Teire- sias), der SchluB der Tragodie ist sehr gekiirzt. Da Brecht auf die Eurydikehandlung verzichtet, bekommt das Ende eine groBe Rapiditat. (p. 85) Besides noting general architectural changes that help to give the work both a different political and aesthetic bias, Witzmann notes also changes in the verse of the piece. He writes: "Brecht hat die gleichmaBigen MaBe fast vollig aufgegeben und an ihre Stelle bewuBt ein ungleichmaBiges, 18 freies, gestisches Metrum gesetzt" (p. 90). 17Witzmann, Antike Tradition, p. 85. 18The freer, more irregular verse of the new play is, of course, reminiscent of the deliberate changes wrought in 280 As usual, Reinhold Grimm's textual analysis of the use of source materials is thorough. Grimm notes, for instance, that not only did Holderlin's translation of Sophocles’s play serve Brecht well as a model but that at least two other "classical" sources were also used. Grimm writes: . . . denn die Antigone des Soohokles enthalt nicht nur Einzelziige aus Pindars 1. Pvthischer Ode (ebenfalls in der tJbertragung Holderlins), sondern vor allem auch ganze Strophen aus dem von Goethe in den Noten und Ab- handlunaen zum West-ostlichen Divan, Abschnitt Ayabgr, mitgeteilten arabischen Preislied.1^ Grimm is full of praise of Brecht's use of all his borrowed materials. As will become plain in the course of my own examination of the original texts, though I admire Grimm's detective work on the sources, I do not agree with his evaluation of Brecht's use of them. When we turn from the critics to the Brecht text it self, we see that a number of important additional comments must be made both to illuminate and support the formal changes noted by Witzmann. Though Witzmann's contention that formally (or quantitatively) speaking Brecht's the metrics and general smoothness of Brecht's first Bear- beitung. Eduard II. l^Grimm, WeItliteratur. p. 39. 281 Bearbeituna "tragt konservative Ziige," with reference to content his remark (as he himself is aware) falls somewhat short of the truth. Though it is true that much of the framework of the play does remain unaltered, it is also true that alterations within the frame are numerous and extremely important. Instead, for instance, of having (as Sophocles does) Eteocles and Polynices fighting on opposite sides, Brecht has them both on the same side. Also, instead of bitterly fighting each other for their father's kingdom as they do in the Greek text, Brecht has them reluctantly fighting a war of aggression at the behest of the tyrant and usurper, Kreon. In Brecht also, Kreon does not simply assume power after the death of the direct heirs to the throne (Polynices and Eteocles) but seizes it before the play begins. Kreon is, therefore, in Brecht, a usurper and "tyrant" in the narrowest and most pejorative modern sense of the ancient Greek term. Brecht would seem to seek to draw this view of Kreon from the ancient Greek text when he writes: Beim Soohokles bildet die Antigone-Kreon-Begebenheit das Nachspiel eines siegreichen Kriegs: Der Tyrann (das ist einfach der Herrscher) rechnet ab mit personlichen Feinden, die ihm den Sieg erschwert haben, stofit dabei auf einen menschlichen Brauch und erfahrt den Zerfall 282 . , . 20 seiner Familie. Several obvious misreadings of Sophocles come out in Brecht's observation. He would seem to imply that Creon directed the war that has just passed. Though this is true of Brecht's own Kreon, it is not true of Sophocles's charac ter. It is also not true that Creon deals after the war with personal enemies. His reason for not burying the one brother is a reason of state and not one of personal enmity in Sophocles. As Brecht claims, however, to find these things in Sophocles, it is not surprising that they should actually be present in Brecht's own text. The clearest way to illustrate the radical changes Brecht makes in the Sophocles-Holderlin text is to note carefully how distant Brecht's characters are, in language, psychology, and point of view, from the characters in the Greek text and in the nineteenth-century German translation of that text. The character that best illustrates this change is Creon himself. Again and again it will be seen that changes in character, plot, and language point away from a mild monarch who makes one moral error to a dyed-in- 20Brecht in Hecht, Materialien. p. 116. 283 the-wool villain, to the bad man of the twentieth century, 21 Adolf Hitler. From the Modellbuch of Antigone (a book containing the text of the play, directions for mounting it, and numerous photographs used to illustrate recommended makeup, character types, etc.), it is quite unmistakable that Hitler is Kreon in Brecht's 1948 vision of the play. In a world that knew Hitler only too well, the tiny mous tache, the hair slicked down over one eye of the model sketches can mean only one man. A certain studied stiffness of manner in the sketches reinforces this initial impres sion. Proceeding from the Modellbuch to the literary text, ever more evidence accumulates to make the identification quite inescapable. One needs only to have heard one speech of the Nazi leader to recognize the headline style of Hitler (and, incidentally, of some of the Expressionist play wrights) in the very first lines spoken by Kreon in the play. Addressing the elders, Kreon barks: Ihr Manner, teilt's mit alien: Argos Ist nicht mehr. Abrechnung war Vollige. Von elf Stadtschaften Entrannen wenige, die wenigsten1 .^ 2^Bertolt Brecht and Caspar Neher, Antigonemode11 1948 (Berlin, 1949). 22St\icke . XI, 26 . 284 As these opening words parallel those of the confident Hitler of the early year and a half of the highly successful Blitzkrieg, so do his closing words echo the sentiments and tone of the embittered Fiihrer crouched in a bunker under a ruined Berlin in April, 1945. Kreon's closing words in the play run thus: So fallt jetzt Thebe. Und fallen soil es, soli's mit mir, und es soil aus sein Und fiir die Geier da. So will ich's dann. (p. 95) Made up as Hitler and speaking as Hitler, Kreon is also addressed in precisely the manner in which Hitler was cus tomarily addressed. Whereas in Holderlin a guard addresses 23 Kreon as "Mein Konig," Brecht's guard says, "Mein Fuh- 24 » 25 rer." The Greek text has simply "ava£," a word that can be rendered as lord, nobleman, prince, ruler, or master. Therefore, though both the Brecht and Holderlin versions 23Friedrich Holderlin, Werke in einem Band, ausgewahlt und mit einem Vorwort versehen von Fritz Usinger (Hamburg, n.d.), p. 429 (I, iii). Hereafter cited as Holderlin, Werke. g4stucke. XI, 29. 25sophokles, Antigone. hrsg. von W. Rabehl (Berlin, 1927), line 223. 285 are certainly correct, Brecht's word choice in 1948 could point to only one thing: Kreon was to be seen as Hitler. At least as obvious as the play's insistence on our viewing Kreon as Hitler, is its demand that one view the events of the play as paralleling the history of Germany under Hitler's "Chancellorship." The war against Argos with its objective being the raw materials of that region immed iately makes one think of Germany's attack on the wheat-rich Ukraine and the oil-rich Black Sea regions of the Soviet Union. The events of the war in the play underline this connection of recent history with the events of the play. The messenger who reports on the defeat of Kreon's forces in Argos describes a defeat too much like that of Stalingrad 26 to be, in 1948, merely coincidental. The scorched-earth policy of the defenders, women fighting alongside the men, bitter house-to-house fighting, and the smoke and fire described by the messenger as he gasps out his message, before (a grand-opera touch'.) gasping his last, all evoke Stalingrad and the terrible German defeat there, a defeat considered by many as the turning point of the war in Europe, the point when Hitler's mystique of victory was 26See Stucke. XI, 87-89. 286 finally shattered. Even with the new prologue (written for a 1951 produc tion of the play and designed to reduce severely the "durch sichtige Analogien" of the 1948 text) the play is still totally "durchsichtig." Even if we ignore the fact that Brecht presents both the 1948 and the 1951 "prologues" in the Stiicke text and read only the 1951 revised prologue, the references are still inescapable. In the new prologue Tiresias says explicitly to the audience (his first refer ence is to Kreon and his later ones to Antigone): Dieser da Fiihrt einen Raubkrieg gegen das ferne Argos . Diese Tritt dem Unmenschlichen entgegen, und er vernichtet sie. Aber sein Krieg, nun unmenschlich geheiBen Bricht ihm zusammen. Die unbeugsam Gerechte Nichtachtend des eignen geknechteten Volkes Opfer Hat ihn beendet. Wir bitten euch Nachzusuchen in euren Gemutern nach ahnlichen Taten Naherer Vergangenheit oder dem Ausbleiben Ahnlicher Taten. (pp. 111-112) Several implications made in this statement deserve detailed consideration. The use of the verb "fuhren" and of the possessive pronoun "sein" make the "unmenschlich Raubkrieg" referred to virtually the sole responsibility of the Fuhrer — Kreon. The importance of these implications is not simply that they make the play excessively contemporaneous (a trait 287 which is not in itself an aesthetic fault) but also that they limit the play's reference to a particular kind of war and to a particular kind of semi-charismatic dictator. Wars of defense (and what war has there ever been that was not seen by at least one side as a war of defense?) do not in Brecht's play (and this is in direct contrast to the Greek version) call for moral opposition against unmoral acts carried out within a laudable or moral framework. One only opposes, or so Brecht's play would seem to imply, the clear ly immoral acts of an immoral Fiihrer in an immoral war. Sophocles, in contrast, presents us with the contemporary and timeless dilemma of deciding what is "right action" against a single immoral move by a basically moral person in a basically moral or right cause. Another thing missing in Brecht's version is a reason for his Kreon's acts. Brecht has chosen to present us in his Kreon with a dyed-in-the-wool villain so lacking in any reason for his actions as to bear little reference in actu ality to anyone, including Hitler. At least Hitler had "reasons" (in his own view) for his villainy, his anti- Semitism, his frantic fulminations on Blut und Boden. the evils of the Treaty of Versailles, and the evils of Bolshe vism. One looks in vain in Brecht's play for any equally 288 compelling "reasons" or syndrome of "reasons" for Kreon's lusting after the ore deposits of his neighbors. Whereas Sophocles's Creon acts out his fate within the framework of his own intransigent heritage, Brecht simply asks us to accept a villain who has no reasons to be villainous. Though Brecht claims emphatically that "Der Krieg Thebens 27 mit Argos ist realistisch dargestellt," and goes on to support this contention by noting of the war, "Das Ziel sind die Erzgruben von Argos" (p. 113), he absolutely fails to note that the war is in one most important sense wholly abstract: why should Kreon not be content simply to stay at home? He has no real reason to launch an unpopular war against his strongly defended neighbor; his actions become simply demonic and lose general human applicability. If less detailed in Sophocles, the war and the act of reprisal after the war have much better psychological motivation. Wrenching the play and Kreon from the "mythology" of the story (the simple past), Brecht fails to replace this past (mythology) with any compensating and real psychological motivation to buttress the present action. Everything in the play is designed to cut off Kreon from humankind, to 27Stucke. XI, p. 113. 289 deny him our Mitleid. In Brecht's radically shortened end ing, for instance, Eurydice is omitted. Perhaps she is 28 simply superfluous (as Witzmann suggests), but more like ly, in my opinion, is the notion that the death of Eurydice, serving as it does in Sophocles to direct our Mitleid to wards Creon, would be out of place in a play that spares no Mitleid whatsoever for a thoroughly blackened Kreon. Also contributing to the alienation of Kreon from the general run of humankind and from our sympathy is his treatment in Brecht of two of his satellites, the sons of Oedipus. Not only does Kreon seize power (as I have noted above), but he drives one of Oedipus's sons into battle and to death and kills the other one himself. In a passage gorier than anything in Sophocles, Brecht has Kreon chase Polyneikes who, having seen his brother killed, runs terri fied from the scene of battle. The scene of Polyneikes's death, as described by Antigone herself (in the opening scene of the play proper), runs thus: Schon Hat der hinstiirzende Fluchtling Die Dirzaischen Bache gequert, aufatmend Sieht er Thebe, die Siebentorige, stehn, da greift ^®See Witzmann, Antike Tradition, p. 85. 290 Den vom Blut des Bruders besprengten Kreon, der hinten Einpeitscht alle sie in die Schlacht, und zerstiickt ihn. The Kreon introduced thus as blood-bespattered killer and unrelenting tyrant and who exits (having learned nothing in the course of the play) consigning his own city to the vul tures is hardly designed to elicit our sympathy or to ade quately represent humankind. By changing the relationship of Kreon to satellite figures in the play, by making him a thorough tyrant, a virtually demonic figure, Brecht also changes the moral value of Antigone's action in the new play. Where Antigone in Sophocles faces a man basically good, capable of seeing the error (even if too late) of his single evil act, Brecht's heroine faces a man vicious to the core, a man who changes his mind about Haemon-Antigone at the end of the play only because of the exigencies of power politics rather than because of (as in Sophocles) recognition of moral error. In absolute terms, it seems to me, the courage re quired blatantly to oppose the bloodthirsty villain of Brecht's piece is more than that necessary to oppose the basically mild, only occasionally terrible Creon in 29£fciidSfl, XI, 19-20. Sophocles 1s play. Wholly in line with Brecht's alteration of the degree of courage which Antigone requires to plan and execute her one-woman resistance movement in Brecht is the alteration of the whole style of her exit. Where Antigone in Sophocles exits from the play and life in the reluctant manner of Mortimer in Brecht's Eduard II. Antigone in Brecht exits more in the triumphant manner of Young Mortimer in Marlowe's version of the Edward story. In Holderlin's translation of Sophocles, Antigonae's final speech runs thus: 0 des Landes Thebes vaterliche Stadt, Ihr guten Geister alle, den Vatern geworden, Also werd ich gefiihrt und weile nicht mehr? Seht ubrig von den anderen alien Die Konigin, Thebes Herrn1 . welche eine Gebuhr' ich leide von gebuhrigen Mannern, Die ich gefangen in Gottesfurcht bin.3® Conscious to the last of her innocence in the sight of the gods, she is then led away to death. The stage direction reads: "Antigonae wird weggefiihrt'1 (p. 449). Her exit is reluctant, passive. In Brecht, the tone of the final speech of Antigone changes radically. First heaping scorn on those (the chorus) who see her go to death, she then strides 30Holderlin, Werke. p. 448 (IV, i). 292 offstage almost in triumph. Dismissing the cowardice of the chorus and deeming this action shortsighted, she bursts out: Euch beweine ich, Lebende Was ihr sehen werdet Wenn mein Auge schon voll des Staubs ist1 . As she exits, Die Alten (the chorus) comment: Wandte sich um und ging, weiten Schrittes, als fiihre sie Ihren Wachter an. (p. 72) Her abrupt turn, long stride and the observation in the chorus's comments on her exit that she is leading the guards rather than vice versa all serve to underline the change in Antigone's character that Brecht has introduced with the utmost economy of means. Using mainly the "same" words, the "same" action of Antigone becomes in Brecht's play braver, more determined, more farsighted than Antigone's action in Sophocles or in Holderlin's translation of Sopho cles . It is curious that Brecht, who seemed content to make Kreon a thorough villain with no redeeming qualities what- sover, apparently was not satisfied to have Antigone (in 31Stucke. XI, 71. 293 contrast) viewed as a catalogue of all the virtues. Soon after the chorus remarks on how Antigone leads away her guards, they also observe of her: Aber auch die hat einst Gegessen vom Brot, das in dunklem Fels Gebacken war. Clarifying this remark, the chorus goes on: In der Ungluck bergenden Turme Schatten: saB sie gemach, bis Was von des Labdakus Hausern todlich ausging Todlich zuriickkam. (p. 72) If we were to view the chorus as enlightened (Marxist) pro letariat in this play (a function served by the crowd [or chorus] in Die Tacre der Commune and Coriolan) . these hostile remarks on Antigone's upper class origins and the historical insight that the remarks imply would seem apt. As it is, however (as will be seen from my discussion of the chorus), the elders of Thebes are only occasionally distinguished for their insight or their hostility to the upper class. It would seem that Brecht is not willing to let Antigone get away without a few sound Marxist raps and puts the at tack in one of the few mouths in the play where it would not be wholly inappropriate. It is possible, of course, and here I merely speculate, that for the Marxist Brecht 294 there were real ideological difficulties involved in having revolution come from the top rather than (as Marx would have it) from the bottom. Ideologically, it may have been pro foundly disturbing for Brecht to see the close analogy be tween the Princess Antigone and Claus Graf Scherik von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators. To read, as Brecht must have, the list of direct or indirect partici pants in the plot of July 20, 1944 is to read many of the most prominent names in the history of the German nobility. Though Brecht might, with justice, argue that the conspira tors, almost without exception (holding as they did high office in the Third Reich), had also "einst gegessen vom Brot, das in dunklem Fels gebacken war," it cannot be gain said that in Germany as in Sophocles's Greece the "Aufstand des Gewissens" came, in the main, from people at the top of the social ladder. Given this fact, it is not surprising that Brecht the Marxist should seek through the chorus to malign the upper-class Antigone, and through his critical writings seek to deny any connection between the "Aufstand des Gewissens" of Count von Stauffenberg and that of the classical heroine. The ambivalence of attitude becomes profound. Realistically speaking, the only place effective resistance in Greece or Germany could come from was the 295 top, as only those at the top had direct access to the dic tator. Yet, if they were at the top and did take part in inhuman acts planned from the top, Brecht's charge that they themselves were in a real sense also guilty, can hardly be denied. The problem with Brecht's position is that the little man ("Schweyk") was also guilty of participation (in Germany) in the execution of plans made at the top. Therefore, the objection to Stauffenburg-Antigone must be seen as somewhat one-sided. To be fair historically, one must see the moral stand taken by Stauffenburg-Antigone as, despite their own implication in the guilt of the "Herr- schende," the only effective stand taken by anyone from any social class. With reference to Brecht's Antigone taken alone, however, I do feel that the ambivalence of attitude towards her act required by a Marxist interpretation of it does lend to her actions a poetic ambiguity that is much to the credit of the author of the modern play. Brecht's in sistence on viewing her action with a critical eye is ob viously similar to and, in its own way, as effective as the 32 stunning moral ambiguity of Anouilh's Antigone. 32jt will be remembered that Sophocles's unadulterated - heroine becomes in Anouilh's version an aesthete who, though she acts partly out of moral indignation, acts mainly 296 Though it is not difficult to view Antigone's actions with a critical eye, it is rather odd to find expression of this criticism in the mouths of the chorus of Theban elders. At the play's beginning, it is clear that Brecht wishes to present the chorus not as the proletariat (incarnation of all the virtues in Marxist terms) but rather as the bour geoisie (incarnation of all the vices in other plays of Brecht like Die Taqe der Commune. Mutter Courage, and Pauken und Trompeten). If we remember Brecht's (too frequently reiterated to be ignored) definition of the bourgeoisie as "that class which converts all human relationships to eco nomic gain," then it is impossible to view the Elders of Thebes as anything but typical members of this hated class. Note, for instance, the single but extremely important change Brecht introduces in the following verse. In Hol der lin, we find (and it should be noted that this verse is buried in Holderlin in a long choral ode): Der grofinamige Sieg ist aber gekommen, Der wagenreichen gunstig, der Thebe, Und nach dem Kriege hier, because, in the words of John Gassner, "she longs for death as a merciful release from a world filled with tawdry sen timents and cheap values" (Masters of the Drama [n.p., 1954], p. 712). 297 33 Macht die Vergessenheit aus Brecht makes this verse the very first that the chorus speaks in the play and takes the verse over in its entirety except for one substitution; where Holderlin speaks of "der grofinamige Sieg," Brecht has "der grofibeutige Sieg." Later in the same choral ode, he underlines the importance of this substitution by changing Holderlin's line, "Kreon . . ./ Kommt wohl, urn einen Rat/ Zu sagen" (p. 427) to "Kreon, Menokeus1 Sohn, hastete wohl/ Her vom Schlachtfeld, Beute zu kunden . . ^ After Kreon declares, "Argos/ 1st nicht mehr," Die Alten again respond in purely mercenary terms when they say clearly; Herr, ein schon Bild von gar Gewaltigem malst du. Und, uberliefert, wird's der Stadt gefallen Wenn klug vermischt mit einem andern: Wagen Herauf die Gassen fahrend, voll mit Eignen1 . (pp. 26-27) No such verse exists in Sophocles or Holderlin; the meaning of the insertion is unmistakable. It is, in my opinion, aesthetically jarring that this group of characters, so narrow-minded at the beginning of 33Holderlin, Werke. p. 426 (I, i). 34Siikka, XI, 25. 298 the play, should then be asked by Brecht, at the most un likely moments and in the most unlikely language, to give voice to some of the most philosophically insightful and poetically lovely verses later in the play. The lovely ode 35 to Bacchus, for instance, is far too profound and beauti ful to come from a group used at first by Brecht to serve as grasping fools. Likewise, the insights of the second choral ode (pp. 54-55) described by Brecht as containing the "Warnung an den Despoten, zu hart zu richten" (p. 114), is also difficult to reconcile with the spirit of their first appearance in the play. It would seem that Brecht, full to bursting with poems on man's inhumanity to man, could not resist giving them expression in the play even though they are obviously irreconcilable with the funda mental immorality of the bourgeoisie (chorus). In fairness to Brecht, I must add that he was of course led into this juxtaposition of irreconcilable opposites by an attempt to harmonize two totally discordant elements. In Sophocles's play and in Holderlin*s translation of it, the Theban Elders, because of their age and their respect for Creon, at first fail to oppose the new monarch. 35See Stucke. XI, 65-66. Nevertheless, their age in Sophocles-Holderlin gives them a certain claim to wisdom, experience and insight. As Creon's decision regarding the corpse is seen (partly because of Antigone's vigorous opposition) to be incorrect, they at tempt (and in their attempt morality and expedience are inextricably intertwined) to get Creon to change his mind. In the mouths of Sophocles's Elders, the lovely philosophi cal odes couched in complex rhythms, the commentaries on the history of the House of Labdakus, and the moral growth of the chorus which culminates in their finally being asked by Creon to give their advice (and in Creon's acceptance of this advice) hardly seem at all out of place. They are, from the beginning, venerable and thoughtful men whose ad vice, when they are allowed to tender it, is practical and morally sound. In view of this, surely it should not sur prise us that the mantle of the bourgeoisie that Brecht had cut to fit Mackie Messer, Jonathon Peachum, Thiers in Die Tace der Commune, and the barber in Der crute Mensch von Sezuan. should not exactly have a "made to measure" look on the shoulders of Thebes' venerables. Working in haste (he completed the reworking between November 30 and December 12, 1948), Brecht seems simply to have reworked the opening speeches of the chorus to fit his own vision of the elders 300 as unscrupulous members of an unscrupulous class but to have left other speeches in a form very close to that he found in Sophocles-Holderlin. In my opinion there results a complete break of character between the reworked and unreworked parts of the chorus's role. Seeking to retain much of the mani fold beauty of many of the chorus's odes while at the same time using the chorus to represent greed and narrow-minded ness, he creates a mishmash that is aesthetically deplorable and psychologically ridiculous. Even though I feel that the part of the chorus is not psychologically whole in Brecht's play, a few momentary ef fects achieved via the chorus deserve some mention. I would like to use one quite long choral ode in this play as a particularly apt illustration of my thesis that Brecht often manages, by change of context, to change enormously much by changing extremely little. In order to illustrate the point I wish to make, I now offer four versions of the first choral ode of the play. The first version is that of Soph ocles, the second (in English) is by H. D. F. Kitto and is offered as a careful control translation for the Holderlin translation which follows. The fourth version is Brecht's. Sopho cles has: STASIMON I Strophe 1 XO. itoXXct xa 6 e tv a xovbiv &v- $p(imov fieLvdrepov tc^Xel* xotJxo noX iou nepav H O VX O V VOXUi Xwpet, n e g tp p u x ^ o t a i ' v nepOv im’oidpacriv, £eo5v xe xav uuepxaxav, Tav a<pdtxov axapaxav, auoxpuexai lX\o|ievo>v apoxpcov exog els cxog, L7iitL(v yev£L uoXeugov. Antistrophe 1 Xoutjpovoujv X £ qpUXov o p - vt^cov apcpipaXoov a y £ i Xai $r]p£Dv ayptw v Edvr) novxou x’ E iv aX tav (piiaiv aneCpaioi dtxtuoxXcoaxois, TCEputppadris avf)p * xPtt'c^ 6e p-nxavats aypadXou dTipog o p e a a u ^ d x a , X aauavx£Va v^ ’ itchov E^CCexat ap.<pCXo<pov Cuyov oupEOv x ' xaOpov. Strophe 2 yat cp^dypa xal avep.dEv <pp<5vr)pa xa^ aaxuvdjious opyhs E6i6d£axo xal* 6uaadXa)v udyajv uwai'-&pEia xa^ SOao^ppa <peuy£«,v PeXtJj navToudpos’ anopos eh ou6ev Epxexai xo psXXov* wA t6a pdvov <p£0£iv oux ETid^Exat* voacov 6* aptixavojv <puyas tupn^qppaaxat. 302 Antistrophe 2 aocpov xl xb prixavoev xexv«S imfcp i\%C6f exwv xoxfc p£v x°X hv, aXXox* ex’ e a $ \6 v epxei, vopou? xapei'pwv x^ovos &eG3v x’ evopxov 6Cx«v u<Kho\ ls* axoXis oxiv x6 pr| xaXov £uvecjxl 'toX- pas X^pi-v. pfjx’ epoi napeaxLOs yevoixo piix' taov ajpovQv os xd6' Ep6eL.36 Kitto renders the ode in English thus: SECOND ODE Strophe 1 CHORUS. Wonders are many, yet of all fglvconics) Things is Man the most wonderful. He can sail on the stormy sea Though the tempest rage, and the loud Waves roar around, as he makes his Path amid the towering surge. (dactyls) Earth inexhaustible, ageless, he wearies, as Backwards and forwards, from season to season, his Ox-team drives along the ploughshare. Antistrophe 1 He can entrap the cheerful birds, Setting a snare, and all the wild Beasts of the earth he has learned to catch, and Fish that teem in the deep sea, with Nets knotted of stout cords; of Such inventiveness is man. ■ ^ S o p h o k l e s , Antigone, lines 332-375. 303 Through his inventions he becomes lord Even of the beasts of the mountain: the long-haired Horse he subdues to the yoke on his neck, and the Hill-bred bull, of strength untiring. Strophe 2 And speech he has learned, and thought So swift, and the temper of mind To dwell within cities, and not to lie bare Amid the keen, biting frosts Or cower beneath pelting rain; Full of resource against all that comes to him Is Man. Against Death alone He is left with no defence. But painful sickness he can cure By his own skill. Antistrophe 2 Surpassing belief, the device and Cunning that Man has attained, And it bringeth him now to evil, now to good If he observe Law, and tread The righteous path God ordained, Honoured is he; dishonoured, the man whose reck less heart Shall make him join hands with sin: May I not think like him, Nor may such an impious man Dwell in my house.37 37Sophocles, Three Tragedies, trans. H. D. F. Kitto (London, 1962), lines 330-369. 304 Holderlin's German translation follows: Chor der Thebanischen Alten Ungeheuer ist viel. Doch nichts Ungeheuerer, aIs der Mensch. Denn der, iiber die Nacht Des Meers, wenn gegen den Winter wehet Der Sudwind, fahret er aus In gefliigelten sausenden Hausern. Und der Himmlischen erhabene Erde, Die unverderbliche, unermiidete, Reibet er auf; mit dem strebenden Pfluge, Von Jahr zu Jahr, Treibt sein Verkehr er, mit dem Rossegeschlecht, Und leichttraumender Vogel Welt Bestrickt er, und jagt sie; Und wilder Tiere Zug, Und des Pontos salzbelebte Natur Mit gesponnenen Netzen, Der kundige Mann. Und fangt mit Kunsten das Wild, Das auf Bergen ubernachtet und schweift. Und dem rauhmahnigen Rosse wirft er um Den Nacken das Joch, und dem Berge Bewandelnden unbezahmten Stier. Und die Red und den luftigen Gedanken und stadtebeherrschenden Stolz Hat erlernet er, und iibelwohnender Hugel feuchte Lufte, und Die ungliicklichen zu fliehen, die Pfeile. Allbewandert, Unbewandert. Zu nichts kommt er. Der Toten kunftigen Ort nur Zu fliehen weiB er nicht, Und die Flucht unbeholfener Seuchen Zu uberdenken. Von Weisem etwas, und das Geschickte der Kunst Mehr, als er hoffen kann, besitzend, Kommt einmal er auf Schlimmes, das andre zu Gutem. Die Gesetze krankt er, der Erd und NaturgewaItger Beschwornes Gewissen; HochstSdtisch kommt, unstadtisch Zu nichts er, wo das Schone 305 Mit ihm ist und mit Frechheit. Nicht sei am Herde mit mir, Noch gleichgesinnet, Wer solches tut.38 Finally, Brecht has: DIE ALTEN Ungeheuer ist viel. Doch nichts Ungeheurer als der Mensch. Denn der, uber die Nacht Des Meers, wenn gegen den Winter wehet Der Sudwind, fahret er aus In geflugelten sausenden Hausern. Und der Himmlischen erhabene Erde Die unverderbliche, unermudete Reibet er auf mit dem strebenden Pfluge Von Jahr zu Jahr Umtreibend das Gaulegeschlecht. Leichtgeschaffener Vogel Art Bestrickt er und jagt sie. Und wilder Tiere Volk. Und des Pontos salzbelebte Natur Mit listig geschlungenen Seilen Der kundige Mann. Und fangt mit Klinsten das Wild Das auf Bergen iibernachtet und schweift. Und dem rauhmahnigen Rosse wirft er urn Den Nacken das Joch und dem Berge Bewandelnden, unbezahmten Stier. Und die Red und den luftigen Flug Des Gedankens und staatordnende Satzungen Hat er erlernet und ubelwehender Hugel feuchte Liifte und Des Regens Geschosse zu fliehen. Allbewandert Unbewandert. Zu nichts kommt er: Oberall weifi er Rat Ratios trifft ihn nichts. Dies alles ist grenzlos ihm, ist 3®Holderlin, Werke. pp. 432-433 (II, i). 306 Aber ein Ma£> gesetzt. Der namlich keinen findet, zum eigenen Feind wirft er sich auf. Wie dem Stier Beugt er dem Mitmensch den Nacken, aber der Mitmensch ReiBt das Gekrose ihm aus. Tritt er hervor Hart auf seinesgleichen tritt er. Nicht den Magen Kann er sich fiillen allein, aber die Mauer Setzt er urns Eigene, und die Mauer Niedergerissen muB sie sein! Das Dach Geoffnet dem Regen! Menschliches Achtet er gar fur nichts. So, ungeheuer Wird er sich selbst.-*9 For the first stage of my analysis, I shall confine myself to the Sophocles, Kitto and Holderlin versions of the text. After analyzing the salient features of these texts, I shall go on to note Brecht's divergence from points the other three texts have in common. In general, all three versions of the "same" text reflect (and this, in Holder- lin’s case, is in direct contrast to most of his more im portant independent writing, Hyperion, for instance) a benevolent view of man. Given the general tone of the whole passage, Kitto's rendition of "6eivd" and "6e i v o t c pov" as the non-pejorative "wonders" or "wonderful" is seen, despite various other lexicographical possibilities such as danger, terror, distress, extraordinary, clever, skillful, unheard 39Stiicke. XI, 34-36. 307 of, shocking, strange, to be a sound choice. Even sounder 40 from one point of view, perhaps, is Holderlin's rendition of the Greek words with the German "Ungeheuer" and the com parative form of the same word, "Ungeheuerer." In the Ger man word are buried as many (and remarkably similar) lexi cographical possibilities as are contained in the Greek words which Holderlin is trying to render in German. In German, we find the word going back to (in its positive form, "geheuer"): in Middle High German, "gehiure"— "lieblich, freundlich, hold, nichts Unheimliches an sich habend"; in its "verneinte" form "ungeheuer," in Middle High German, "ungehiure"— "unhold, gespenstisches Wesen; Scheusal; Drache; Heide? in the MHG form "ungehiurlich," it 41 is then rendered as "schrecklich, grofi, seltsam." Though the clear balance in the history of the word lies on 40For full bibliographical information on scholarly studies of Holderlin's Greek translations, please see: Lawrence Ryan, Friedrich Holderlin (Stuttgart, 1962), pp. 74-79, 84-85. The general opinion of the scholars addres sing themselves to the problems of evaluating Holderlin's knowledge of Greek and commenting on his translations is that though his Greek was by no means flawless his transla tions are excellent pieces of work. 43-A11 German definitions found in Band-7 f Duden- Etvmologie: all Greek definitions from the standard two- volume Liddell and Scott. 308 the pejorative side of it (atrocious, frightful), it will also be seen that forms such as "groB" and "seltsam" lack pejorative connotations and could well be rendered in Eng lish (depending, of course, on context) as "extraordinary" or "strange," or even as Kitto's "wonderful." The main argumert against "wonderful," however, in the context in which it is found, is that it absolutely fails to express the latent mildly pejorative connotations of the Greek term in the Greek passage. The main virtue of the German term is that it, like the Greek, is immensely rich in connotation and that, at its outer fringes, is almost wholly paradoxical in that it simultaneously "means" that which is "good" and that which is "bad." Despite the richness of the German term and the com parative barrenness of the English one, I still feel it is possible to argue for Kitto's term as being better fitted to the context in which it is found than the German one. In the non-bitter, non-satiric, basically benevolent view of the world and of man found in the Greek passage, the pejorative connotations of the Greek term are obviously of but marginal importance. The difficulty with the German term as used by Holderlin is that the pejorative meaning is strong enough to thrust (without the rest of the passage 309 as counterweight) Sophocles's marginal meaning front and center and to place it at least on a par with Sophocles's central intention. Though the rest of the passage corrects early error, one can get the impression from Holderlin that Sophocles says that man is horrible, terrible, frightening, or a "gespenstisches Wesen," all of which might of course be true of man, but it is equally true that Sophocles did not see man as standing on the shadowy side of "GeivoS" or of "Ungeheuer." Throughout the ode, Sophocles praises the achievements of man. He views the subjugation of the ani mal kingdom as just, the construction of cities as sen sible, and the achievements of medicine as worthy of praise. The pious conclusion of the ode explicitly rejects the evil that can follow from man’s greatness, from man's "wonderful" attributes. The many (the chorus) view evil as a singular and perhaps unusual occurrence. Kitto and Holderlin accu rately reflect the tone and philosophy of the Greek text. Holderlin, despite his usually gloomy view of man and the world, renders the passage in slightly darker tones than does Kitto, but remains close to Sophocles's text and the tone of that text. In the Greek, English, and nineteenth- century German versions, the weight of the passage is clearly on the good side of man with the potential for evil 310 mentioned almost as an afterthought. When we turn from the three passages already consid ered to Brecht's text, we turn literally to another world, to the world of Eduard II. Die Dreiaroschenoper. AEtuEQ Ui, and Mahaaonnv. Yet, paradoxically to a text that leans word for word on Holderlin for more than one-half its length. A reading of the whole Brecht passage gives the inescapable impression that of all evil things, in the words of the Widow Begbick in Mahaaonnv. "Doch am schlimmsten ist der 42 Mensch." Instead of the rest of the passage serving (as in Holderlin) to "correct" the erroneous pejorative conno tations conveyed by one branch of meaning of the word "Un geheuer," Brecht uses the passage (taken as a poetic whole) to reinforce the bad connotations of the word. Clearly aware of two main branches of meaning of the word, Brecht writes of the Erster Chor; "Der Mensch, ungeheuer groB, wenn er die Natur unterwirft, wird, wenn er den Mitmenschen 43 unterwirft, zum groBen Ungeheuer." What Brecht apparently fails to realize here is that the bad pole of the word "Ungeheuer," already so ambiguous (but already with a clear 42Stiicke. Ill, 205. 43Stucke. XI, 114. 311 tendency in modern as in ancient usage towards the bad pole of its meaning), becomes the absolutely dominant meaning in the whole passage when used in its unequivocally pejorative sense in the closing part of the passage. What was a poten tial misreading of Sophocles in Holderlin becomes in Brecht a deliberate misreading of the contextual value of Holder- lin's rendering of Sophocles. Never consulting the Greek text at all and writing a Bearbeitung rather than making a translation, Brecht is, of course, perfectly free to alter the passage in any way he chooses. What has remained unclear in Brecht scholarship thus far, however, is the extent to which he has used poetic license to alter passages that, taken out of context, seem actually unaltered. Faced with the first choral ode, Bunge's statistical method of analysis is patently worth less . The first twenty-eight lines are in statistical (quantitative) terms unaltered but in poetic (qualitative) terms virutally reversed in meaning. For the same reasons as I reject Bunge's methodology, I must reject Grimm's view that a word for word borrowing is per se an unaltered bor rowing. Though I can agree with Witzmann's contention in the following passage that there is lack of unity in "Rhythmus und Diktion" in the two "halves" of the ode, I 312 cannot agree that there is a style break in the thought content of the two "halves." Witzmann writes: Er ubernimmt, bis auf geringfiigige Anderungen des Aus- drucks, Holderlins Text fur den ersten Teil, dann fiihrt er einen neuen Gedanken ein. Doch da ist auf einraal ein Bruch da, Diktion, Rhythmus, Gedanke sind verandert, beide Teile fallen auseinander. Die Mahnung des antiken Dichters zum MaB, zur Bindung an das gottliche Gesetz wird umgewandelt in einen modernen Gedanken, der Mensch sei des Menschen Schicksal, die Mauer, gesetzt urns Eigene, die den Menschen zum Ungeheuer mache, musse niedergerissen werden.44 Given the ambiguity of the word "ungeheuer," instead of a thought break in the two halves of the ode, I find a subtle and magnificent exploitation of this ambiguity in the counterpointing of the poles of meaning of the word. Each meaning comments on the other, with the pejorative meaning finally winning the field. If we were to add Brecht's second half of the passage to Kitto's rendering of the first half then a clear break in the philosophy of the passage would occur. Given, however, the ambiguity of the first stanza of the original Greek ode and of Holderlin's render ing of the Greek, Brecht's exploitation of the ambiguity is poetically fruitful and, in my opinion, aesthetically satisfying within the ode. 44Witzmann, Antike Tradition, pp. 86-87. Once, however, we step back from our closeup view of the ode and its construction and attempt to place the ode in a larger context, then it is no longer so satisfying. Though the pessimistic philosophical tone of the ode fits admirably the tone and philosophy of much of Brecht's work besides his version of the Antigone story, the ode fails utterly to fit with the character of the chorus. It simply does not belong in the mouths of characters who open the play as clear representatives of the narrow-minded bour geoisie. It is clear that the poet Brecht simply could not give up passages having beauty in themselves even though they fail to fit with the dramatic poem viewed as a whole. The first choral ode reflects in microcosm the whole play. Though it is clearly Brechtian, though it has much of poetic value and though it does in itself clearly form a harmonious whole, the careless insertion of this one ode reflects the careless imposition of a new viewpoint on an old play. Brecht has not taken care to change enough to make the new vision harmoniously merge with the old text. CHAPTER VII MOLIERE AND BRECHT It is possible that the reason for Brecht's hurried, careless, and aesthetically unsatisfying Bearbeituna of the text of Antigone was that he wished to free himself as much time as possible for the actual staging of the play. After his many years of forced absence from the physical theatre, years in which he wrote many plays but could not participate in their production, it is possible that he was now much more interested in staging plays than in writing them. 1 Brecht, at least as much "man of the theatre" as "man of the pen," had lived too long by 1947-1948 without one of his major instruments of artistic expression, a stage and, with it, actors who could be moulded to his will, time to mould the actors, and money to produce his own plays as he 1-Lion Feuchtwanger, The Nation. November 10, 1956, p. 386. 314 315 wanted them produced. Brecht used the Chur production of Antigone as very practical preparation for the Berlin pro ductions that were to win for him his own Ensemble. Before returning to Berlin, Brecht well knew that in the Soviet Zone his background as leading left-wing author and director and enemy of Naziism could well enable him to fill the vac uum in the German theatre produced by the demise of those who had worked in the theatre under Goring. His magnificent production in East Berlin of Mutter Courage, a play sympa thetic to the left and with the famous Helene Weigel in the lead, did indeed gain for Brecht and Weigel the attention and offers that they had hoped might be forthcoming. As Esslin correctly claims of the January, 1949 triumph of Brecht's Mutter Courage in Berlin: "This, if not formally, 2 was in fact the birth of the Berliner Ensemble." After arranging for the steady publication of his work with a West German publishing firm, obtaining an Austrian passport, and opening a Swiss bank account, Brecht was ready to make his home in East Berlin. Given a very modest town apartment in the Chausseestrasse (this is the apartment that now houses the Brecht archive), a country place at Buckow, and 2Esslin, Brecht. p. 85. 316 promised his own theatre, the returned exile had begun to reap the benefits of being the cultural golden boy of the East German authorities. For reasons not yet entirely clear, the Berliner En semble (first put together as an administrative unit by the Ministerium fur Volksbildunq in late 1949) was placed "unter 3 der Leitung von Helene Weigel" while Brecht himself was given the vague title of advisor. At first, though Brecht and his co-workers were amply supported by the state, the Ensemble had to borrow stage space for their productions. ^Theaterarbeit. p. 6. It is, of course, clear that Brecht himself, despite his strange title, was the main force in the Ensemble. For a good discussion of Brecht's need for an Ensemble of his own and the richness of the opportunity offered him in East Berlin, please see also Borneman's article, "Ein Epitaph fur Bertolt Brecht," in Sinn und Form II. pp. 142-158. Of particular value is the following comment: "Es ist kaum erstaunlich, daft eine dem 'Actors' Studio' in Amerika so fremde Methode seine ameri- kanischen Zuschauer verwirrt haben diirfte, deren Avantgarde gerade erst bei der von Brecht schon zwanzig Jahre friiher verworfenen Stanislawskitradition angelangt war. Kaum er staunlich auch, daft Brecht etwa 1947 zu flihlen begann, er habe kaum eine Aussicht, sich beim Publikum durchzusetzen, solange er nicht in ununterbrochener Folge Auffhhrungen ver- anstalten kbnnte. Deshalb nahm er, als die ostdeutsche Regierung ihm das Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, im sowjeti- schen Sektor von Berlin, anbot, dieses Angebot an. Seitdem wurde ihm die wahrscheinlich groftzugigste finanzielle Unter- stUtzung zuteil, die irgendeinem heutigen Dramatiker oder Regisseur in irgendeinem Land der Welt je zuteil geworden ist" (pp. 156-157). 317 Not until the year following the East German Uprising and 4 Brecht's "loyalty letter" to Ulbncht did the Ensemble get its own theatre. In March, 1954, with the completion of the renovation of the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm (the theatre that was the scene of Brecht's 1928 triumph with Die Dreiaroschenoper), Brecht at last had a theatre and an Ensemble that were very much his own. He could now produce plays (within certain variable aesthetic and political limits) in much the way he wanted. In a long-range sense, another dimension of the new theatre was, however, of per haps even more importance to Brecht than the benefits al ready noted. Brecht was seeking here to establish a new tradition and with it to guarantee the production of his plays and the use of his dramatic theories beyond his own lifetime. The new theatre was quite consciously developed as, perhaps, the best-equipped school of drama in the world, with one of the world's best directors (Brecht) and perhaps the finest actress in the German-speaking world (Helene 5 Weigel) as the faculty. As I shall now seek to show, the ^See Fassmann, Brecht. pp. 116-117, for a good discus sion of the "loyalty letter" fraud. 5See in this connection Kaufmann, Brecht. p. 195. Kaufmann writes there of Brecht's viewing himself as first 318 importance of Brecht's "school" to the production and even to the writing of his plays becomes, from this point on, greater than has heretofore been imagined. Surprisingly, this period and the plays of this period have received (with the exception of Grimm's and Kaufmann's discussions of them) very little critical attention. For this reason, I shall spend some time in this chapter dealing with the supposedly extra-literary problem of the role of the Ensemble in the production (of text and of staged play) of a play supposedly written mainly by Brecht. Thr first play produced with the Ensemble in the En semble 's permanent home was the play that forms the main topic of this chapter, Don Juan. As will be seen from my discussion of the play and the circumstances of its crea tion, the play, without the Ensemble, might well never have come into being. So important indeed is the work of the and foremost a Lehrer. The textual authority for Kaufmann's contention that Brecht viewed himself as a teacher is found in Mayer, Bertolt Brecht und die Tradition, p. 13. There Mayer cites Kate Rulicke(-Weiler), the onetime Mitarbeiterin of Brecht at the Berliner Ensemble, as saying: "Als ich einmal fur eine Zeitschrift einen Artikel iiber Brecht schrieb, fragte ich ihn etwas ratios, was ich iiber ihn schreiben solle. 'Schildern Sie mich einfach als das, was ich bin', sagte er, 'als Lehrer'." No further source mater ials are given by Mayer on this point. 319 Ensemble Mitqlieder and Mitarbeiter (Benno Besson and Elisabeth Hauptmann on the text and Benno Besson on the ac tual staging) that the question must be raised as to whether this play should be thought of as "of the school of Brecht" rather than as a Brecht play per se. Before, therefore, addressing myself to the primary question of this study (how effective is the Bearbeitung vis-a-vis the "original"?), I shall first spend some time on the important secondary problem of attempting to establish tentative "authorship" of the text to be examined. In a comment cited earlier but important enough to bear repetition, Elisabeth Hauptmann observes: Mit Ausnahme der "Antigone" machte er [Brecht] die in den Banden XI und XII enthaltenen "Bearbeitungen" fur sein Theater, das Berliner Ensemble. Then, underlining the important influence of the staged play on the literary text, Elisabeth Hauptmann goes on: Sie [the plays ] wurden von Brecht oder von seinen Schii- lern unter seiner Leitung inszeniert und aufcefuhrt. mit Ausnahme des "Coriolan", dessen Inszenierung er vorhatte, die er aber nicht mehr ausfiihren konnte.^ (My italics.) Several items are of crucial importance here with reference 6§.taic3se, xn, 6. both to Don Juan and to the subject of my next chapter, Pauken und Tromoeten. (1) The plays in Volumes XI and XII (with the exceptions noted by Elisabeth Hauptmann) were produced (and "produced" includes much of the writing of the text itself) under Brecht's direction by students of his school of dramatic art, the Berliner Ensemble. (2) The skill of these students can readily be judged by the fine 1965 production of Coriolan. produced entirely without the 7 living presence of Brecht. (3) If we grant that "students" had a major part in the production of Don Juan, for in stance, and if we grant further that these students had already reached a surpassingly high level of skill by 1954 (the Ensemble had then been in full operation for five years and Elisabeth Hauptmann had been "doctoring" plays for some thirty years), then it would seem legitimate to ask: how important actually was Brecht to the production of Don Juan either as literary text or as staged play? If it can be 7 For notes on the skill of the Ensemble independent of Brecht, please see: Helmut Baierl, "Gesichtspunkte: tJber die Arbeit von Manfred Wekwerth," in Sinn und Form (Sonder- heft: Probleme der Dramatik, 1966), pp. 666-675; Kate Rulicke-Weiler, Bertolt Brecht: Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1963), p. 206; and J. B. Fuegi, "The Berliner Ensemble: Museum or Theater?" in the forthcoming (Spring 1967) issue of the Fulbrioht Journal. Germany. 321 demonstrated that Brecht's contribution to the play was slight, this then raises problems as to the real authorship of the text. If Brecht did not really produce the play (in the dual sense noted above), we can legitimately ask: did Brecht really author the play or should the text be attrib- g uted to the Ensemble? The problem of authorship of Don Juan can, for purposes of analysis, be divided into two stages: (1) what is known about the transmission from Moliere to Brecht of the literary text (words on pages) per se, and (2) what is known about the evolution of the play as staged work (actors on stages). Though interpenetration of the two levels of the Bearbeitunq is granted, the division will assist preliminary organization. While working on the literary text of Brecht's plays in the Brecht-Archiv in East Berlin, I paid considerable attention to Brecht's private library there. For most purposes, the library proved unreliable since texts that ought to have been there (Marlowe's Edward II and Gorky's Mother. for example) were not there. This unreliability ®It is interesting to note that the firms dealing with the stage rights of the later Bearbeitungen speak of them as the "Brecht-Ensemble Bearbeitungen." Comment made in a letter to the author from Horst van Diemen of the Thespis Fachverlag und Buhnenvertrieb. 322 can be accounted for in two ways: (1) many volumes were lost in exile, and (2) there is some question as to whether Brecht actually ever owned texts that one might logically have expected him to own. After discovering several key gaps in the Brecht library and noting the enormously impor tant part of Elisabeth Hauptmann in Brecht's most fruitful thirty years of work (1926-1956), I have begun seriously to wonder whether an Elisabeth Hauptmann archive might not be of as much value to "Brecht" scholarship as the Brecht- Archiv. Works still in Elisabeth Hauptmann's possession would, I believe, close some of the main gaps in the Brecht collection. She was, after all, the key person in the preparation of translations from English and French for Brecht's use. It was Elisabeth Hauptmann, therefore, who to have access to "original" texts, whereas Brecht him self need not necessarily ever have seen (or owned) the original texts at all. As Hauptmann notes in the same preface to the Bearbeitungen cited above: "Die tlbersetzung von Molieres 'Don Juan' und Farquhars 'Recruiting Officer* 9 besorgten Mitarbeiter Brechts." The Mitarbeiter then listed for Don Juan and Pauken und Tromoeten are B. Besson 9gtUCfrs, XII, 6. 323 and E. Hauptmann. Given the primary importance of Elisabeth Hauptmann for thirty years and Benno Besson for the last years of Brecht's life, an attempt must clearly be made to establish what text they transmitted to Brecht. If the text they transmitted already changed much of the original to the form now before us in the Stiicke. then they, not Brecht, must be considered as the "authors" of the play. Unfortu nately, as the evidence that follows will show, a case can not be made unequivocally for either side, even though a preponderance of available evidence does lie on one side. Further complicating the already complicated history of "Brecht's" text is the fact that Eugen Neresheimer's German translation of Don Juan, published circa 1915,^ was clearly of value to the Mitarbeiter (Brecht, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Benno Besson) in constructing their Bearbeitunu-trans- lation of the piece. Though incomplete and, hence, unreliable in many re spects, Brecht's library in the Chausseestrasse in East l^Eugen Neresheimer's translation of Don Juan is un dated. From German publishing house records, however, I have been able to establish that the six-volume set of Molieres samtliche Werke in which Neresheimer's translation is found (Vol. Ill) was published (one volume at a time) between 1911 and 1921. 324 Berlin does contain much useful material. One of the books contained therein certainly played a role in the creation of Don Juan. This book is entered in the archive card cata logue thus: Molieres samtliche Werke in sechs Banden tibersetzt von M. Beutler, H. Conrad, Friedrich-Freksa, F. Kaibel, R. Koester, E. Neresheimer. Herausgegeben von Eugen Neresheimer Dritter Band Darin: 251-329 Don Juan oder der steinerne Gast. Komodie in funf Aufziigen. Ubersetzt von Eugen Neresheimer [mit Korrekturen von E. H.] Munchen und Leipzig [o. J.] Georg Muller In a loose-leaf typewritten note inserted in the Neresheimer volume, there is the following: "Die Korrekturen sind von Elisabeth Hauptmann. Begleitbrief von E. H. fsic 1 an Besson entnommen." In the same catalogue in which is found the Neresheimer card, there is a card for a book that almost certainly played a very, very minor role in the genesis of the play Don Juan. The card reads: Molifere Paris 1863 Librairie de Firmin M i ^ ^ Didot Frferes, Fils et Cie. Paris, Oeuvres de Moliere 1863 mome premier Darin: 449-512 Don Juan [Diese Ausgabe wurde vermutlich von E. H. fur ihre Korrekturen der deutschen Fassung (Moliferes samtliche Werke, Georg Muller Verlag, Munchen und Leipzig) verwendet. (Bibliothek Buckow)] Though the card guesses at Elisabeth Hauptmann's use of this work for correction of the German text, the Brecht library 325 copy of the text contains not a single marginal note. The text, therefore, provides no evidence for the contention that Elisabeth Hauptmann used it.^ Another curious thing about the Oeuvres de Moliere. Tome Premier card is that it indicates not that the work provided the basis for a trans lation by Elisabeth Hauptmann but that it simply was useful to correct an apparently already existent "deutsche Fassung." There is ample reason to believe that this "Fassung" was Neresheimer*s translation. There is in the archive no evi dence that Elisabeth Hauptmann (aided by Benno Besson) ever made her own translation of Molifere1s play. That such a text may have existed cannot be ruled out, but if it did, it has since disappeared completely. Struck by the close resemblance of numerous passages in Neresheimer's version and the Don Juan of the Stucke. noting marginal notes by Elisabeth Hauptmann in the •*-^As will be seen from my full discussion below of my interviews with Elisabeth Hauptmann, it would seem that her memory is no longer absolutely trustworthy. When asked detailed questions as to works used, Frau Hauptmann said simply that too much had gone on at the times she was pre paring Bearbeitunaen with Brecht for her to be able to re member petty details. The particular work used by Elisabeth Hauptmann is one such "petty detail." Besson said simply that as far as he was concerned, the "Zwischenstufen sind verschwunden." 326 Neresheimer volume, and finding no translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann herself, I asked the very indiscreet question of Elisabeth Hauptmann as to how these startling corresponden ces might have come about. At first, she said flatly that the translation (done by her and Benno Besson— Besson's native language is French and Elisabeth Hauptmann knows French quite well) was done from the French text directly. She added, in direct rejection of my reference to Neres heimer: "We [Brecht, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Benno Bes- 12 son] find translations to be a hindrance." At another point, she said: "If you would start from a translation 13 [it] would be a hindrance." At one point during the •^interviews given in East Berlin in June, 1966. All other comments of Elisabeth Hauptmann in this and the fol lowing chapter stem from the same interviews. 13gee, however, Benno Besson's comments below. All comments of Benno Besson given in this and my next chapter were made in interviews with me in East Berlin in November, 1966. For a contrasting statement to both Besson's and Hauptmann's views of Brecht's role, however, please see Fassmann, Brecht. p. 34. There Fassmann maintains that neither did Brecht treat his Mitarbeiter as equals (as Elisabeth Hauptmann claims), nor did he simply become (see below) an "Assistent" (as Besson claims). Fassmann writes: "In den letzten Jahren Brechts scheinen seine Kollektive, vornehmlich die literarischen, mehr die Komparserie eines groften Monologisten gewesen zu sein— falls Brecht iiberhaupt den Mund aufmachte. Und wenn er ihn, was ihm sehr lag, nicht aufmachte, horte er auch kaum auf die Reden der an- deren." For support of the truth of Fassmann's position, 327 interview she did, however, mention that a translation of 14 the play by Fulda was seen after their (Benno Besson's and Elisabeth Hauptmann's) translation was completed. Finally, still not remembering specifically the name of Neresheimer, Elisabeth Hauptmann did say that she remembered that a translation had been used with some of the dialect passages of the Moliere play but had not been of use, as far as she could remember, anywhere else. Despite the notation that a translation was of use on the dialect passages, Elisabeth Hauptmann concluded flatly: "I do not think he [Neresheimer] was useful to us." As to similarities please see BBA 1485/25. This Maooe contains a transcript of Brecht's comments made at the Kostumorobe of Don Juan. At the rehearsal Brecht was absolutely and unmistakably dicta torial. The most frequently recurring word in the tran script is "miissen." In Bunge's notation of the rehearsal, Brecht, after dismissing a costume as completely unsatis factory, observes flatly: "Das ist nur eine Stoffausstel- lung. Hier ist nichts interessant und nichts amiisant. Ich verlange, daS ich lache, aber ich muS mich argern!" (BBA 1485/25). Furthermore, on several pages of the transcript there are absolutely no comments from the man who claims to have been the key man in the production, Benno Besson. In no case in the transcript does Besson oppose a Brecht ukase. Further evidence of Fassmann's view of Brecht as a dictator is to be found in BBA 238/07. 14I have not been able to locate any translation by anyone of this name. It seems to me probable that Elisa beth Hauptmann was actually thinking of the Neresheimer translation. 328 cropping up between different texts. Elisabeth Hauptmann noted that "Brecht's knowledge of French wasn't too good," and that "Brecht remembered lots of things." The suggestion here would seem to be that Brecht did not go directly to the French text, but may have remembered passages from a trans lation without realizing that he remembered them. On Brecht's part in the collective version, Frau Hauptmann stated that Brecht was primus inter pares. For Frau Haupt mann, Brecht was clearly the guiding force in the writing of the reworking of Don Juan. Most of the assertions made by Elisabeth Hauptmann in her interviews with me were (unconsciously) denied by her Mitarbeiter. Benno Besson. In an interview given to me at the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin (without my having told him at first of Elisabeth Hauptmann's conclusions), Besson stated quite openly that translations were freely used on all the Bearbeitungen on which he had worked with Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann and that one translation of Molifere 15 had been extremely useful as it was "ganz passable." l^Besson is French-Swiss and like many Swiss speaks a mixture of several languages. Though the interviews were basically done in German, quite a lot of French was also used. 329 Besson also disagreed (again not consciously? he is a good friend of Elisabeth Hauptmann and was her close neighbor for several years) with Elisabeth Hauptmann's assessment of Brecht's role in the collective reworking. Where Elisabeth Hauptmann spoke of Brecht as being extremely important, as being primus inter pares, Besson spoke of Brecht as being his (Besson's) "Assistent" (the word is Besson's). Besson's use of the term is not at all contemptuous, for he hastened to note that he meant the word "Assistent" in its highest 16 sense. Of the extent of Brecht's help on Don Juan. Besson said at one point in the interview: "Bei Don Juan hat er [Brecht] sich kaum eingemischt." At another point, however, Besson spoke of Brecht as being "eifersuchtig" (Besson's own word) and not being able to stay out of anything going on at the Ensemble. Summing up Brecht's involvement with both Don Juan and Pauken und Tromoeten (the subject of my next chap ter), Besson noted two paradoxical elements of Brecht's work. On the one hand, Brecht simply could not stay out of 16It is important here to note that Besson, almost entirely independent of Brecht, did a production of Don Juan in Rostock in the spring of 1953. Rostock, like many small cities in East Germany, is used by the Berliner En semble as a place to try out productions before bringing them to Berlin. 330 anything going on at the Ensemble. On the other hand, as Besson carefully pointed out, Brecht did try very hard not to seize the reins on Besson's productions. As much as he was temperamentally able he kept himself out of both Don Juan and Pauken und Tromoeten because Besson was supposedly 17 in charge of both productions. Besson's view of the events obviously differs radically from that of Elisabeth Hauptmann. It is difficult to know whom to believe. It is difficult, therefore, to reach any hard and fast conclusion as to what was really Brecht's part in either the writing of the play or the staging of it. Nevertheless, some edu cated guesswork is possible. My own inclination is to trust Besson more than Elisabeth Hauptmann. As I shall seek to show, Besson's observations square with the verifiable facts, whereas those of Frau Hauptmann simply do not. Hav ing now discussed the views of the Mitarbeiter as to the genesis of the text of Don Juan. I shall return to the text and attempt to relate their comments to it. Had Brecht actually contributed to the original trans lation (an idea that gains no support from the statement l^Besson is credited in Theaterarbeit with the produc tion of both these plays. See, however, footnote 13. 331 that the translations of Don Juan and Pauken und Tromoeten were "besorgt" by the Mitarbeiter. Elisabeth Hauptmann and Benno Besson), then Frau Hauptmann's statement that "Brecht remembered lots of things" might have been considered as a way out of the dilemma as to how Neresheimer got into Brecht. As it is, however, at least one more likely possi bility does exist. In the Neresheimer text in Brecht's library are a number of marginal notes, notes described by the archive's cataloguers— who obviously know well the hand writing of both Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann— as "Korrek turen von E. H. fsic 1." Now the fact that the notes are in Elisabeth Hauptmann's handwriting does not, of course, mean that the mind behind the notes is hers. Brecht could well have been dictating to her and she simply wrote them down. As she (with Benno Besson) takes responsibility for the translation, however, the odds would seem to be in favor of the conjecture that the marginal notes are not only in her handwriting but are a product of her and/or Benno Besson's 18 brain. Remember, however, that this is, and perhaps must l8Please see footnote 11 above. In answer to one ques tion about a detail Frau Hauptmann felt to be petty, she said: "But you see there were far more important things happening at that time. That was not important." 332 always remain, conjecture. The important thing about these marginal notes is: (1) that they sometimes deviate from Neresheimer's text, and (2) the deviations agree with the final Stucke version of the play. If the notes do not agree with the model but do agree with the final version and if Elisabeth Hauptmann and Benno Besson are responsible for the notes, then it would appear that they are responsible for the changes in the final version. A few representative examples of such changes follow. The changes are from the dialect section in the play, the section that Elisabeth Hauptmann remembered getting help on from "some transla tion ." In Neresheimer (crossings out in the following text actually occur in pencil in the Brecht copy of Neresheimer and were made by Elisabeth Hauptmann), we read: Charlotte: Red di -deeh- nich -ee- up, Pierrot'. Pierrot: Ick will mi oewer upregen, hurot du'. Un du, du biist'n ganz slichtes Ding, dat du di so ausmeeren lasst' . 19 Compare this with the Stucke text: Charlotte: Pieter, reg dich nicht auf'. Pieter: Ich will mich aufregen! Und du bist'ne ganz l^Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (II, iii), p. 279. 333 20 schlechte Dirn, dafi du dich so ablecken laBti In Neresheimer, we find (crossings out and substitutions in text itself): hoi 21 Sganarell (wiitend): Die Pest au f den Mistfinken'. In the Stucke. this reads: 22 Sganarelle wutend: Die Pest hoi dich Rotzjungen'. Also in Neresheimer, we find: Don Juan (zu Mathurine): Ich wette, sie wird Ihnen ^ erzahlen, ich hatte ihr versprochen, sie zu heiraten. Pencilled in by Elisabeth Hauptmann in the margin, we find: Don Juan (zu Mathurine): Ich wette, sie wird Ihnen sagen, ich habe ihr d. Heirat versprochen. (II, v, p. 282) Compare this, then, with the Stucke version: Don Juan leise zu Mathurine: Ich wette, sie wird Ihnen sagen, ich hatte ihr die Heirat v e r s p r o c h e n . 2 4 20Stucke, XII, 125. 21Molifere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (II, ii), p. 280. 22Stiicke. XII, 126. 23Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (II, v), p. 282. 24stiicke. XII, 128-129. 334 Finally, in Neresheimer, we read: Don Juan (zu Charlotte): Wetten wir, sie wird darauf bestehen, sie hatte mein Wort, daft ich sie heiraten werde '.25 In the margin of Neresheimer, in Elisabeth Hauptmann's hand writing (very poorly written in pencil), there is a pencil line (denoting insert after "Wetten wir"), then we read: daB sie behaupten wird ich habe vers [last word illeg ible] sie zu meiner Frau zu machen? (II, v, p. 282) In the Stucke text, we find: Wetten wir, sie behauptet, dafi ich ihr versprochen habe, sie zu meiner Frau zu m a c h e n ? 26 So much for deviations from Neresheimer that can be traced to the marginalia in the archive copy of Nereshei mer ' s work. In no case would it seem, from my examination of Moliere, Neresheimer and Brecht, do the Korrekturen actually correct anything. All that seems to have been done here is to turn Neresheimer's German dialect rendition of a French dialect passage in Moliere into something closer to High German. This is a change in style but, far from 25noliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (II, v), p. 282. 26Stucke. XII, 129. 335 being a "correction," actually often takes the Stucke ver sion further from Moliere than is Neresheimer's version. The changes are important only for the guess they allow us to make about the part played by the Mitarbeiter in shaping the text of the final play. Perhaps of greater importance, however, are the pas sages where there are no marginalia in the Neresheimer vol ume but where Brecht's play agrees substantially with Neresheimer1s version. It is said that advertising compa- nites, drawing up customer lists that might easily be copied without detection by a competitor, deliberately insert er rors in their own lists and then check their competitor's lists for the same errors. A couple of small but important changes have been made by Neresheimer in Moliere*s text that carry over, oddly enough, into Brecht's play. In what is mainly a dialect scene (Act II, scene i) in Moliere, Moliere uses the non-dialect form tete in one of Pierrot's speech- 27 es. Neresheimer, trying to preserve the general tenor of 28 dialect in Pierrot’s speech, renders tete as dialect Kopp 27Moli&re, Theatre complet. ed. Maurice Rat, 2 vols. (Paris, 1963), II, 386 (II, i). 28Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (II, i), p. 268. 336 rather than High German Kopf. Brecht's play has, in the 29 same place, the dialect plural Koppe. In the same speech of Pierrot, Neresheimer changes the amount of money Pierrot lays down for his bet; Brecht follows Neresheimer's amount rather than that given by Moliere. In Moliere's play, Pierrot says: "Moi, je n'ai point ete ni fou, ni etourdi; j'ai brave- ment boute h tarre quatre pieces tapees, et cinq sols en doubles . . ."30 Neresheimer translates this as: "Ick nich dumm un for nich bang, smiet gliek fief Sous un tein halwe Sous up'n Boen . . ."31 Brecht's version of Pierrot's speech reads: "Ich nicht dumm, werf' fiinf Sous und zehn halbe dazu . . ." 32 Though Elisabeth Hauptmann remembers only using "a translation" as a help for the dialect passages, it is clear that Besson is correct in noting that the translation was of 29Stiicke. XII, 111. 3QMolifere, Theatre complet. II, 386-387 (II, i). 3^Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (II, i), pp. 268-269. 32stiicke. XII, 112. 337 value throughout the play. In order to illustrate the accuracy of Besson's contention, I shall simply cite partic ularly striking examples of agreement that seem to go beyond mere coincidence, beyond the simple fact that the Brecht play and the Neresheimer play purport to be translations of the same text. The three examples that I offer (besides those already mentioned) occur respectively in Act I, scene iii; Act IV, scene v; and in the closing scene of the play, scene vi of Act V. The first and last citations lean most heavily on Neresheimer's version. In Moliere, we read: Done Elvire: Ah', que vous savez mal vous defendre pour un homme de Cour, et qui doit etre accoutume a ces sortes de choses' . J'ai pitie de vous voir la con fusion que vous avez. Que ne vous armez-vous le front d'une noble effronterie? Que ne me jurez-vous que vous etes toujours dans les memes sentiments pour moi, que vous m'aimez toujours avec une ardeur sans egale, et que rien n'est capable de vous detacher de moi que la mort? Que ne me dites-vous que des affaires de la derniere consequence vous ont oblige & partir sans m ’en donner avis; qu'il faut que, malgre vous, vous demeu- r.iez ici quelque temps, et que je n'ai qu'a m'en retour- ner d'ou je viens, assuree que vous suivrez mes pas le plus tot qu'il vous sera possible; qu'il est certain que vous brulez de me rejoindre, et qu'eloigne de moi, vous souffrez ce que souffre un corps qui est separe de son ame? Voila comme il faut vous defendre, et non pas etre interdit comme vous etes.33 Neresheimer's translation of this speech runs: 33Moliere, Theatre complet. II, 384 (I, iii). 338 Donna Elvira: Mein Gott, wie schlecht verstehen Sie sich zu verteidigen fur einen Herrn vom Hofe, der doch an solche Sachen gewohnt sein sollte'. Sie flossen mir formlich Mitleid ein, wenn ich Sie in solcher Verlegen- heit sehe. Warum wappnen Sie sich denn nicht mit edler Dreistigkeit? Warum schworen Sie mir denn nicht, daB Sie noch immer dieselben Gefuhle fur mich hegen, dafi Sie mich immer noch mit einer Glut sondergleichen lieben, und daB nichts als der Tod Sie von mir trennen kann? Warum erzahlen Sie mir nicht, daB eine Angelegenheit von hochster Wichtigkeit Sie gezwungen hat, so ohne Abschied von mir zu gehen, dafi Sie wider Ihren Willen einige Zeit hier bleiben mussen, und daB ich ruhig wieder nach Hause gehen soli und mich darauf verlassen, daB Sie sobald wie irgend moglich mir nachkommen werden; daB Sie selbstver- standlich darauf brennen, wieder bei mir zu sein, und daB Sie, fern von mir, dasselbe leiden wie ein Leib, der von seiner Seele getrennt ist? So sollten Sie sich verteidigen, anstatt so verbliifft dazustehen Why the mild "Ahl" which Moliere gives to Done Elvire and that fits so well with her pious background should be re placed by the blasphemous "Mein Gott," so alien to the character of the lady in question, only Neresheimer, and, as will be seen, the Mitarbeiter on the Brecht reworking know. The Stucke text runs: Donna Elvira: Mein Gott, wie schlecht Sie sich ver teidigen Am Hofe sollten Sie doch derlei gelernt haben. Warum schworen Sie mir nicht einfach, daB Sie noch immer dieselben Gefuhle fur mich hegen, daB Sie mich noch immer mit jener Glut sondergleichen lieben und daB nur der Tod Sie von mir trennen kann? Warum erzahlen Sie mir nicht, daB eine Angelegenheit von hochster Wichtigkeit Sie zwang, ohne Abschied von mir zu gehen, daB Sie wider ^^Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (I, iii), p. 265. 339 Ihren Willen eine Zeitlang hier bleiben miissen und daB ich ruhig zuriickkehren soil in der GewiBheit, daB Sie so schnell wie moglich nachkommen werden, und dafi Sie, fern von mir, leiden wie der Leib, der von seiner Seele getrennt ist. So sollten Sie sich verteidigen, anstatt so dazustehen!33 The scene in question, which goes on for a page and a half beyond my citation, follows, with equal closeness and with equal absorption of the bad with the good, Neresheimer's rendition of the scene. Less close but equally clear as to their interrela tionship are the following three versions of a brief pas sage. Moliere has: Done Elvire: Je vous ai aime avec une tendresse extreme, rien au monde ne m'a ete si cher que vous. J'ai oublie mon devoir pour vous, j'ai fait toutes choses pour vous, et toute la recompense que je vous en demande, c’est de corriger votre vie et de pr^venir votre perte. Sauvez-vous, je vous prie, ou pour 1'amour de moi. Encore une fois, Dorn Juan, je vous le demande avec larmes; et, si ce n'est assez des larmes d'une personne que vous avez aim6e, je vous en conjure par tout ce qui est le plus capable de vous toucher.3® Neresheimer renders this as: Donna Elvira: Ich habe Sie so zartlich geliebt, nichts auf der Welt war mir so teuer wie Sie, ich ver- gass meine Pflicht fur Sie, ich tat alles fur Sie— 35Stiicke. XII, 99-100. 36Moliere, Theatre complet. II, 433 (IV, iv). 340 alles, was ich dafur von Ihnen zum Lohn verlange, ist dafi Sie Ihr Leben andern und dem eigenen Untergang ent- fliehen. Retten Sie sich, ach ich flehe Sie an, Ihnen selbst zuliebe, oder mir zuliebe'. Noch einmal, Don Juan, bitte ich Sie unter Tranen? wenn Sie die Tranen einer Frau nicht riihren konnen, die Sie geliebt haben, oh, so beschwdre ich Sie bei allem, was Ihr Herz riihren mag37 In the Stucke text we find: Donna Elvira: Ich habe Sie sehr geliebt. Nichts in dieser Welt war mir so teuer wie Sie. Fur Sie vergafi ich meine Pflicht; fur Sie gab ich alles. Das einzige, was ich jetzt von Ihnen verlange, ist: Ihrer Verdammung zu entgehen. Retten Sie sich, ich bitte Sie, sich selbst zuliebe oder mir zuliebe. Ich beschwdre Sie bei allem, was Ihr Herz riihren m a g ' .38 To close a series to which justice could only be done by offering three parallel texts of the entire play, I offer the dramatic conclusion of the play. In Moliere, this reads: La Statue: Dom Juan, 1'endurcissement au peche traine une mort funeste, et les graces du Ciel que l'on renvoie ouvrent un chemin a sa foudre. Dom Juan: 0 Ciel'. que sens-je? Un feu invisible me brule, je n'en puis plus, et tout mon corps devient un brasier ardent. A h ' .39 The Neresheimer translation runs: 3^Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (IV, iv), p. 315. XII, 173. 39Moliere, Theatre complet. II, 446 (V, vij. 341 Bilds3ule: Don Juan, die Verhartung in der Siinde fiihrt zu einem schrecklichen Ende; stdfit man die Gnade des Himmels zurtick, so ruft man seinen Blitz herab'. Don Juan: Oh Himmel, was fiihle ich'.? Ein unaus- loschliches Feuer verbrennt mich'. Ich kann nicht mehr, mein ganzer Kdrper wird zu lodernder Glut! Oh! Oh!40 Brecht's version reads: Komtur: Don Juan, die Verhartung in der Siinde fiihrt zu einem schrecklichen Ende. Wer die Gnade des Himmels aufbraucht, reifit seinem Blitz eine Bahn. Die Statue des Komturs fiihrt Don Juan nach vorn. Don Juan: O Himmel, was fiihle ich! Ein Feuersturm verbrennt mich. Halt! Ah!4^ Given the length and complexity of the passages cited, either Brecht's memory must have been extraordinarily good, or that of Elisabeth Hauptmann is now extraordinarily bad. Whichever contention is correct, it is clear that the list of Mitarbeiter should include Eugen Neresheimer. So far, I have really only dealt with the problem of the extent to which the version of the play as given in the Stucke is the work of Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht, Benno Besson, and Neresheimer. Now I shall address myself to the question of attempting to establish how much of the text remaining (after we have given Neresheimer his just share) 4^!Moliere-Neresheimer, Don Juan (V, vi), p. 329. 4^-Stucke. XII, 187. 342 should be attributed to Brecht. The significant formal change made in the play that turns Moliere's classical five- act piece into a non-classical four-acter is clearly attrib utable to Benno Besson. Elisabeth Hauptmann made this con cession during my interviews with her and the source of the change is confirmed in the following frank statement by Brecht: Formal emanzipierte sich Besson ein Wenig, indem er die Einteilung des Stiicks in fiinf Akte beseitigte, ein zeit- gegebener Formalismus, durch welche leichte Operation er das Vergniigen des Publikums zweifellos steigerte, ohne etwas vom Sinn des Stiicks zu opfern. (p. 194) The same passage that attributes this important formal change to Besson (the piece is entitled, incidentally, "Bessons Inszenierung des 'Don Juan' beim Berliner Ensem ble" ) and which speaks of virtually nothing but what Besson did to the play, how much Besson is to be praised, etc., etc., and which unequivocally concludes: "Unser Theater ist in der schonen Phase des Lernens. Das macht seine Ver- suche wichtig und seine Fehler vielleicht entschuldbar" (p. 194) (my italics). All this would seem to make the play in Brecht's view (at least as far as the Inszenierung and one major formal change are concerned) the work of his Schuler. Benno Besson. To paraphrase Brecht, he would seem to see 343 the play here as "ein Molifere, bearbeitet von Besson." Yet, Hans Mayer reports the following incident: Als Brecht das Theater am Schiffbauerdamm mit seiner Bearbeitung des Don Juan von Moliere eroffnen lieB (die Einburgerung Molibres in Deutschland beschaftigte ihn sehr stark in seinen letzten Lebensjahren), machte ein Franzose den schuchternen Einwand, die Auffuhrung weiche sehr erheblich von Molifere ab. Brecht soil geantwortet haben: "Es ist ein Moliere, bearbeitet von Brecht."42 On another occasion, it might be noted, Brecht did not even present Besson at a press conference where, among other things, the Berliner Ensemble Don Juan production was dis cussed. Brecht later wrote to Serreau in Paris apologizing for this and asking that an accompanying letter of explana tion of Besson's role be printed in her journal. This let ter, stripped of the reasons for its having been written, forms the bulk of the text of the explanatory and laudatory essay just quoted: "Bessons Inszenierung des 'Don Juan' 43 beim Berliner Ensemble." There is, all in all, an odd 42Mayer, Brecht und die Tradition, p. 61. 4^Stiicke. XII, 191. The letter itself (contained in Mappe 41) has not yet been cleared for publication. This is yet another example of the incompleteness of the Stiicke and Sehriften. As given in the Stiicke. Brecht's notes on Bes son's role in the creation of Don Juan are nothing but mag nanimous. In the original context, their magnanimity is highly questionable. 344 mixture in Brecht's comments on this play of "it is mine" and "it is Benno Besson's." The best way partially to re solve the dilemma thus resulting, it seems to me, is to take quite literally the statement that some of the plays printed in the volumes of Bearbeitunaen were literally "von seinen Schulern unter seiner Leitung inszeniert und aufgefiihrt" (p. 6). With reference to Don Juan, there would seem enough evidence on hand to make clear that the play should perhaps be catalogued as "of the school (literally and figuratively) of Brecht" rather than as a Brecht play per se. The main difficulty with the hypothesis that the main credit should be (as Besson himself claims) Besson's is that where the text departs from Neresheimer and excluding changes we ac tually know to stem from Besson, it departs so masterfully as to reveal a hand so skilled in play-doctoring as virtu ally to exclude Besson. Since 1954, Besson himself has produced in twelve years of producing-directing (ten of them after Brecht's death, and several of them independent of the Ensemble) nothing that matches in mastery of structural 44 manipulation the 1954 revision of Moliere's Pom Juan. ^^Besson told me simply that since leaving the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm to go to the Deutsches Theater he had not found anyone with whom he liked to work on Bearbeitunaen. If (and surely we must admit this possibility) these masterful changes which I shall shortly examine do not stem from Benno Besson, then we are back to the first question, whodunit? One other suspect (other than the obvious one of Brecht himself) comes immediately to mind. One other person had sufficient background (some thirty-odd years of play doctoring) to make her reworking of the piece a credible postulate. That person is, of course, Elisabeth Hauptmann. In my talks with her in East Berlin, she consistently op posed any suggestion of mine that she was more important than is usually supposed in the collective production of 45 any play whatsoever. Yet, she did admit to me (as I noted in my chapter on the reworking of Gorky's Mother) that it was she who introduced the Noh technique that distinguishes the opening scene of Brecht's Mother and that then proceeds to dominate the rest of the play. She also stated that she believed that she was the one to come up with the important change in Don Juan that makes the object of Don Juan's last ^During the course of my conversations with Frau Hauptmann, she mentioned some radio plays that she herself had written in the 1920s. Unfortunately, she believes these plays to have been completely lost. Were they to be found, they might well shed much light on Elisabeth Hauptmann's own independent skill as a playwright. 346 46 attempt at seduction the Komtur1s daughter. These state ments, however, were made extremely reluctantly and always with the caution that I must remember that her work was in a collective, that individual contributions did not matter, and that it was really Brecht, primus inter pares, who was the final arbiter of what did and did not belong in the revised study. Elisabeth Hauptmann's closeness to Brecht demands perhaps that she say nothing that could lower Brecht's own stature. This closeness that makes her so useful, so invaluable a commentator on Brecht's working methods may also perhaps prevent her from telling the whole truth, prevent her from claiming credit that might be hers. In view of this fact, we simply do not know for sure who dunit. As things stand, it could have been Elisabeth Haupt mann and/or Brecht and it certainly was in part Benno Besson and Eugen Neresheimer. On this inconclusive note, the question of authorship must, at this time at least, end. I shall now go beyond the secondary problem of how and through whom the text came into being to the primary one of what are the differences and how significant are the differences 46Besson said that he thought Brecht was the one to suggest this change. 347 between the Don Juan of the Stiicke and the Pom Juan of the playwriting collective's sources. The best way, it seems to me, to begin to make clear "Brecht's" divergence from the text of Moliere is first to ascertain the salient features of the seventeenth-century French play. The play is typical for Molifere in its loose ness of construction, its lack of emphasis on continuity, its lack of concern with logicality and/or credibility, its abrupt introduction and/or dismissal of characters having little if anything to do with whatever the main line of the plot may be, and its almost wholly arbitrary deus ex ma- china ending. The characters, in their typicality, are also typical of Moliere's style. Sganarelle as the wily and often wise servant, Sganarelle playing the part of a quack, Dom Juan as a character with a single overriding obsession, the healthy and earthy female members of the lowest class of society, the father wanting his son to return to the straight and narrow path— these are all to be found through out Moliere's plays and ballets. Likewise, the moral tone of this play is typical of Molifere. Deploring all excess, he asks lightly for moderation. Aware of the excesses of many a member of the Sun King's court, he asks for moderate reform and the punishment of offenders. Politically- 348 sociologically, the play is, as is usual for Molifere, mild? it calls not for destruction but rather for house-cleaning. One gets the impression that if the excesses mirrored could be eliminated, then all would be right in the neat, orderly world with its class division that the plays seek to re store. In this world, if the nobility and the clergy fol lowed the rules, and then all the other classes followed these excellent examples, this would be the best of all possible worlds. It should be noted, however, that the mildness of the play's politics, sociology and even theolo gy is mild only in contrast with modern expression in these areas. In Moli&re's time, the play was political and relig ious dynamite and suffered the same fate as the political and religious dynamite that was Tartuffe. As Maurice Rat observes of the history of Dorn Juan: La piece fut jouee pour la premiere fois, sur la scfene du Palais-Royal, le 15 fevrier 1665. Le succfes en fut grand: la recette atteignit, k la sixifeme repr6senta- tion, 2 108 livres. Mais aprfes la clbture de Paques elle disparut de l'affiche pour deux si&cles: Louis Xiv, bien h contre coeur, avait par une interdiction tenue secrfete, oblige l'ecrivain h retirer sa comedie.^7 It is only the hindsight of the mid-twentieth century that ^Maurice Rat in Moliere, Theatre complet. II, 500. 349 can enable Hornstein to observe: As a practical, secular man who believed in the right of the individual to develop his nature under the guid ance of reason, Moliere was not a zealous reformer but a laughing, urbane commentator.48 In the twentieth century, Molifere is an urbane commentator rather than a zealous reformer. He has been upstaged by a host of zealots. Among these zealots is Brecht. Among the plays that illustrate Brecht's zealousness as reformer is his version of Don Juan. Paradoxically again, this change is achieved despite Brecht's obvious word for word reliance on Neresheimer's workmanlike translation for long sections of his version. Where Dorn Juan in Moliere has some redeeming traits (he goes to the rescue of a fellow nobleman who is being attacked by thugs; he has courage and some honor), in Brecht he has none. Where the servant Sganarelle is cowardly in Molifere, he is brave in Brecht. The good qualities taken from Molifere's Dom Juan are simply given to Sganarelle, while Sganarelle's bad qualities are given to Don Juan. 48L. H. Hornstein, G. D. Percy, S. A. Brown et al., The Reader's Companion to World Literature (New York, 1956), p. 302. 350 For instance, not only does Sganarelle not fight in Pom 49 Juan. he hides when a fight looms up between the dishon ored brothers and Dom Juan in Act III, scene iv ("Sganarelle court se cacher" [p. 415]). In contrast, in the first in stance in Brecht, Sganarelle does the fighting. In the second instance, Brecht does not have Sganarelle present at all and, therefore, does not need to have him hide and thus reveal cowardice. In those places where there is any chance of Don Juan eliciting sympathetic response for the audience, the actor playing the part is instructed to make the role unmistakably ridiculous. Brecht, in a note to Geschonneck who was to play Don Juan, wrote: Bei den groBen Gesprach iiber Gott mussen Sie, Geschon neck, erreichen, daB Ihre Antwort ebenfalls lacherlich, mindestens die eines Dummkopfs in dieser Sache ist. Er bringt noch nicht einmal den Ernst auf nachzudenken. Sonst kommen wir in den Schlammassel, daB uns jemand sagt: dieser fortschrittliche D e n k e r ' . ^ O Totally unwilling to allow Don Juan this (in Marxist terms) excellent trait, Brecht adds of Don Juan's atheism: Don Juan ist kein Atheist im fortschrittlichen Sinn. 49Moli£re, Theatre complet. II, 412 (end of Act III, scene ii, and the beginning of the following scene). S^BBA 1485/21. Comment omitted from Stucke and Sehriften. 351 Sein Unglaube ist nicht kampferisch indem er menschliche Aktionen fordert. Er ist einfach ein Mangel an Glauben. Da ist nicht eine andere tiberzeugung, sondern keine Uberzeugung. (BBA 1485/21)^1 Further contributing to the Erniedrigung of Don Juan is the following change noted by Reinhold Grimm: Der Kleidertausch (ein Motiv, das Moliere in den Stiicken Cicogninis, Dorimons und Villiers', seinen Quellen, vor- gefunden hat und selber nur andeutet, urn es gleich wieder fallen zu lassen) wird bei Brecht tatsachlich durchge- fuhrt; denn gerade die Erniedrigung Don Juans, die Moliere vermeiden wollte, soil ja erreicht werden. Wiederum er- geben sich so zusatzliche Komodiensituationen, da Don Juan, je nach Gunst Oder Ungunst der Lage, aIs Herr Oder Diener auftreten mochte und die Kleider hin und her ge- wechselt werden.52 The changes wrought by Brecht in the character of Don Juan (and, by contrast, in Sganarelle) are designed to alter the whole point of view of Moliere*s play. Where, in Moli ere, Dom Juan's punishment puts the world back into apple- pie order, in Brecht, the "same" punishment serves a 5^-For a really excellent discussion by a Marxist critic of the weaknesses produced in this play by Brecht's overly schematized Marxism, see Kaufmann, Brecht. pp. 214-217. Kaufmann speaks of scenes in the Bearbeitunq (for instance, those in which Brecht deliberately makes Don Juan totally ridiculous) as being "schwach und schwunglos" (p. 216). Needless to say, I fully concur with Kaufmann's judgment on this point. 52Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 44. 352 diametrically opposed end. Let us contrast, for instance, the closing lines of the two plays. Sganarelle's closing speech in Moliere runs: Sganarelle, seul. Ah' mes gages', mes gages’ . Voila par sa mort un chacun satisfait: Ciel offense, lois violees, filles seduites, families deshonorees, parents outrages, femmes mises a mal, maris pousses a bout, tout le monde est content. II n'y a que moi seul de mal- heureux, qui, apres tant d'annees de service, n'ai point d'autre recompense que de voir a mes yeux l'impiete de mon maxtre punie par le plus epouvantable chatiment du monde. Mes gages', mes gages', mes gages'.^3 It must be noted here that Sganarelle's final six words are, in Moliere's terms, a bitter final commentary on Sganarelle. How scandalous Sganarelle's preoccupation was seen as being by a seventeenth-century audience is revealed in a comment by Rat, who writes: L'ddition d'Amsterdam (1683), reproduisant ici le texte premier de Moliere, porte avant ce mot: "Ah! mes gages', mes gages'." Les dernieres lignes: "qui, aprfes tant d'annees de service, etc. . . ." ne s'y retrouvent pas, mais k la place, encore une fois: "Mes gages!, mes gages', mes gages'." Cette preoccupation du valet, en un tel moment, avait scandalise les divots. Ils y avaient vu, non sans apparence, un trait de farce qui empechait les spectateurs de prendre au sdrieux l'dclair, le ton- nerre, et la disparition de Dom Juan dans une trappe. Moliere avait trouvd l'idde de Mes aacres! dans Cicognini, mais le mot n'y terminait pas la pi^ce, et l'effet en etait moindre. II disparait dans 1'edition de 1682, et ^Moliere, Theatre complet. II, 446 (V, vi). 353 fe la place une derniere phrase s'ajoute, morale et pieuse, qui souligne 1'fepouvantable ch&timent de l'im- piete.54 In Brecht, the "same line" occurs in the following textual context: Auf die Buhne stiirzen nacheinander einiae Personlich- kfiiten. Sganarelle. La Violette. Angelika. Dimanche . Elviras Briider. Don Alonso und Don Carlos, aefolat vom Arzt Marohurius. Don is, Die Ruder er . Die Fischer- mSdchen f bealeitet von ihren Verlobten. La Violette: Welch ein Ungluck! Er ist weg'. Angelika: Ich habe mich ein wenig verspatet. Sieht das Loch. Ah'. Entsetzlich! Dimanche zwei Rocke bringend: Eine Erpressung'. Die zwei Rdcke, gnSdiger . . .Ah'. Mein bester Kunde'. Elviras Briider: Wo ist der Schurke?— Ah'. Die Ehre unserer Familie ewig befleckt'. Serafine: Ah'. Wer ifct nun meine Enten in Orangen? Marphurius: Ah'. Das Due 11! Don Luis: Ah! Mein Sohnl Mein Erbe! Die Ruderer: Ah! Wo ist er?— Vierundfiinfzig Dukaten futsch! Die FischermSdchen: Ah! Wer nimmt unsere Austern?— Der schdne gnSdige Herr! Alle stehen erschiittert vor dem Loch. Aus der Hohe nieder llattert lanqgam Don Juan? Hut- 55 Sganarelle: Mein Lohn! Mein Lohn! Sganarelle's line in Brecht's play becomes sensible and appropriate instead of impious. Likewise the whole moral of the conclusion is reversed. No one is happy with Don 54jiaurice Rat in Molifere, TheHtre comp let. II, 501. 55stiicke. XII, 187-188. 354 Juan's end. All is not right with the world as a result of his exit and the manner of his exit. In Brecht, Don Juan causes as much disorder by his death as he did by his life. Making no bones about the fact that in his view the politi cal philosophy of the conclusion is wholly unsatisfactory (and attributing, wholly erroneously, this view to Molifere), Brecht writes: Molifere lafit ihn am Ende vom Himmel bestrafen, aber nur in komisch-theatralischer Weise, damit Uberhaupt den Verbrechen endlich ein Ende gesetzt wird. In einer Ge- sellschaftsordnung wie dieser gibt es keine Instanz, die dem Parasiten Einhalt gebieten konnte, als— allenfalls— der Himmel, das heifit die Theatermaschinerie. Wenn der Blihnenboden sich nicht offnen wiirde, das glanzende Scheusal zu verschlingen, ginge es ungehindert und un- hinderbar weiter uber die Erde. Despite the fact that Molifere's play was seen in its time as the acme of daring in its suggestions in the field of social reform, the modern and daring social reformer, Bertolt Brecht, found Molifere's play to be far too tame in its conclusion for modern Marxist taste. Where it was audacity itself to play directly before Louis XIV a play hinting at the necessity of moderate reform, perhaps it was necessary for Brecht, in the twentieth century in East 563chE.iften, VI, 367-368. 355 Berlin, to go far further in his demands for reform, and to demand reform not in degree but in kind. It is this sharp ening of ideological bite that would seem to be at the heart of virtually all changes in character and even, as I shall seek to show, at the heart of Brecht's changes in the form of the piece. In Brecht und die Weltliteratur. Reinhold Grimm devel ops the notion that, in his Bearbeitunoen. "Brecht ver&n- dert, indem er im formalen Bereich episiert und im inhalt- 57 lichen ideologisiert." This generalization of Grimm's then gets him, as he is well aware, into great difficulty with Don Juan. Grimm asks at one point in bafflement: Wie ist es zu verstehen und zu bewerten, wenn Brecht, offenbar entgegen alien seinen Prinzipien, den Don Juan des Molifere nicht episiert, sondern "dramatisiert", nicht lockert, sondern strafft, nicht entspannt, sondern mit Spannung ladt— von Verfremdung vollends zu schweigen, die scheinbar nur durch die Darstellung gerettet werden kann? (pp. 45-46) The difficulty here, I think, is that Grimm's formula, i.e., opposing the dramatic and the epic as mutually exclusive, is incomplete. With reference to all six plays that form the subject of this study (with the possible exception of 57Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 76. the "pre-conversion" Eduard II). ideology is primary and form (epic structure) secondary. The play is usually a means to an ideological end. Brecht seeks to cram into any given play a view of the social and economic and political ramifications of the slice of action at the center of the play. Brecht seeks, after his conversion (and even in part before his conversion) to invest his plays with a social- temporal three-dimensionality. He always insists on broad ening the social spectrum found in the original. The in sertion of the "folk" does not, however, necessarily mean either a lengthening or a further fragmentation of the play. To illustrate this with some classical examples, in a play as "tight" or focused as Ghosts. Oedipus Rex, or Phedra. for instance, the insertion of more "Stoff" would demand that the play be "loosened" in order to make room to fit in more material. In most of the plays of Shakespeare or Moliere, however, so loose is the sequence of episodes that if more "Stoff" can be crammed into the crevices of the play as "cement," the resulting increase in "Stoff" can tighten the over-all structure, making it, in Grimm's terms, more dra matic. It micht be best simply to give up the contrast Grimm uses between "dramatic" and "epic" and to concentrate, as does Downer, on two types of the dramatics the focussed 357 play (Prometheus Bound) and the panoramic play (Tambur- 58 laine) . Brecht tends towards the panoramic type when working from plays but towards the focussed play when ideo logical impact can thus be heightened. Leaving aside for a moment plays based, however indirectly, on "epics" (Die Mutter and Schweyk). it seems fair to say that the other four plays I examine in this study embrace a broader social spectrum than do the "originals" but that they do this with out very much extension in any case of the "episodic." Though two (Eduard II and Antigone) become slightly more -episodic, the two other plays examined (Don Juan and Pauken und Trompeten) are actually less episodic than their models. We shall abandon now the highly abstract general con sideration of the relationship of the concepts of "epic," "dramatic," and Ideoloaisierung in Brecht, and shall illus trate how these terms apply to the reworking of Don Juan. It will be remembered of Moliere's text that he switches in virtually cinematic style from a planned boat trip in one scene (Act I, scene iv) to a scene (II, i) occurring after the trip has taken place. Moliere "cuts" freely from one 58See Alan S. Downer, The Art of the Plav (New York, 1955) . 358 scene to the next without feeling any need to "show" what happens in between the two scenes. Brecht uses this "free" period in Moliere's play to stow the ideology in his own play. Brecht expands the following two hints in Molifere into scenes that serve: (1) to give a role in the play to the "folk," (2) to tie the play together structurally, and (3) to undermine Don Juan's character. Molifere simply has: (Don Juan is speaking to Sganarelle): "Sans t'en avoir rien dit, toutes choses sont preparees pour satisfaire mon amour, et j1ai une petite barque et des gens avec quoi fort facilement je pretends enlever la belle." Then a few lines later, Don Juan adds ominously: "Prepare-toi done a venir avec moi, et prends soin toi- meme d'apporter toutes mes armes, afin que . .."59 In Brecht, a four-page scene is devoted to showing how a 6 0 group of oarsmen are corrupted by Don Juan's money. Sganarelle teaches the rowers to use their oars as weapons. Ideologically, the scene is quite clear: the aristocracy are corrupt and they attempt to corrupt honest, "simple" folk. Also clear in Brecht's play is that the folk, once 59Molifere, Theatre complet. II, 381 (I, ii). 60Stiicke- XII, 104-107. 359 taught to fight for their "betters," may later (as they actually do in the play) use the same skills against their teachers. Another dimension of the oarsman scene that con tributes to the ideological bias of the scene is that in Moliere, Dom Juan will fight his own battles, while in Brecht Don Juan will offer payment to have his battles fought for him. Beyond the ideological function of the introduction of the rowers, there is the no less important structural func tion that they serve in the play. Where, in Moliere, a 61 beggar simply warns Dom Juan of an unnamed band of thugs, the "same" reference in Brecht is clearly to the rowers who, says the beggar, "stiefien furchtbare Drohungen gegen Edel- 62 leute aus." It is clear that the rowers, whom Don Juan failed to pay after all, are after his blood. It is the rowers who attack Don Carlos in Brecht. It is the rowers also who tell Don Juan's father of Don Juan's latest mis deeds, and who reappear, still demanding their money, in the very last scene of the play. Thus, though they actually reappear only twice (and then very briefly) after their 6^Moliere, Thdatre comolet. II, 410 (III, ii). 62Stucke. XII, 143. 360 first appearance, the constant reports of their threatening presence tie together Moliere's unconnected references and tie together the play. Again structure goes over impercep tibly into ideology. The constantly "present" rowers are the constantly present "folk" waiting for an opportunity to redress wrongs suffered at the hands of "die Herrschende." As Grimm puts it: . . . die Einfiigung der Ruderer (d.h. des Volkes) kommt erganzend hinzu. Die "Herrschenden" (so Brechts Lieb- lingswort) werden also relativiert, wahrend das Volk auf dem Weg ist, idealisiert zu werden. Das gelangt am deutlichsten in der Coriolan-Bearbeitung zum Ausdruck 63 • • • Not entirely idealized yet in Brecht's Don Juan, das Volk fill out the play and give it a certain dramatic density that is not present in Moliere's piece. The dramatic density gained by the insertion of the rowers as a replacement for Moliere's disconnected refer ences produces another positive by-product: their presence increases masterfully the play's dramatic drive. By knit ting the play closely together Brecht draws the line of dramatic action tight, and gives the piece additional theatrical effectiveness. In Brecht's play Don Juan is so 63Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 47. 361 villainous and at the same time so stupid that we virtually pant for his speedy end. Thus dramatic action, pace, and structure merge with ideology. The hand of the artful artificer is everywhere to be seen in the Ensemble reworking of the play. Once one grants this point, however, and notes also that formal structural alteration is closely tied to, and perhaps subservient to, ideology, it is then surely germane to ask: is the new play (viewed qualitatively) absolutely an improvement over the older version? We must surely ask, what, if anything, of Moliere's has been pushed aside to make way for the play's ideological bias? How does the new play work as a comedy? Does ideology destroy comedy or does it actually serve to create it? Turning first to the question of whether the new play suffers a loss of dulce because of its increase in utile. I must answer that, taken as a whole, and considering Brecht's staging of the play, I feel that it does lose. Perhaps the clearest example of this loss is Don Juan's scene with his creditor, M. Dimanche. In Moliere, Dom Juan retains enough of our sympathy and M. Dimanche is never made to elicit enough of our sympathy for there to be any fear of the scene losing in comic effect because of our total opposition to 362 Don Juan and our siding with the poor and harassed M. Di manche. In Brecht, in my view, by the time the scene with M. Dimanche occurs, Brecht has so totally alienated our sympathy from Don Juan and elicited so much of our sympathy for Don Juan's victims that it is extremely difficult to laugh at Don Juan's victimization of his poor creditor. This passage is also interesting in view of the fact that Brecht has cut the scene where Sganarelle borrows money from M. Dimanche. This change helps, of course, to make Sgana relle a better fellow and Don Juan a worse one. Here comedy is turned to something approaching "bourgeois tragedy" by the ideological bias given to the character of Don Juan and his servant. In general, I would say that comedy is pushed aside in scene after scene in the play by reason of our total inability to forget the suffering caused by poten tially humorous maneuvers on Don Juan's part. Despite this general lowering of the comic potential of the piece by the elicitation of our sympathy for Don Juan's victims, there is one superb scene in the play where ideological bias serves to heighten the comic effect of a scene. In the scene where Don Carlos, brother of Donna Elvira, is saved from robbers, in Moliere by Dom Juan but in Brecht by Sganarelle, Reinhold Grimm notes that this 363 change produces a heightened ideological and comic effect. Grimm writes: "Bei Moliere handelt Don Juan fsic 1 durchaus als Edelmann . . (p. 42). What Grimm means by this is that in Moli&re Dom Juan fights for Don Carlos against his attackers. However, in Brecht, Don Juan no longer embodies the concept "Edelmann," but rather beats a cowardly retreat from the fight, but not before pushing Sganarelle into the fray to fight the battle for him. After Sganarelle has then driven off Don Carlos's attackers (in Brecht these are the rowers), Don Juan returns to receive the thanks of a Don Carlos who, having been knocked unconscious before Sgana relle entered the fray and Don Juan fled, has no notion that Don Juan did absolutely nothing to save him. Brecht's scene runs: Don Carlos wenn Don Juan fertio anaezooen ist: Erlau- ben Sie, mein Herr, daB ich Ihnen meinen Dank abstatte fur Ihre hochherzige Aktion und Ihre . . . Don Juan sich unoeduldiq umblickend: Ich habe nur getan, mein Herr, was Sie an meiner Stelle auch getan hatten. 64 Sganarelle beiseite: Namlich nichts. As Grimm correctly notes of this scene with Brecht's change of context for the exchange: "Die Verstarkung des komischen 64Stiicfce, XII, 148. 364 6 5 Effekts liegt auf der Hand." In contrast, however, to Grimm's implication that increase of ideology serves to increase comic effect in the play in general, I feel that in the above scene, and in the above scene only, does ideol ogy serve to increase comic effect. In general, in my view, the play consistently turns Moliere's comic scenes into social comedy so bitter that laughter is clearly an inappro priate response to them in their new form and context. Despite the fact that a German translation of the fol lowing remark appears in the Berliner Ensemble Don Juan program, it would seem that the Berliner Ensemble collective ignored Moliere's prescription on combining social commen tary and comedy when, in the preface to Le Tartuffe. he wrote: ... et nous avons vu que le Theatre a une grande vertu pour la correction. Les plus beaux traits d'une seri- euse morale sont moins puissants, le plus souvent, que ceux de la satire; et rien ne reprend mieux la plupart des hommes que la peinture de leurs d^fauts. C'est une grande atteinte aux vices que de les exposer a la ris4e de tout le monde. On souffre aisement des reprehensions; mais on ne souffre point la raillerie. On veut bien etre mechant; mais on ne veut point etre r i d i c u l e . 65Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 42. 66Moliere, TheStre complet. II, 281. 365 In Brecht's play, Don Juan fails to serve as the butt of most jokes because his actions are neither funny nor ridic ulous. One simply, for the most part, cannot laugh at the unscrupulousness and self-centeredness of Don Juan as Brecht presents him. Brecht would seem here to have missed both the point and trick of Moliere's comedy as I understand it. In my view, the comic effect and longevity of Moliere's work lie in his uncanny ability to present caricatures that are recognizable as basic human types of "vice" but often pos sess some virtue that (with the possible exception of the character of Tartuffe himself) prevents us from writing the character off as bearing no relation to humankind. If we fail to recognize a real human being and/or trait beyond the caricature which Moliere presents, we fail to see the point either of his comedy or of his dominant means of using comedy for social correction. We can neither laugh at Moliere's characters nor seek to eradicate their excesses from our own lives unless we can somehow recognize these characters as living our own life. Whereas Moliere's com plex intermingling of good and bad traits in his characters serves as an adequate reflection of our real world, Brecht's characters prevent an identification of play world and "real" world by their excessive goodness and excessive 366 badness. They seem to me to have life only in speculative sociology and theatrical melodrama. It is clear that Brecht failed to preserve in his own play a quality that he found in Molifere; this quality is ambiguity. In a comment found in the Brecht Archive, but not in the Schriften. Brecht wrote of Molifere and his plays: Schon ist, daS diese Komodienschreiber wirklich die volien Widerspriiche behalten und nicht eine Forme1 liefern, die sofort an fassen rsic 1 ist. Das ist lebendig. Er wendet sich nach alien Zeiten mit Ge~ lachter, verlacht Atheisten, und Theisten, wenn sie komisch sind.^7 This remark, so insightful and accurate with reference to the principal strengths of Moliere's play, is surely equally insightful as to the major weaknesses of the Brecht play. Perhaps this is why the remark was not printed in the Schriften. The play, as the collective has written it, does come painfully close to a pat and flat, black and white formula: upper class people all bad; lower class people all good; upper class people stupid, cowardly, and thoughtless of others; lower class people automatically brave, intelli gent, and thoughtful of others. In fine, the play's appeal would seem to be limited to those who subscribe to such an oversimplified view of the world. 67BBA 1485/21. CHAPTER VIII FARQUHAR AND BRECHT Listed in the Stiicke as Mitarbeiter on Brecht’s 1954- 1956 version of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer are the same two people, Elisabeth Hauptmann and Benno Besson, as were listed for the reworking of Dom Juan.1 Again the translation was "besorgt" by the Mitarbeiter and again the first stage performance of the play (premiere September 19, 1955) was directed by Benno Besson. These similarities between the gestation of Don Juan and of Pauken und Trom- peten (as Brecht's version of Farquhar's play is called) lead me to the expectation that many of the critical prob lems of Don Juan might be encountered again in the reworking of the Farquhar piece. Indeed, knowledge of the background of the earlier Bearbeituna explains much of the similarity between the earlier and later plays, similarities of style, 1Stiicke. XII, 196. 367 368 purpose, and methodology of change. One play helps to ex plain the other because Pauken und Trompeten and Don Juan are reworked according to much the same formula. An attempt to establish a textual history for the Ber liner Ensemble Bearbeituna of Pauken und Trompeten runs immediately into difficulties. As was the case with Don Juan, the archive and the personal files of Elisabeth Haupt mann and Benno Besson yielded no trace whatsoever of any translation made by the Mitarbeiter of The Recruiting Offi- 2 cer. Again, as with Don Juan, the archive had no materials that could be used to establish the fact that Brecht had anything to do with the original text. Again, evidence was present that would seem to prove, virtually conclusively, that Brecht never bothered at all with the original text but simply relied on his co-workers. For instance, in Brecht's library, there is a copy of Farquhar's plays in English. The volume contains a handwritten, loose-leaf note written by Elisabeth Hauptmann that reads as follows: (Betr. fsicl Bearbeitung "Recruiting Officer"— Pauken und Trompeten.) Dies Buch habe ich Brecht geschenkt ^Probably not until there is an Elisabeth Hauptmann archive with free access to scholars will these texts be found. 369 in Erinnerung an die Arbeit am "Don Juan". Die Urauf- fiihrung unserer Bearbeitung hatte schon ins "Deutschen Theater" stattgefunden; aber das "Berliner Ensemble" eroffnete mit dem "Don Juan" sein eigenes Haus, des Theater am Schiffbauerdamm (April 54). Besson und ich waren damals schon mitten in der Arbeit am "Recruiting Officer" von Farquhar, wir benutzten mein Exemplar. Ich liefii uns aber fur Brecht diese Ausgabe kommen (die gleiche wie ich es habe.) und schenkte es ihm. E. (=B.) Hauptmann. There are no marginal notes whatsoever in Brecht's copy of Farquhar's plays. It is not clear whether Elisabeth Haupt mann's "wir" refers simply to herself and Benno Besson or whether it also includes Brecht himself. We are, therefore, not sure whether Brecht used Farquhar directly, but I be lieve Elisabeth Hauptmann's note makes it look highly un likely that he did. As was the case with Don Juan, all available evidence strongly suggests Lhe second-hand nature of Brecht's work on the Farquhar text. The role of the Mitarbeiter on this play is, as is the case with most of the other plays I have examined, unclear. The original idea for actually doing a Bearbeitung of Far- quhar's mixture of comedy and social commentary (somewhat a la Moliere) came apparently from Elisabeth Hauptmann. Benno Besson (though having, by his own admission, a rather shaky reading knowledge of English) then seems to have been impressed by the modernity (particularly of the court scene) 370 of the Farquhar play and to have enthusiastically gone to work with Elisabeth Hauptmann on a German version of it. In my series of interviews with Brecht's Mitarbeiter. it became increasingly plain to me that their concern, and, with them, Brecht's and the Ensemble's concern, in reworking the Farquhar play was not really with the play as work of art or as comedy but rather with the play as social commen tary, with the play as critical view of English law and 3 society in the early eighteenth century. With some pride, Elisabeth Hauptmann told me of the research she had done for the collective in British newspapers and legal documents of the period and the horrors that these materials con tained. As a result of a reading of both Farquhar's play and documents of the period, and a Marxist orientation to wards both the play and history, Farquhar's modest sugges tions for housecleaning gave way to the collective's calls for a proletarian demolition squad. To make clear the Marx ist view of, on one hand, capitalist war as war of oppres sion, and, on the other, wars for "freedom" as being justi fied, the playwriting collective (it is no longer clear who, 3This is, of course, a subjective judgment, but I did feel that Besson's interest in the play as play was somewhat greater than that of Elisabeth Hauptmann. 371 specifically, it was who made the suggestion) decided to change their earlier version that had kept "Farquhar1s war" (the War of the Spanish Succession) with its capitalists on both sides to, in the new or Stucke version, the American War of Independence. By this vital change, the collective could now present the British as colonialists and oppres sors, and the antagonists of the British as poor, suffering, heroic fellows, clearly in the right in their battle for self-determination. By switching to a period when Britain was so clearly fighting to protect British vested interest, the collective could demonstrate also (or so they felt, and to use their own terms) the clash between the belligerent and mercenary desires of the upper-class Englishmen and the wish of the proletariat not only not to fight against the colonists but to sympathize and empathize wholeheartedly with the colonists' desire for freedom. Unfortunately, Brecht's personal contribution to all these changes cannot be definitely established. The mater ials that are available, however, suggest that it is quite possible that Brecht's role in the collective may have been relatively minor. I suggest this possibility despite Elisa beth Hauptmann's contention that Brecht's part in the col lective that produced both Don Juan and Pauken und Trompeten 372 was primus inter pares. In contrast to Elisabeth Haupt mann's assessment there is again that of the other Mit- arbfiiter. Benno Besson. For Besson, Brecht's role in the production of Pauken as text and as produced play was again (as with Don Juan) that of, to use Besson's own term, an "Assistent." Given a choice between the diametrically op posed views of the Mitarbeiter. what other evidence is there that might help us to decide which of the two co-workers is closer to the truth? From archive materials that are al ready accessible, I conclude that Elisabeth Hauptmann's role in the creation of a number of plays is far greater than her own modesty and admiration or love for Brecht permit her to 4 claim. If, however, she claims too little credit for her self and too much for Brecht, does Besson perhaps err in the opposite direction? Much evidence suggests that he does not err. We know that Elisabeth Hauptmann and Benno Besson pre pared a German version of the text. We know too that Brecht did not have his own copy of the Farquhar text until after the play was actually put on at the Ensemble's theatre. Considerable biographical evidence would seem to support ^Please see footnote 45, Chapter VII. 373 the idea that Brecht himself simply did not have time enough to do much to help the other members of the collective in 5 1955. We know, for instance, that Brecht undertook a long trip to Moscow to receive the Stalin Prize in 1955. He also took a prominent part in a political conference in Dresden and in a PEN-Taauna in Hamburg. In the same year, he pre pared Per kaukasische Kreidekreis (the Ensemble's entry in the summer Festival de Paris) for international competition in France. Brecht also spent some time during this year on an Inszenieruna of Johannes R. Becher1s Winterschlacht. As though not busy enough with these few items, Brecht pre pared a statement for the Deutsche Akademie der Kiinste on how he wanted his mortal remains to be disposed of and pre pared an essay ("Kann die heutige Welt durch Theater wieder- gegeben werden?") for a Darmstadt theatre conference. Dur ing the same period, he continued work on his unfinished play, "Turandot oder der Kongress der Weisswascher." It must be remembered, too, that while Brecht was engaged in all the activities listed above, he had a full-time job as artistic director of the multi-million mark operation that 5The most complete biographical accounts of these years thus far available are: Fassmann, Brecht. and Resting, Bertolt Brecht. 374 is the Berliner Ensemble. 1955 was also a busy year for Brecht, as he was working against time to see his collected works (in the Suhrkamp and Aufbau editions) through the g press. During this extraordinarily busy year, Brecht was constantly on call by the authorities of the DDR to make political speeches when and where they should be called for. With Brecht so busy when he was in Berlin and with him out of Berlin so much before the play's premifere (September 19, 1955), one wonders whether it was physically possible for a man no longer in the best of health to have also put in very much or very intensive work on Pauken und Trompeten. The sheer mass of Brecht's other activities during the period when he was supposed to be working on Pauken lends credence to Besson's view of Brecht's role in the collective that produced Pauken. It may be true that Brecht acted as a catalyst in the collective; he may well have encouraged Benno Besson and Hauptmann in their work; he may even have made some excellent suggestions on how to go about reworking ^Some seven plays were edited for the collected works in this year alone. Critical commentaries for the plays were also provided in several cases. Two other plays, Leben des Galilei und Die Horatier und die Kuriatier. appeared in 1955 in Versuche Heft 14. Besides these works, Brecht's Die Krieasfibel also appeared in 1955, published by the Eulenspiegel-Verlag, Berlin. 375 the Farquhar piece, but it would seem physically impossible for him to have done more than this. In view of the mass of evidence that speaks against Hauptmann's assessment of Brecht's role, I feel it perhaps best to speak of this play as being "of the school of Brecht" rather than a Brecht play per se. Even though, according to Besson, the only work on the play that Brecht should definitely be credited with is the songs, I shall nevertheless examine and evaluate the play as a Brecht play since Brecht's literary executors have elected to print this play in Brecht's Stucke. So numerous were the early parallels found between the genesis of the Pauken and Don Juan reworkings that I fully expected to find, particularly as no text of a Benno Besson- Elisabeth Hauptmann translation of The Recruiting Officer was on hand, an intermediary German translation of the original play by another (and unacknowledged) hand. No such translation was, however, made available to me. All I have been able to find out about the history of Farquhar's play in the German language is the following. In 1772 there was published in Danzig and Leipzig a collection of plays en- 7 titled Enalisches Theater. In this collection, there 7Enalisches Theater, ed. Christian Heinrich Schmid 3 76 appeared a reworking of The Recruiting Officer (entitled in German, Der Werbeofficier) by Christian Heinrich Schmid, "Doctorn-der Rechte und Professorn der Beredsamkeit und 3 Dichtkunst zu Giessen." Despite the date of its appear ance, it is clear that Schmid's "translation" owes more to the critical precepts of Gottsched than to those of Lessing. In the introduction to his work, Schmid writes: Eine Farce regelmaftig zu machen, ware vergebne Arbeit; dennoch habe ich vieles ausgestrichen, wovon ich glaubte, daft es deutsche Ohren beleidigen wiirde. Und was meynen Sie, wird dennoch nicht die Rolle der Sylvia Ihr Ge- schlecht etwas revoltiren? (p. xi) It is really not at all surprising that a close comparison of Schmid's text, a text constructed on principles wholly alien to Brecht, should reveal that Brecht definitely did not use the work of Professor Schmid. Further search in German translation indexes revealed a translation of Far- quhar's Dramatische Werke.10 Unfortunately, the 1839 (Danzig und Leipzig, 1772). Translations by various hands of various English authors. 8Enalisches Theater, title page. ^Of the actual translation work, Schmid says: "Die tibersetzung selbst habe ich nur durchgesehen, sie riihrt von meinem Freunde, dem Herr George Heinrich Michaelis" (p. xi). lOceorge Farquhar, Dramatische Werke. deutsch bearbeitet 377 Leipzig edition of the "Werke" did not get beyond one volume and this volume contained only Das bestandiae Ehepaar (The Constant Couple) and Stutzerlist (The Beaux* Stratagem). As far as I have been able to discover, the 1839 Leipzig edition and the 1772 Danzig and Leipzig collection are the only two printed versions of any of Farquhar's plays in Ger man . However, beyond the printed versions of texts of the plays, there exist additional texts in the little-known and virtually inaccessible form of Buhnenmanuskripte.^ In this form, I have found The Beaux' Stratagem translated as 12 Gliicksritter by Helmut Castagne. Two versions of The Recruiting Officer also exist in Buhnenmanuskript form. Unfortunately, Thespis-Verlag, the firm holding the stage und mit einem Vorworte von Siegmund Frankenberg (Leipzig, 1839). Contains only: Das bestandiae Ehepaar and Stutzer- list. Hsuch stage manuscripts are generally made available to those with an interest in possibly producing the plays. Brecht, at the Berliner Ensemble, obviously had access to such works. Scholars dealing with the history of works bearing Brecht's name cannot ignore this very important potential source. l^Rights held by Ahn und Simrock Biihnen- und Musikver- lag, Berlin. The same firm holds the rights to Robert Gillner's Der Werbeoffizier (1966 translation of The Re cruiting Officer). 378 rights to these works, has not, despite my repeated re quests, given me a copy of these texts to compare them with Brecht's version.^ Both translations are entitled Wer will unter die Soldaten (the name of an old German song). One version is by Ira Levin, the other by Peter Palter. The company holding these rights has failed to give me the texts of these plays, to supply me with the address of the au thors, to reveal whether Peter Palter is a pseudonym, or to tell me when these translation-reworkings were written. The firm, despite the fact that the rights for Levin's version are listed as theirs by the main Berlin theatre information service, denies any knowledge of even the existence of the Levin play. Of the text of the Palter version, a represen tative of the firm wrote: Die Bearbeitung von Palter ist vollig zuriickgezogen worden, und zwar auf unser Anraten. Grund: Die Bear beitung des Brecht-Ensembles ist ohne Zweifel b e s s e r . l ^ My last letter, pointing out that I wished to see the Palter manuscript even if it was not as good as Brecht's version, 13i have written four letters to Horst van Diemen of the Thespis-Verlag and have received only discouraging— if not evasive— replies. l^Letter to the author dated March 4, 1967. 379 has gone unanswered. I simply do not know, therefore, if Palter or Levin perhaps used Brecht or if Brecht possibly used Palter and/or Levin. It is quite possible that Brecht used one or another of these versions or even possibly an other version. Until the Thespis-Verlag or Elisabeth Haupt mann become more cooperative on this matter, I can only say that the Brecht play may or may not be based on an earlier German translation or reworking of The Recruiting Officer. Though I had only guessed at the existence of an inter mediary German translation of the Farquhar play, there was actual evidence to lead me to believe that I would find in the Brecht archive the intermediary version I have mentioned above of the Brecht play, a version lying somewhere between the text of Farquhar and the final Brecht text of the Stiicke. The East German critic, Pauli, maintains in his Staatsexamen Arbeit on Brecht that an intermediary text by the collective did exist. After describing the insuffi ciently "fortschrittlich" (read Marxist) nature of the in termediate phase of the work, Pauli writes: Das Stuck in der geschilderten Phase der Bearbeitung befriedigte Brecht und seine Mitarbeiter nicht, denn eben durch das Herausarbeiten des gesellschaftlichen Hintergrundes trat ein starke antimilitaristische Ten- denz hervor, die der Zuschauer hatte sehr leicht als Pazifismus auffassen konnen. Die Bearbeiter wollten 380 die dialektische Beziehung zwischen gerechten und unge- rechten Kriegen sichtbar machen. Dazu erwies sich aber der spanische Erbfolgekrieg, der ein Machtkampf zwischen England und Frankreich war, als ungeeignet. Sie ent- schlossen sich deshalb, die Handlung urn etwa siebzig Jahre in den amerikanischen Unabhangigkeitskrieg zu ver- lagen.15 The text described by Pauli is nowhere to be found in the 16 Brecht archive. Pauli's reference to an intermediary text added to verbal comments by the Mitarbeiter are all that I have been able to garner on this important middle step in the creative process. Fortunately, as my work is basically only a study of texts with some claim to final manuscript authority and is only incidentally concerned with the gene sis of each play, the lack of any text whatsoever between the Farquhar play itself and the Stiicke version is no in surmountable barrier. With the comments of Pauli and the Mitarbeiter. sufficient notion of the intermediary stage is given as to provide useful guides as to what to expect in the final version. The most important key, of course, is Pauli's observation (an observation that was reiterated by 15Pauli, BBA 1650/67. ■^Elisabeth Hauptmann told me that she thinks she has the manuscript, but that it is in an inaccessible spot in her attic. Besson says all intermediary versions have simply disappeared. 381 Elisabeth Hauptmann) that the motivation for the change in the war that forms the backdrop of the two plays was dictat ed by political rather than aesthetic considerations. As I shall seek to show, the change shifts the play away from the general humanism-pacifism of Marxism A to the rigid, questionable, and speculative Partei Politik of twin B. This change then upsets the whole aesthetic construct that Brecht takes over with little structural modification from Farquhar. Turning from the cloudy history of the Pauken text but before beginning a detailed analysis of the differences between the English and the German play, I shall deal brief ly here with those few critics who have written on this Bearbeitung. Pauli's comparison of the two texts is vague, formal istic and generally uninspired. For Pauli, one play is better than another if it is fortschrittlicher than its rival. For Pauli, aesthetic considerations are (when they are dealt with at all) wholly subsidiary to political ones. Not agreeing with Pauli's premises, I am not convinced of the truth of his conclusions that Brecht's text is "better" than that of Farquhar. Martin Esslin, in a very brief comment on the play, 382 would seem to imply his view of the whole play when he ob serves that: "The songs are weak imitations of those of 17 The Threepenny Opera." Though Esslin himself fails to amplify a remark connecting Brecht's huge success of 1928 with his Bearbeitung of The Recruiting Officer. I shall have more to say on this topic and herewith acknowledge the use fulness of Esslin's hint. In direct contrast to Esslin's deprecatory comments on Pauken are those of Reinhold Grimm. Grimm writes: Obwohl Brechts Eingriffe in Hand lungs fiihrung und Perso- nengestaltung hier [in Pauken], ahnlich wie im Don Juan, viel weiter reichen als im Coriolan. spiiren wir keiner- lei Bruch: das witzig-freche, turbulente Stuck wirkt in der neuen Fassung wie ein Original. Contrasting then Pauken und Trompeten with Coriolan. Grimm explains why, in his opinion, the reworking of Farquhar is more successful than the one of Shakespeare: Der Grund dafiir ist, daB Brecht diesmal [the reference is to Pauken1 nicht gegen den Geist seiner Vorlage dichtet, sondern aus ihm heraus. (p. 49) Continuing his explanation, Grimm observes: ^7Esslin, Brecht. p. 314. l8Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 49. 383 Er brauchte, um das Stuck fThe Recruiting Officer 1 zu ideologisieren, nur die vorhandenen Ansatze aufzugreifen und weiterzufiihrenj Kritik an gesellschaftlichen Mifi- standen, namlich an den Methoden der Soldatenwerbung, war bei Farquhar, wenn auch versteckt, zweifellos vor- handen. (p . 49) What Grimm would seem to ignore here is that there might be some aesthetic purpose in Farquhar*s having kept his Kritik somewhat versteckt. and that a change in the tone or color ing of a work of art can so disturb the balance of that work that it no longer deserves to be called a work of art. The addition of bars here and there in a piece by Mozart, even though they emphasize patterns already present in the piece, or the addition of brush strokes or whole figures to a landscape by Corot, even though these strokes and figures repeat motifs present in the original, can, as examples from music or painting perhaps more vividly illustrate than can references to changes in a work of literature, utterly ruin the harmony, balance and radiance of the original and can thus utterly destroy the works as art. Grimm's ignoring or ignorance of this crucial aesthetic point severely limits, in my view, his final evaluation of Brecht's play as aes thetic construct. Another quarrel that I have with Grimm's notes on Pauken und Trompeten's relationship to The Recruiting Officer is that, though his remarks on this particular Bearbeitung clearly conflict with his general theory of Bearbeitung. he nevertheless fails to recognize this con flict. It will be remembered, both from my chapter "The Theory of the Bearbeitunaen" and in my discussion of the reworking of Dorn Juan, that it is Grimm's general contention concerning the methodology of Brecht's Bearbeitungen that "er [Brecht] im formalen Bereich episiert und im inhalt- lichen ideologisiert" (p. 76). As I noted in my Don Juan chapter, Grimm is well aware that his generalization simply does not fit Don Juan. He seems unaware that it fails also to fit Brecht's reworking of Farquhar. After having dis cussed the similarity, in his view, of the social outlook of Farquhar and Brecht, Grimm goes on to observe of the structural similarity of the two plays: "Formales kam dem Dichter [Brecht] bei Farquhar ebenfalls entgegen ..." (p. 49). I agree with Grimm's observation that Brecht's play has much in common structurally with Farquhar's work. What I fail to see, however, is, if the plays are structurally so similar, where has Brecht "episiert" the play? If he has not "episiert" the play (and I believe, at least according to Grimm's "definition" of "epic," he has not) then Grimm is rather careless in not noting that Pauken und Trompeten 385 fails to fit the general pattern that he holds fits (with the possible exception of Don Juan) all the Bearbeitunaen. In general, with reference to this play, I am very much disappointed in the usually so careful and insightful Rein hold Grimm. As questionable, in my opinion, as Grimm's and Pauli's conclusions on this play are the conclusions of most of those who have reviewed the work as staged by Benno Besson. Though it was warmly received in London when the Berliner Ensemble took it there on tour, I have the greatest suspi cion of the reasons for the warm reception of the play. As Brecht himself noted in an address to the Ensemble before they left for London to play Pauken und Trompeten before an English audience: "wir [zeigen] den meisten Zuschauern nur eine Pantomime, eine Art Stummfilm auf der Biihne, da sie 19 nicht Deutsch konnen." In order to compensate for this real handicap for the champion of rational thinking in the theatre, Brecht went on in the same address to advise the players: "Wir mussen also schnell, leicht und kraftig spielen" (p. 442). What bothers me about the language han dicap and the admonishment to the players is that the 19Brecht in Theaterarbeit. p. 442. playing, quite apart from the play, may have captivated the 20 London audience. As I noted in my introductory chapter on the "Literary and Theatrical Background of the Bearbei- tunaen." when the full curtain goes up and the half curtain is then whisked aside as the Berliner Ensemble goes to work and play, the theatrical experience is one that is not to be found with any other group. Any assessment of the stage success of the later Bearbeituncen and critical comments based on the staged play rather than the text must, in my opinion, take into account the incredible richness {literal and figurative), the verve, speed, lightness and strength of this Ensemble and, because of their skill, their ability to make the poorest play, at least for an evening, sparkle as many a far greater play less skillfully mounted never does. Because of the money, skill, and magic of the En semble, I feel a close textual analysis of the plays which in their playing have received rave notices must be under taken. Is the Stiicke text (or the only possible "immortal part" of the play) likely to survive? Does it have quali ties that are likely to recommend it to other producers in 20For further bibliographical information on this point, please see footnote 7 of my chapter on Don Juan (Chapter VII). 387 a variety of economic, political, and aesthetic climes? Or do the changes Brecht introduced make this play less aes thetically satisfying and hence less lebensfahig than the Farquhar original has shown itself to be? Viewing Pauken und Trompeten at first as a German translation of Farquhar's play, it must be adjudged to have been rendered into German with skill and insight. Of lines kept by the collective, I have found only one place where the translators have missed Farquhar1s comical point. Far quhar has: Plume. . . . you should have redoubled your attacks, taken the town by storm, or have died upon the b r e a c h . 2 1 The Stiicke version reads: Plume: Sie hatten Ihre Angriffe verdoppeln, die Fes- tung im Sturm nehmen oder auf dem Vorwerk sterben mussen.22 The almost exclusively military term "Vorwerk” surely misses the dual possibilities of Farquhar1s "breach.” A far greater loss of comedy, however, stems not from trifling mistranslations but rather from lines that have 21George Farquhar, Farauhar:__Four Plavs. ed. William Archer (New York, 1959), p. 258 (I, i). 22Stucke. XII, 205. 388 simply been entirely left out. One misses a line such as Bullock's, "Wauns, there's no pressing of women, surely?" 23 and Kite's reply, "But there is, sir." But even this type of loss (and my example is one of at least several dozen) is less important than the loss of comedy involved in the change in moral tone of the piece. An illustration of this last type of loss, however, can, as the loss is wholly de pendent on the change of tone that these changes bring in their train, only follow a detailed discussion of major changes in plot and character. In working change on Farquhar's text, whoever was responsible for the changes worked many of the same kind of changes that are characteristic of the other plays I have examined in this study. Though Brecht eliminates characters such as Mr. Scale and Mr. Scruple from the original text and gives some of their lines to Mr. Balance (the one justice that he does take over from Farquhar), he also freely adds characters to his own version. The upper-class Lady Prude is new though she spec&s lines taken from Farquhar's Bal ance. Simpkins, the butler, a lineal descendent of the happy order of old servants, is also a Brecht addition. 23Farquhar, Four Plavs. p. 285 (III, i). 389 Another important addition to the "ruling class" in the Brecht play is the crook-bariker, Smuggler. At least as im portant as the upper-class additions to the play, however, are the additional representatives of the proletariat. The most important new representative of the lower classes is the potboy Mike. Less fully developed as characters in the play but, nevertheless, of great importance to the play's ideology are the broad-shouldered, one-legged veteran of Bunker Hill, and two widows of soldiers who died in the same battle. Important ideologically but of minor importance struc turally is the change made by Brecht in the war itself. It is this change, apparently, that then called forth the one- legged man and the two widows. I find that Brecht's sub stitution of the American War of Independence for Farquhar's War of the Spanish Succession has a tonal or psychological rather than a structural function. Unlike the introduction of the rowers in Don Juan or the pulling together of the exile periods of Gaveston in Eduard II. the change in the war in Pauken fails either to pull together or to loosen the rather loosely constructed original framework. As I shall later show, this lack of change in form despite the radical change in tone forced upon the play by the change 390 in the war has an important bearing on a final evaluation of the two plays as aesthetic constructs. As even a moderately close reading of Pauken shows, though Brecht has kept the light and durable framework of Farquhar's loosely constructed piece, he asks this frame to carry a much heavier burden. I must seriously wonder whether the old form blends very well with the new charac ters and with the new character of the work. Can the "com edy of manners" form actually bear a very serious social burden? At the risk of being accused of Formalism or of a rather pedantic neo-Aristotelianism, I must say that I have my doubts about the formal aesthetic soundness and dramatic effectiveness of Brecht's attempt to fill Farquhar's "old" and sparkling bottle with his bitter "new" wine. Before giving textual support to my rather abstract misgivings, a slight excursus into defining what I feel Farquhar's play is as a prelude to showing what Brecht's play is not is in order. Defining "comedy of manners" in general, Allardyce Nicoll, after noting the brilliant dia logue that is one key characteristic of the genre, goes on: The invariable elements of the comedy of manners are the presence of at least one pair <?f witty lovers, the woman as emancipated as the man, their dialogue free and graceful, an air of refined cynicism over the whole production, the plot of less consequence than the wit, 391 an absence of crude realism, a total lack of any emotion whatsoever,24 Nicoll's definition, though obviously more fitting to plays such as The Man of Mode. The Plain Dealer, or The Importance of Being Earnest than it is to Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. nevertheless, with only very slight modification, accurately describes Farquhar's piece. Farquhar does have "at least one pair of witty lovers," with the women as eman cipated as the men. His dialogue is free and graceful, there is a tone of refined cynicism that pervades the piece, and the plot is clearly of less consequence than the occa sions that it provides for wit. Indeed, where Farquhar's play departs from Nicoll's definition I find my own ideas of "comedy of manners" depart from those of Nicoll. Far quhar has some crude realism, specifically sexual realism, but it seems to me that this type of realism can, to a cer tain extent, be found in precisely those plays that Nicoll would cite as typical examples of "comedy of manners." Likewise, the lack of emotion noted by Nicoll might well be replaced by a looser definition. In Farquhar's play, as in 24A History of Restoration Drama (Cambridge, 1923), p. 185. 392 other comedies of manners, there is no lack of emotion but rather a severely controlled limitation on the possibly "tragic" (or simply non-funny) results of too emotional or involved a reaction to the characters and situations at the heart of the play. My point here is perhaps best argued by comparing the subject matter or Stoff of the "comedy of manners" with that of the "bourgeois" or "sentimental trag edy." The comic scenes of abduction or intrigue in the "comedy of manners" become in the "bourgeois tragedy" the very Stoff that is supposed to pull at our heartstrings. Possibly this is why we can come close to tears at some scenes in comedies such as L'Ecole des femmes or even Pom Juan. and can laugh at scenes in "tragedies" such as Miss Sara Sampson and The Gamester. In the last two plays, I am conscious of machinery that has too often been used for comedy trying to carry a tragic tale. This consciousness undermines, for me, the intended tragic effect. In Moliere and in some of the Restoration plays, however, sometimes the human dilemma is sufficient to produce Mitleid despite my consciousness of the manipulative nature of the plot's conventions. My point here is, and to bring us back to Farquhar and to Brecht, though it is clear that some Mitleid can be produced in the spectator within the framework of a 393 conventional comedy of manners, I wonder if the structure of a typical comedy of manners can bear the weight of very much "tragedy." Is it possible that the stage machinery that so smoothly moved Farquhar's essentially light and only very occasionally heavy or bitter play is unsuited to move the weight that Brecht loads on it? Does not the whole business of disguise, of transparent intrigue, of unpre pared entrances and exits, of fortune telling, of light and witty dialogue, and of general urbanity all work at cross purposes with the ideologically heavy Bearbeitung? Is the result of the cross breeding of "comedy of manners" with Lehrstuck a sterile and unlebensfahig political melodrama? In Farquhar's play the modest burden of social com mentary is aesthetically admirably fitted to the play's lightness of tone, a tone that finds expression in language in the slight plot, the reliance on the conventions of dis guise (Kite and Sylvia) and type characters (Balance, Plume, Brazen, and Worthy), in the use of parallel, initially thwarted, eventually happily solved love entanglements, in the playwright's refusal to allow the harshness of recruit ing practices to outweigh the comic aspects of these prac tices, and in the general air of patriotic feeling that, though sometimes ironically viewed by the professional 394 soldiers, is basically genuine. Beyond all this, investing every aspect of the play, is the compassionate but clearly amused half smile of Farquhar. His types, though they clearly are types, are presented as mixtures of good and bad traits. Brazen is so obviously brazen and so obvious ly, therefore, harmless that he charms in much the same way Falstaff charms. Plume, playing the part of the soldier rake, reveals himself to be no genuine scoundrel. The stern father, Justice Balance, who demands obedience of his daughter, is twisted around his daughter's finger at the close of the play. These types earn a smile of recognition for they are, surely, still among us, still exhibiting the same silly but basically harmless traits. Though we smile at the foibles of Farquhar's characters, we certainly do not feel either that they are villains or that they deserve our hatred. Their faults are our own and, to cite part of Aristotle's definition of comedy, as they do not "involve the full range of villainy," they do not earn our loathing; they earn our laughter. In Farquhar's characters and plot there is nothing really bleak or dreadful. Writing comedy and light social satire, Farquhar has, with great care and tact, make language, character, thought, tone, and plot all appropriate each to the other so that each element helps to 395 give the play unity and consistency. When we turn from The Recruiting Officer to Pauken und Tromoeten. we find so many elements taken directly from Farquhar that it is understandable that the Brecht play is often mistakenly assumed to be simply a translation rather than a "reworking" of Farquhar's work. Leaving aside for the moment omissions, additions and rearrangement, some three-fourths of the Brecht play can be clearly seen as straight (and often excellent) translation of Farquhar's play. Despite the high incidence of materials taken di rectly from Farquhar, however, the few omissions, the sev eral additions and some rearrangement serve to fundamentally alter the Farquhar play and turn it entirely to Brecht's ends. By his changes, Brecht strips the play of its light ness of tone and moderate reformism and turns it into a revolutionary tract with comic inserts. Where comedy served the moderate social purpose of the Farquhar play, one won ders if this same comedy, carried over to a play with a deliberately immoderate political purpose, serves to do anything but jar by its incompatibility. The basic aes thetic question with reference to Brecht's play is, of course, not one of whether political plays are or are not good (everyone knows many an excellent one) but rather one 396 of whether in Pauken und Trompeten there is to be found an aesthetic unity between the play's parts and the play as a whole, an aesthetic unity that is clearly present in The Recruiting Officer, an aesthetic unity that is character istic of many of the most enduring works of art. The first part of the new play that bears close exami nation is the change wrought in the main characters of the work. How have they been changed? Are these changes suc cessfully integrated with the old plot? Do the new charac ters contribute to the aesthetic unity of the new play? Are the new characters drawn in the round or are they schematized? Are the Brecht characters as humanly valid as their counterparts in the English play? Do the characters seem to have their own life or do they seem to be manipu lated for some extra-aesthetic and perhaps psychologically invalid purpose? The answers to all these questions must have a bearing on a final evaluation of the Brecht play as aesthetic construct. As far-reaching yet sometimes as subtle as the changes Brecht wrought in the character of Edward II, Young Morti mer, Pelegeya Vlasova, Schwejk, Antigone, Dorn Juan, and Sganarelle are the ones made in the major characters "taken from" Farquhar. Though Brecht keeps many of Farquhar's 397 lines for the four main characters of the piece, Justice Balance, Balance's daughter (Silvia in Farquhar, Viktoria in Brecht), Captain Plume and Plume's sergeant, Kite, he subtly twists the lines by some subtle and some not so sub tle additions and deletions and by such changes in context that the "same lines" have totally different tonal values in the German version. As a result of Brecht's changes, the "same lines" spoken by the "same characters" have a radically different effect in the montage sequence that is the new play. In Farquhar's play, we are introduced to a Captain Plume with a mighty name as a rake. Yet, the aptness of Plume's reputation is immediately brought into question by Farquhar as he has Plume declare of his behavior: "I hope 25 Sylvia has not heard of 't?" A few lines later, after swaggering and declaring he will "marry upon no condition at all," Plume says of Balance's daughter Sylvia: "I love Sylvia, I admire her frank, generous disposition. There's something in that girl more than woman. Her sex is but a foil to her— the ingratitude, dissimulation, envy, pride, avarice, and vanity of her sister females, do but set off their contraries in her." 25Farquhar, Four Plays, p. 258 (I, i). Plume concludes: "In short, were I once a general, I would marry her" (I, i, p. 259). To this, Plume’s friend Worthy rejoins: "Faith, you have reason; for were you but a corporal she would marry you. But my Melinda coquettes it with every fellow she sees. I'll lay fifty pounds she makes love to you." To which Plume, returning now to the role of rake, responds "I'll lay fifty pound that I return it, if she does. Look'ee, Worthy, I'll win her, and give her to you afterwards .1 1 The exchange ends with Worthy's rejoinder: "If you win her you shall wear her. Faith, I would not value the conquest without the credit of the victory." (I, i, pp. 259-260) In this brief exchange, the moral values, social tone and social conventions of the whole play together with the character of the two men are masterfully and economically sketched by Farquhar. We know instantly that "man talk" will finally give way to pleasant domesticity. Love, but love securely couched in fixed social conventions, breaks through the rakish outer shell of the conversation of the two men. Their conversation is funny but their basic de sires are serious, conventional and very human. These two men and variations of their conversation can be heard (but 399 less skillfully stated) in almost any country at almost any time. Viewed superficially, the equivalent scene in Brecht follows much the same path as that of Farquhar. Pervading the whole scene, however, is the unjust war for which Plume is recruiting. In Brecht's scene, instead of remembering Viktoria (Farquhar's Sylvia) with affection, Brecht's Plume has to be reminded of her very existence. Though he subse quently expresses a strong interest in Viktoria, his rela tionship to her is soured a little at the outset by his forgetfulness. The slight change in Plume is paralleled by a slight change in Worthy. The timid lover without a thought in his head but his love for Melinda becomes, in Brecht, the owner of a shoe factory, a man who seems to care as much for a military supply contract as he does for Me linda . With these slight initial changes in character but major changes in context, the stage is set for ever greater changes in the character of the principals and in the tone of the play. The mercenary concern of Worthy is gradually developed to make of him a villain, a bird of prey living off an unjust war. The unjust war makes a villain also of Plume, of Plume's sergeant Kite, and of all the upper class 400 citizens of Shrewsbury. The new war is too serious, too bloody, too real for it to serve as a foil for the jokes and practices of recruiting officers and their helpers. The abstractly colorful war that served Farquhar as semi-heroic and patriotic backdrop for his upper class characters is used by Brecht to damn all these characters. The wiles used to get a man to serve in a patriotic and supposedly just war can be laughed at, whereas the laughter that at tends the recruiting of a man to butcher and be butchered for the mercenary ends of others is a wholly different kind of laughter. The new situation is earnest rather than funny. Clearly illustrating the change from patriotism to mercenary interest, we find the following difference in Balance's attitude towards the war. In Farquhar, he says to Plume: "Ad's my life, Captain, get us but another Mar shal of France, and I'll go myself for a soldier" (II, i, p. 206). Representative of the preoccupations of Brecht's Balance, however, are the following observations, observa tions in which patriotism is replaced by business interests. Balance fumes: "Unter dem Vorwand, er sei zu teuer, weigert man sich, unseren Tee einzufiihren. Sir, im Hafen von Liverpool 401 liegen 10 000 Kisten unverkaufter Tee'. Dabei wollen die in Gleichheit geborenen hinterwaldlerischen Advo- katen und Generale ihre Baumwolle, die wir hier brau- chen, Gott weiB wohin verschieben diirfen, nur weil sie dort mehr bezahlt bekommen."2^ Given Balance's economic orientation, we are prepared for a later declaration of his that shows that he shares little more than a name with Farquhar1s Balance. In direct con trast to the patriotic fervor that almost drives Farquhar's character to volunteer for the war, Brecht's Balance cau tions Worthy (who in Brecht has expressed thoughts of vol unteering): "Was fallt Ihnen ein, Worthy? Sie sind Schuh- fabrikant, nicht Krieger." Balance then continues: "Eben- so konnen Sie von mir verlangen, daB ich die Muskete auf die Schulter nehme" (p. 291). In Brecht's version of Pau- , ken. as in his versions of Schweyk. Antigone. and Don Juan, the Marxist doctrine that die herrschende Klasse (the aris tocracy and the bourgeoisie) directs battles but does not fight in them itself comes perhaps too clearly to the fore. The difference between Brecht's doctrinal point and Farqu har's is too plain to need further illustration. The crusty and human old gentleman, Balance, has become an "Ausbeuter." 26St\icke. XII, 216. 402 Given the dubious mercenary interests of Balance and the initial forgetfulness regarding Viktoria of Plume, we are not really surprised that Balance, at the end of Brecht's play, has to exert financial pressure to get Plume to marry his daughter. The comical and rather lovely if conventional love affair of Farquhar is turned by Brecht into the kind of sordid transaction that is so prominent a feature of the Dreigroschenoper. X have, let it be under stood, nothing to say against the dramatic effectiveness of sordid love affairs per se, I only wonder about their comic potential and whether, in the case of Pauken, the sordid affair is not one more example of Brecht's reduction of the humor of the original play. The Entheroisieruna of the Hinterhof Plume and Balance is then repeated in the collective's treatment of Sergeant Kite. In the light context of Farquhar's play, Kite plays the role of the classical resourceful servant. By disguise t impenetrable and foresight uncanny, he serves both his em ployer and the comic tone of the play in masterful fashion. In the more "realistic," less conventional world of the collective's text, one must wonder why Kite (who is nowhere else in their play shown as being stupid) should resort to something so stupid as crude disguise. It seems to me that 403 Brecht has simply taken over the disguise scenes, used them as an ideological weapon (i.e., to show the stupidity of the "bourgeoisie" and the cleverness of the "proletariat"), and has paid no attention whatsoever to whether or not these scenes in any way fit with the rest of Kite's character taken over from Farquhar. Precisely the same kind of un assimilated borrowing is evident in the break in Kite's character as we have already seen in Brecht's use and abuse of the chorus in his reworking of Antigone. Ideological message or straitjacket overwhelms the borrowed materials and prevents adequate aesthetic integration or development of a new character. Closely allied with the collective's ideologically inspired reduction of the moral stature of humanness or intelligence of the upper class and their representatives is its increase in the moral stature and intelligence of its lower-class figures. Where Smith in Farquhar naively be lieves in Kite's predictions of his future glory as "captain of the forges to the grand train of artillery" with "ten 27 shillings a day, and two servants," and a butcher is led by Kite to believe he "will be made a surgeon-general of 27Farquhar, Four Plavs. p. 314 (IV, iii). 404 the whole army" (IV, iii, p. 317), Brecht has the "same men" see through Kite immediately. In Brecht's world, "the proletariat" is too smart, too farsighted to be taken in by Kite's predictions of glory. The scene with the smith (called William in Brecht) runs thus: Kite: Beim Grofcen Train der Artillerie. Du bekommst zwei Burschen und taglich 10 Schilling Sold. So steht es in den Sternen geschrieben, in den Fixsternen. William: Und was steht dr in iiber meine Schmiede? Kite: Was heiftt das? William: Was wird aus meiner Schmiede? Kite: Wo kamen denn die Fixsterne hin, wenn sie sich um jede dreckige Dorfschmiede kummern sollten. ^ William: Dann scheifi ich dir auf deine Fixsterne. Later, when Brecht's Kite disguises himself crudely as a Pfarrer. he is again seen through, this time by the potboy Mike. Again, therefore, the loss of the representative of die herrschende Klasse is the proletariat's gain. As was the case with Sganarelle and Don Juan as well as (but to a lesser extent) with Schweyk and Hitler, the tendency is always to load "the lower classes" with good qualities and "the upper classes" with bad ones. This tendency tends to bring plays constructed on this basis perilously close to political melodrama. The virtuous lower classes oppose the 28Stucke. XII, 275. 405 decadence and corruption of the upper classes. Victory, Brecht would seem to imply, must eventually and inevitably go to the virtuous, to the unsullied, to the paragons of the proletariat. Having heightened the villainy of the straw figures that he uses to represent the upper class, Brecht proceeds to provide us with heroic and moral con trast: the fair-haired boys and girls of the proletariat. More intelligent, more moral than their "betters," they represent a future which is to be filled with sweetness and light. One of the most melodramatic illustrations of the con trast between the good guys and the bad guys in the Brecht play is the reaction of the swan Felix on the river Severn. The swan swims close whenever a good guy like the potboy Mike stands on the bank and swims away when a bad guy like Kite or Brazen approaches (pp. 281-283). The swan's swim ming away at the approach of the villains Kite and Brazen is exactly parallel to the hiss that greets the villains of melodrama. Reinforcing the swan's eye view of the villainy of one group of characters and the goodness of the opposing group is Brecht's view of characters like Mike, Lucy, and the one-legged man. In discussions with "their betters," for instance, this trio always has the last word. The 406 seventeen-year-old Mike seems to run the town's hotel alone. His girl friend, Lucy, is revealed as capable of getting her own way with Justice Balance. In this play (in contrast to the better plays of Brecht), goodness, as Brecht views it, consistently triumphs over Brecht's view of badness. The switches in character demanded by turning the play into virtually a political Lehrstuck demand in turn a re jection of much of the comedy of the Farquhar piece. To illustrate with one clear example: the court scene, which, in Farquhar, is continuously funny with only moderate touches of bitter social commentary, becomes in Pauken und Trompeten a continuous chronicle of woe. Where Farquhar has the coal miner in this scene in liaison with a whore (thus alienating our sympathy for both and allowing us to laugh at them), Brecht has the miner married and makes his case pathetic rather than the least bit humorous. Where Farquhar, in the case of each accused, deliberately alien ates our sympathy, Brecht introduces elements to build up our sympathy for the poor (literally and figuratively) ac cused and deliberately alienates us from the (in his view) harsh oppressors, Kite, Plume, and Balance. In connection with the tendentiousness of the new court scene, it must be remembered that Brecht reduces the number 407 of justices in his play to one. Gone are Farquhar's Scruple and Scale. The names of these men, as a close reading of the court scene shows, are by no means accidental. In Farquhar's scene, whenever there is danger of injustice being done, Scale and Scruple try to prevent it. When Balance tries to send off a man with five children as a re cruit, Scruple exclaims: "But his wife and children, Mr. 29 Balance'." Only the stupidity of the wife prevents Scru ple's scruples being acted upon. The wife hardly helps her case by boldly maintaining: "Look'ee, Mr. Captain, the parish shall get nothing by sending him away, for I won't lose my teeming-time, if there be a man left in the parish." (V, v, p. 338) When the miner is about to be hustled off as a soldier in Farquhar, Justice Scale kindly inquires of the miner's "wife": "Who married you, mistress?" To which the wife replies: "My husband— we agreed that I should call him husband to avoid passing for a whore, and that he should call me wife, to shun going for a soldier." (V, v, pp. 339- 340) Given this woman's response, it is no wonder that even the 29Farquhar, four Plays, p. 338 (V, v). 408 scrupulous Scruple should then declare: "A very pretty couple'. Pray, captain, will you take 'em both?"(V, v, p. 340). Farquhar's scene, it is clear, does not put all good ness on one side and all badness on the other. Though Bal ance, out of patriotic fervor, may be too rash in his judg ments, Scruple and Scale do all they can to see that justice is done. Thus, the "ruling class" is not all bad. Equally clear is the fact that the lower classes are not all good. Both groups are human— a mixture of good and bad. The most important aesthetic feature of this balance in Farquhar's court scene is, I feel, its comic potential. One does not feel the poor are put upon and one can, there fore, freely laugh at them. One does not feel that the justices are vicious and so one can laugh at them also. The whole scene is a game with each side pitting its wits against the other in order to gain its own ends. Absolutely essential to this game as comic game, however, is Farquhar's keeping the stakes of the game low. No one in Farquhar's comic court scene loses or wins much and, therefore, we can laugh at wins and losses quite indiscriminately. Let us now contrast the balance, wit and lightness of Farquhar's 409 30 scene with the "same" scene m Brecht's new context. As background to Brecht's scene, we have an unjust and very real war with real losses, real wounds, real widows. Instead of simple patriotism from Balance, we have patriot ism heavily tinged with mercenary interest. We are also made aware of the fact that only the poor appear in court at all. Those who can afford to (and among these is the banker, Smuggler) have already bribed their way out of jail by the time the court convenes. Further contributing to the tone of the scene is the fact that only one justice tries the prisoners. There is, therefore, no one to offset his overly harsh and frequently unjust judgments. Against this background, once the scene is actually underway, we become immediately aware of how Farquhar's scene has been turned inside out. The new context gives entirely new mean ings to words "taken over" frequently word for word from Farquhar. Instead of the poor revealing actual "guilt" (or at least stupidity) and thus overcoming the justices' scruples about sending them off, the poor in the collec tive's version tend to "prove" that they are not guilty and then to be hustled off by the corrupt justice anyway. For 30Scene found in the Stucke. XII, 320-343. 410 instance, in the German play a suspected pickpocket is ac cused of having stolen a watch from a pimp. The context makes it plain enough that the pimp has quite probably been bribed by Kite and is, therefore, a totally unreliable wit ness. Nevertheless, on the basis of this "evidence" the suspected pickpocket is convicted and "pressed." The scene with the miner is so modified in Brecht that it is clear that he is really married rather than simply consorting with a whore in order to deceive the justices as he does in Far quhar. Thus, Balance becomes clearly unjust in sending this man off as a soldier and his injustice is in no wise funny. With each witness the sparkling and witty dialogue of the English writer has been given a bitter turn that robs it almost entirely of its comic effect. Though Benno Bes- 31 son assured me that the court scene still elicited laugh ter in the revised version in East Berlin and in London, he also admitted that the kind of laughter which it elicited was very different indeed from that which might have been 32 expected had they played the original Farquhar text. The 3^-East Berlin interview with the author in November, 1966. 3^An interesting but, to my mind, unconvincing argument for the general funniness of Brecht's play was advanced by 411 attempt to make the text "fortschrittlicher" seems to have demanded schematization of character. Cardboard cutouts of "good" do verbal battle with {and invariably win against) cardboard cutouts of "evil." Neither the good nor the bad characters seem to me to be at all human, to have any life at all. Everyone seems manipulated by a political conjuror intent on proving his speculative political theses. The political tract is too bitter, in my opinion, to elicit anything but very uneasy laughter and only then from those sharing Brecht's speculative and schematized view of human kind . No doubt aware of the considerable over-all reduction of the humor of The Recruiting Officer. Brecht sought to make up for the comic loss of scenes like the one in court by adding scenes having no ideological import but having a high quotient of comic content. One such scene is the one where Balance uses the threat of reading his daughter's diary in order to get out of her the full history of her Professor Frank L. Borchardt at the 1966 MLA meeting. A lengthened version of Borchardt's arguments will probably appear later this year in the book, Brecht's Transmutations of English Literature, ed. Marcia Allentuck. I find that Borchardt's points on individual spots of humor in the play are well taken only if one ignores the context in which this "humor" is found. 412 33 relationship with Captain Plume. One of the funniest scenes in the Brecht play is the scene in jail where Vik toria, disguised as a soldier in order to be able to follow Plume around, is ordered, in Plume's presence, to strip to the waist and have a wash (pp. 310-311). Unfortunately, brilliant and theatrically effective though these comic additions are, they make up in but small measure for the tendentiousness and just plain dullness of much of the rest of the play. The combination of social commentary with schematized characterization tends to remind one not only of the Brecht of the Lehrstiicke but also, at least in part, of the Brecht of the Dreiaroschenoper. A number of items tend to call to mind a comparison between Brecht's great success of the 1920s and the collectively produced Pauken und Trompeten. Because of the success of the earlier play and my low opin ion of the later one, I should like to point out not only where the two plays are similar but also where they seem to me to be very different. First, the similarities. Again Brecht is working with an eighteenth-century English text that comes to him via Elisabeth Hauptmann. Again "songs" 33Stiicke. XII, 211-212. 413 34 are interspersed throughout the action. Again the origi nal work is, to a certain extent, a condemnation of corrup tion in English life. Again, at least in Brecht's reworking of the piece, we have a world of marriage for gain, of mur der for gain, and a world peopled by pimps, prostitutes, corrupt businessmen and corrupt police. Again we have a deus ex machina ending with the clear implication that everything about the justice dealt out at the end of the play is phony. Again the rich come out ahead and the poor must continue to suffer. Despite the great number of similarities, however, I feel the differences between the two reworkings are of even more significance. The most obvious difference is the lack in the later play of the haunting and catchy music of Weill. "Songs" are there but they are, as Esslin notes, but Brecht's and Rudolf Wagner-Regeny's weak imitations of those 35 from the Dreigroschenoper. Almost as important as the lack of music of the quality that distinguishes the ^^Brecht consistently uses the English word "songs." This usage might well point to a possible English source for his practice of, in American "musical" fashion, inter rupting the dramatic line of a piece with "song numbers." 35Esslin, Brecht. p. 314. 414 Dreigroschenoper is the difference in political orientation of the two plays. Whereas the earlier play complains bit terly of man's inhumanity to man it does not attempt to present a way of improving man's lot. Thus Brecht avoided having the play become dated as the political panacea upon which he might have based it itself became dated. The play shows, and in a way that perhaps no other play has ever quite so effectively shown, that man is worse than the sharks, that he is so basically cruel that he must be con sidered as, in all probability, incorrigible. The blood shed in Russia in the 1930s and in Hungary in 1956 would seem to suggest that cruelty does not exactly fade away magically when a Communist regime comes to power. Yet this magical effect is what Brecht seems to postulate in his Partei Politik oriented plays. In the Dreigroschenoper he presents a vision of man which evidence on both sides of the Iron Curtain tends even now to support. In Pauken he presents a view of man which evidence on both sides of the wall tends to undermine and to date as politically and psychologically naive. Beyond the questionable politics of the Brecht rework ing of Farquhar is the question of its aesthetic merit or lack thereof. As I have frequently argued in the course of 415 this study, however, a play that is politically oriented is not automatically doomed as aesthetic construct. The Drei- groschenoper is a political play and a very successful play. In the Dreiqroschenoper. Brecht would seem to argue the need for a universal humanism to offset man's inhumanity to man. The problem, I feel, with Brecht's reworking of Farquhar's play is not that he has made the play more political but that the type of politics he has inserted is speculative, does not have universal appeal or validity and, most im portant of all, upsets the aesthetic balance of the original without providing any additional aesthetic structural but tressing. As a result, the Brecht play falls between two stools. Because of the heaviness of its political theme, it does not work as a comedy. Because of the basic incon gruity of the trappings of comedy (disguise, type charac ters, foolish behavior, and comic episodes) with the deadly serious theme which Brecht forces to the fore, it does not really work either as Lehrstuck. Whereas in comedy or melo drama, we are willing to accept and delight in caricature, in flat figures wholly good or wholly bad, we demand more roundness of character if we are to accept a play as viable, serious, and generally valid social commentary. It might be argued, of course, that it is surely not 416 sufficient simply to condemn Brecht's bitterness as incom patible with comedy. Justly one could claim that there is considerable bitterness in many of the plays of Moliere or 36 those of Jonson, to name but two prominent practitioners of the art of bitter comedy. All this I am happy to grant, but would argue, nevertheless, that Brecht's "comedy" is significantly different from that of Moliere and Jonson. Moliere deals with aberrations from society's norms. He presents previous ladies, would-be gentlemen, rakes, incom petent doctors, bungling notaries, misers, hypochondriacs, hypocrites, misanthropes— all types to be sure, but all but rarely asked to carry any heavier burden than our laughter at their deviation from the path of reason. For Jonson also, pious hypocrisy, inordinate greed, or any number of other eccentricities provide him with the stuff to make bitter enough comments on some facets of society in his plays but with so much sheer farce also that the bitter pill 36It is really rather surprising that Brecht makes no mention anywhere in his voluminous writings of the bluff craftsman-artist, Ben Jonson. Jonson's Bearbeitunoen. col lective works, passionate involvement in the political events of his own day, lower claps origins, and concern with the physical theatre itself surely would have appealed to Brecht had he known anything of the Elizabethan brick layer 's son. 417 is highly palatable. Both Moli&re and Jonson present types as ludicrous and only occasionally dangerous deviations from a norm. In complete contrast, Brecht presents types as the norm itself. Molibre and Jonson ask us to accept Tartuffe or Zealot-of-the-Land-Busy, Arnolphe or Volpone as grotesque and ludicrous exceptions, exceptions that can be found in virtually any society. Brecht would have us accept Smuggler, Lady Prude, Balance, Kite, Lucy, and Mike in Pauken and Don Juan, Sganarelle, and the rowers in Don Juan as representative examples of society as a whole. I can laugh at the recognizably human foibles of Jonson's and Molihre's type characters, characters that are still with us, still as modern, still as funny as when Jonson and Molifere (and before them the players in Italian Commedia and in Roman and Greek comedy) set them to strut upon the stage. I am frankly bored in Brecht's play by a view of humanity that is flat and stale, by caricatures mouthing second-hand sentiments, by comedy clumsily wrenched to pull at the heartstrings, by calls to social action by characters having no relation to any human society except one existing in the Marxist imagination. In writing of Brecht's clumsy reworking of Shake speare's Coriolanus. Reinhold Grimm notes: 418 Der Dichter hatte sich entweder noch mehr von seiner Vorlage losen miissen, urn einen Gegenentwu^f zu schreiben, oder er hatte seine eigene Konzeption mildern und die Anderungen einschranken miissen.37 Though Grimm specifically rejects the idea that the notion he here expresses applies with equal force to Pauken und Trompeten. I feel the comment is wholly apt with reference to Brecht's reworking of the Farquhar play. Instead of changing the structure to fit the new purpose, Brecht chose the easier but aesthetically unsatisfactory path of exag geration and/or irrelevant addition. By so doing, he re veals not an affinity with Farquhar*s art but a radical, deliberate, and clumsy antipathy to the urbanity, the social and aesthetic balance, the sympathetic and wholly modern view of human foibles and folly that characterize Farquhar's art and keep it alive for us today. Brecht the artisan rather than Brecht the artful artificer or Brecht the artist would seem to have invested his waning talents in this play. In my chapter on the theory of the Bearbeituncen. I noted the similarity of Brecht's practice with certain medieval craftsmen, craftsmen who put their own name on works pro duced in their own studio but by other hands. If it is 37Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 49. 419 true that Brecht had little hand in Pauken und Trompeten. in this product of his school, it nevertheless bears his name. Just as he perhaps bears the glory for excellent plays to which he contributed little, he bears too for this unsuccessful effort "die Verantwortung fur die entstehenden Mangel." 38Huth, Kiinstler und Werkstatt der Soatcrotik. p. 67. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION I began this study with a sketch both of the literary and theatrical background of Bert Brecht and of the various theories advanced (by Brecht and others) concerning Brecht's Bearbeitunqen. Now, after having closely examined a number of Brechtian reworkings and their sources in world litera ture, I should like to pull together the material contained in my last eight chapters. It would seem appropriate to trace where, in general and in particular, the differences noted in my examination of six Bearbeitunqen conflicts with, agrees with, or extends the work of earlier scholars in this field. In order to establish over-all differences between my work and that of other critics it is also necessary for me to summarize features common to all six reworkings. Also apt to the conclusion of such a study is some assessment, however brief, of Brecht's Bearbeitunqen with reference to other prominent examples of Bearbeitunqen in Western 420 421 literature. Are they comparable to the classics of Bear beitunqen. plays of Euripides, Shakespeare, Moli^re, Goethe and Kleist (a comparison that Brecht himself boldly pointed to), or are they not, as Witzmann (among others) would have it, comparable to the Bearbeitunqen to which Brecht compared his own work?^ On questions such as these hangs the final question: which Brecht, the artisan Brecht, the artificer Brecht, or the artist Brecht, engaged his talents in the production of the Bearbeitungen I have closely examined? Perhaps the most striking formal feature of my compari son of six Brecht plays with the works of world literature on which they are based is the fact that in most cases the new work is only indirectly related to the "original" text. With each play examined, at least a translation (sometimes free, sometimes true; sometimes acknowledged, sometimes not) and in some cases even a Bearbeitunq lies between the Stiicke (and/or Berliner Ensemble) texts and the texts on which Brecht's plays are supposedly based. Edward II is approached via Heymel and borrows freely, though not •^For Brecht's statement, please see Stiicke. XI, 118. For Witzmann's commentary of Brecht's claim, please see Witzmann, Antike Tradition im Werk Bertolt Brechts, p. 75. 422 extensively, from Heymel's workmanlike German version of Marlowe. Gorky's Mat' comes to Brecht in part through Hess's translation possibly but certainly through the Stark and Weisenborn dramatization. Hasek's Schweik passes through a number of versions before coming to Brecht. The work of Brod and Reimann and that of Piscator's "playwriting collective" (of which Brecht was himself, of course, a part) was important to Brecht's dramatization and to the subtle change of certain materials received originally from Hasek via Reiner's German translation. From the reworking of Sophocles's Antigone. it can be established with virtual certainty that Sophocles was ignored entirely and only Holderlin's translation of Sophocles used by Brecht. From a number of lengthy "coincidences" between Brecht's text and passages in Neresheimer's translation of Molifere, it is clear that not only did Brecht not approach Moli&re direct ly, but the Mitarbeiter who "besorgt" the translation for Brecht did not need to approach it directly either. The general pattern found with the first five texts led to the expectation that an intermediary text on Farquhar might be on hand. This expectation was not confirmed since no German translation agreeing with the Stucke version of The Recruit ing Officer was found in the archive library or anywhere 423 else. However, there may be a German translation either in Elisabeth Hauptmann's own library or in the files of a Biihnenverlaa. All that can be said definitely at this point is that Brecht did not receive a copy of the original Eng lish play until after the play's premiere and that an inter mediary text, i.e., a translation (missing from the archive but possibly in Elisabeth Hauptmann's possession) was made up by Benno Besson and Elisabeth Hauptmann. In all six cases, therefore, there is no evidence that would prove that Brecht consulted directly any "original" texts involved. Even though we know he had some knowledge of English, there is too much evidence available for it to be denied that he relied (perhaps exclusively) even in this area on inter mediary versions or translations. Often this use of these 2 versions is not properly acknowledged. Another important feature of Brecht's Bearbeitunqen is his "tightening up" of the "original" material. Reinhold ^This pattern of usage of materials without proper acknowledgment is found at each stage of Brecht's career. After Kerr noted the fact that Brecht tended to do this, Brecht boasted of his "grundsatzlichen Laxheit in Fragen geistigen Eigentums" (Schriften. II, 260). This laxity of Brecht's, however, seemed to extend, in the main, only to the work of others. In protecting the copyright of his own work and collecting royalties on it, he seems to have been most strict. 424 Grimm's general contention concerning Brecht's reworking of materials from die Weltliteratur that Brecht "verandert, indem er im formalen Bereich episiert und im inhaltlichen ideologisiert," needs severe modification when applied to the six Bearbeitunqen I have examined. My own contention that Brecht tightens consistently is in clear conflict with Grimm's notion of "Episierung," nowhere adequately defined by Grimm but clearly implying (in his general use of the term) a certain "loosening" of form. Either, as I shall show, we must redefine "epic" or must reject as invalid Grimm's whole general observation. Before suggesting a less rigid and more appropriate definition of "epic," however, it is necessary for me to summarize the structural tightening which I find in Brecht and that is the cause of my dissatis faction with Grimm's definition. Working through the plays chronologically, we find (in all the plays except Pauken und Trompeten) a number of changes that point to consistent tightening of form or structure. In Eduard II. there is a roughly similar amount of scene division in Marlowe and Brecht. Brecht, however, shortens the play by over 400 lines. He combines characters 3Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 76. 425 freely and thus ends up with a considerably smaller cast. The comings and goings of Gaveston which fragment and lengthen Marlowe's play are wholly rejected by Brecht, as are the various changes of jailers of the king in Marlowe. As a result, the play is tighter and rushes more directly to its bloody end. So much for Brecht's treatment of a chronicle or epic play. When we examine Brecht’s formal changes in translating novels (with the novel obviously related to traditional notions of epic) into drama, we again find more tightening than loosening of the Stoff. The number of scenes from Gorky's or Hasek's novels, for instance, is radically re duced by Brecht to form one evening of theater from each of the quite long novels. Characters are combined, firmer relationships between characters are established, and dra matic salience and drive are intensified or created. In Gorky's novel, for instance, we are not only given the home of Pelegeya Vlasova but her home is related to her neighbors 4 and to the whole town in which she lives. No such clear ^Take, for example, the opening scene of Gorky's novel. He opens with what would be called in film a long shot, a panoramic view of the entire town in which Pelegeya Vlasova lives. Only after having established the milieu does he zero in on the Vlasova household. Brecht, in contrast, 426 link exists in Brecht's play. With this omission, a sig nificant "epic" element of Gorky's novel is lost and a sig nificant "dramatic" intensification is gained. Where Gorky paints the whole of Russia on his canvas, Brecht reduces the canvas to a scale concomitant with the limits of the proscenium arch. Exactly the same kind of changes are present in Schwevk. Gone is Hasek's sweeping view of the Austro- Hungarian Empire; in its place, we find a tight dramatic unit with its action taking place overwhelmingly in Prague and even within Prague itself, overwhelmingly in the Kelch. This play is closer in form to Racine than it is to Shake speare or Marlowe, and this despite the fact that it is based on "epic" Stoff. Instead of the crowded scene we associate with epic, we find a small cast closely related each to the other. Likewise, instead of a loose sequence begins with Vlasova and only very gradually and most incom pletely extends his view to include a slightly larger pic ture than her small home. The use of film strips (k la Piscator) in later productions of the play is but scenic embellishment of a piece closer in form to traditional no tions of "drama" than to traditional notions of "epic." 5The final play by the supposed inventor and certainly the loudest exponent of "epic theatre" is less epic than Shakespeare's Henrv the Fifth or Othello or Antony and Cleo patra. 427 of scenes we find a very tight dramatic structure. From an "epic" held together only by the deeds of the "hero," Brecht constructs a "drama" held together with a severeness that is 6 classical Greek, if not Racinian. When Brecht actually turns to a classical Greek text, here too he fails to make the text more epic. His version of Antigone takes place in as narrow a slice of time and space as that of many classical or even neo-classical plays. Instead of being taken to different scenes, we simply hear reports of what has happened elsewhere. Not only does Brecht retain the tight structure of Sophocles, he reduces the play's length and thus tightens it. He reduces also the number of characters. Instead of producing "Entspan- nung" of dramatic drive, he increases it by ending the play with a rapidity that reminds one more of Racine's endings than of those of the Greeks. Aristotle would have been pleased with the dramatic unity of Brecht's play and mighty have used it as an example to be contrasted with his own notions of the epic. Turning to the Brecht reworking of Moliere’s loosely ^Brecht's play is not significantly looser than, for instance, The Frogs. The Eumenides. or even Aiax. 428 constructed play, Pom Juan, we find again that the reworked version is much, much "tighter" than the original. Each character in Brecht is bound tightly to the main thrust of the play's action. The two meetings of the Komtur and Don Juan are reduced to one and thus an increase in the rapidity of the play's ending is gained. Every "excess" word is cut from Moliere and each scene is skillfully tied to every other scene in the play. Boileau, solely on the basis of the "improved" structure, would have preferred Brecht's "play" to Moliere's "epic." It is not possible to fit Brecht's version of Farqu har 's The Recruiting Officer into the pattern that charac terizes the other five reworkings just described. Pauken und Trompeten is simply neither "tighter" nor "looser" than the eighteenth-century English play. Omissions of lines seem to be canceled out by additions of lines. The basic structure of the Brecht play (despite radical changes in content and in tone of content) does not depart signifi cantly from Farquhar's version. Though this play is not tightened, neither is it, in the sense in which Grimm uses the term, eoisiert. Grimm's generalization concerning one of Brecht's basic principles in reworking plays, therefore, is not apt even with reference to Pauken und Trompeten. In no case do Grimm's principles of Episieruncr seem to apply to the plays that I have examined. With at least five of these plays, the Stoff of the original is (to paraphrase Grimm's own observations concerning Don Juan) "nicht lockert" but rather (with the exception of Pauken und Trom peten ) "strafft," "nicht entspannt, sondern mit Spannung ladt," and, finally, "nicht episiert, sondern 'dramati- siert'" (p. 46). It is clear that Grimm's notions of "epic" and "dramatic," if they are to be of any use at all, need to be redefined. As I suggested in Chapter VII of this study, it might be well to abandon the basis of Grimm's distinctions and to seek more appropriate and accurate sup port for his terminology. By so doing, it seems to me, Grimm's vision of Brecht's work as more "epic" than "dra matic" can be at least partially saved. A judicious mixture of Aristotle, Downer, Fergusson and Steiner might be used as a substitute. Fergusson, after citing with approval but also with some bafflement Aristotle's comment on Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus that, in the play, "Tragedy is the imitation of an 7Grimm, Weltliteratur. pp. 45-46. 430 0 action," goes on to argue that Oedipus Tvrannus contains "as much narrative material as Gone with the Wind" (p. 27). Fergusson's observation (on a point that surely did not es cape Aristotle) forces a new look at notions of the "epic" and the "dramatic." It would seem that a "drama" fOedipus Tvrannus) can contain immense quantities of Stoff. and we know from the mock epic that an "epic" can contain quite literally no Stoff at all. We know too that Fergusson has magnificently argued the aptness of Aristotle's definition of "tragedy" (and, by association, "drama") to Dante's Divine Comedy and that it is general custom to accept the loose plays of Shakespeare and Moliere as "drama." Follow ing a somewhat different line and trying to fit plays as different as Prometheus Bound and Antony and Cleopatra within the rubric "drama," Downer speaks of "panoramic" and 9 "focussed" dramas. To further confuse terminology, Steiner notes that: Through some curious optical illusion, we associate temporal breadth with the notion of epic. In actual fact, the events directly related in Homeric epics or ^Francis Fergusson, The Idea of a Theater (Garden City, New York, 1953), p. 17. 9Downer, The Art of the Plav. 431 the Divine Comedy are contracted into a brief span of days or weeks.^0 With Steiner, we come full circle from Fergusson's observa tions on Oedipus Tvrannus. On one hand, the literally and figuratively classical example of the supposedly tight form contains epic materials, whereas, on the other hand, the most sterling and stirring examples of epic are, at least temporally, tight in their construction. Where do Brecht's Bearbeitunqen fit into this welter of conflicting terminol ogy? If we take Downer's sensible division of the play form as a pivot, it seems to me possible to arrange the con flicting terms around the pivot and then apply the sorted materials to Brecht. Oedipus Tvrannus is focussed in its concentration on the king but panoramic in its inclusion of the whole of the king's life. It might be argued that all figures who do appear appear only because they are facets of the king’s total "life." The total life of Shakespeare's Caesar or of Dante's wanderer includes a greater spectrum of the world at large as being part and parcel of his "life'.' In each of these more expansive worlds, the presentation 10Steiner, Tolstov or Dostoevsky, p. 124. 432 of the main character's life involves more people and in volves these people more deeply than the "secondary" char acters are involved in Sophocles. Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony in Shakespeare and the enormous roster of the damned and blessed in Dante are characters each in his own right rather than simply mirrors, each reflecting some as pect of the central figure. Because of this (doing some violence to Downer's use of his own terms), I would call the work of Shakespeare and Dante "panoramic" (and hence tending towards what we, and I am sure this includes Grimm, understand by "epic") and the work of Sophocles "focussed" (and hence tending towards "dramatic"). The work of Brecht, with its frequent rejection of a central hero, tends to diverge from the "focussed work" in the sense in which I have just applied the term "focussed" to Sophocles. Like wise, his work tends to make characters that in the original merely reflected the focussed figure into selbstandige characters. The guard in Antigone. a mere tool in Sopho cles, is given a real part in Brecht.^ The "mob, servants and attendants" in Farquhar play real roles and have names Hit is interesting to note that Anouilh goes even further in giving the guards in his own version of Antigone complete selbstandige lives. 433 in Brecht. The nameless and legion lower class characters of Moliere's Dorn Juan are named and appear in Brecht's ver sion of the same story. The focussed figure Don Juan is placed in panoramic perspective. In their social density, the reworked plays are often more panoramic than their models (the exception to this is, of course, Die Mutter. which becomes in this sense a "focussed play") but are so without being looser or more "epic" in a narrow sense. An analysis of the purely formal aspects of Brecht's reworkings leads inevitably to the meaning of the formal changes. With this transition, we open up the second area Grimm writes of when he says that in the formal realm, Brecht has episiert his materials whereas in content he has 12 ideoloaisiert them. My analysis of panoramic or epic qualities has already hinted at the ideological function of the epic change. Where Brecht wishes to create an heroic, usually "proletariat" figure, he not only reduces the dra matic stature of those about this figure but increases the stature of the central figure himself. The clearest example of this type of change is Die Mutter? the ideological func tion of the formal change is too obvious to need further 12Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 76. 434 discussion. When Brecht wishes to reduce the stature of a "bourgeois" or "aristocratic" "hero" taken over from an earlier work, he reverses his procedure. First, he strips what was previously a central or heroic figure of all good traits and then, working very economically, gives decent traits taken from the earlier hero to figures about the hero. Thus, an earlier hero is either simply lost in the crowd in the new play or is towered over by figures who have benefited from the new playwright's largesse. Again formal change has obvious ideological implications. The Folk will sweep away old "heroes." The Folk will recognize the petti ness and stupidity of the shabby Hinterhof oafs whom Brecht presents as the "true" image (die lautere Wahrheit) of the ruling classes. This type of change is at its explicit 13 clearest in Don Juan and Pauken und Trompeten and at its implicit clearest in Die Mutter. The bad must be swept away? the good shall endure and prevail. It is my intention to present this rather pat aim sympathetically, not sarcas tically. It is my conviction that the pursuit of so naive a humanistic dream can lead as easily to the creation of l3See also, however, the incomplete Bearbeitung of C g r i p l a n . 435 works of great artistic merit as can the pursuit of a purely aesthetic goal lead to the production of base lead. Though directed by an extra-literary consideration, i.e., the dream of a new heaven on this earth, Brecht's reworkings swing be tween aesthetic beauty and unadulterated kitsch. It is clear that the six Brecht Bearbeitunqen that I examine here, representing as they do each major stage of his creative life, reflect both the glorious opportunities and deadly dangers of his commitment, first to a kind of humanistic anarchy, and second to the Siamese twins, Marxism A and B. Without the twins' help, the first Bearbeitung. Eduard II. is sufficiently unclear in its political orien tation that Brecht was not able to reduce the world of the play to (for the non-Marxist) an overly simple schema. The characters are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, and in the terrifying ambiguity of their fate we see a valid image of our (or any) time. In their world (as in ours, East or West), goodness can lead to evil and evil to good. The second Bearbeitung. Die Mutter, shows the heavy hand of the Partei PolitlKer. Bert Brecht, newly won convert to the world view of twin B. The world of the second play does fit a simple schema; the characters of the play have the two-dimensionality of the overly schematized rather than 436 the three- or even four-dimensionality we demand of works of high art. With Schwevk we again enter a world where no panacea is on sale; we again find a world in which die lautere Wahrheit is a most elusive quality and on which no party seems to have a corner. In Schweyk's world, even the most humane of beings must truckle with evil in order to have any chance at all of doing good. In a time darkened by the Vietnam war, or, indeed, by any war where both sides claim that the evil they do is in the name of good, Schweyk can hardly be considered a stranger in our midst. The Antiaone (written in Switzerland by a Brecht poised between America and East Germany) partakes both of the ambiguity of the great exile period and of the Eindeutigkeit that char acterizes his work after his return to East Berlin. The character of Antigone herself has an ambiguity that is directly dependent upon Brecht’s Marxist views. The suc cessfully worked out aesthetic and political ambiguity of Antigone does not, unfortunately, carry over to any other character in the play and the one successfully realized character is not sufficient to carry the whole work. The single touch of ambiguity that saves Antigone from total schematization finds no echo in the last two Bearbeitungen. Don Juan and Pauken und Trompeten. In these plays, as with 437 Die Mutter. Brecht would seem to be an artisan, a man work ing according to formula and carrying out (however willing ly) the orders of his Marxist patrons. Perhaps Shaw, whom Brecht so much admired and whose work surely influenced Brecht, should have the last word on the prospects of plays of a type that might be classed as politische Gebrauchskunst. Shaw writes: . . . when a play depends entirely on a social question— when the struggle in it is between man and a purely legal institution— nothing can prolong its life beyond that of the institution. Thus we see that the drama which deals with the natural forces in human destiny, though not necessarily better than the drama which deals with the political factors, is likely to last longer.^ Yet, adds Shaw, in defense of the political play, the play having a social purpose (and Brecht would certainly agree with Shaw): A Doll's House will be as flat as ditchwater when A Midsummer Night's Dream will be as fresh as paint; but it will have done more work in the world; and that is enough for the highest genius. (p. 63) For Brecht as well as Shaw, the theatre was to become "a factory of thought, a prompter of conscience, an elucidator of social conduct, an armoury against despair l^G. B. Shaw, Shaw on Theatre, ed. E. J. West (New York, 1958), p. 60. 438 15 and dullness, and a temple of the Ascent of Man." Totally, in two of the other plays I examine (Eduard II and Schwevk). and partially, in a third (Antigone). Brecht preaches the need for the "Ascent of Man" in non-hysterical, non-institutionalized, wholly human terms. In Antigone. Brecht seems to hover between artisan working to carry out a given plan and artist hearkening to the dreams and reali ties of man chained between heaven and earth. In Eduard II and in Schwevk. the artist Brecht subscribes to no formula, works for no hire, but simply dreams the lovely humanistic dream of the anarchic twin A, and in the anarchy of human ism creates human and humane characters and works of art. The dream of Schweyk and Frau Kopecka and the dream of Mortimer and of Gaveston, the dream of a world where friend liness and balance govern human affairs, where force will no longer be a necessity, is a dream dreamed on both sides of the Berlin wall. With these plays, Brecht earns the laurel wreath of the poet rather than the hire of the arti san or even that of the artful artificer. I am aware that my commitment to the values (literary 15Maurice Colbourne, The Real Bernard Shaw (New York, 1940), p. 38. 439 and human) of Schwevk and Eduard II and my preferring these values to the ones found in Die Mutter. Don Juan, and Pauken und Trompeten takes me beyond the limits of that which can be wissenschaftlich established. Northrop Frye declares: Value-judgements may be asserted, intuited, assumed, argued about, explained, attacked or defended: what they never can be is demonstrated.*1 -^ Or, as Steiner has observed in his splendidly dogmatic and insightful book on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky: "All criticism 17 is, in its moments of truth, dogmatic." Following Frye and Steiner and being dogmatic, I arrive at the final stage of my work and address myself to the problem of assessing the value of the six Brecht Bearbeitunqen I have examined by measuring them not only against other prominent examples of Bearbeitunqen in Western literature but against Brecht’s best plays. At the outset, I would dismiss Die Mutter. Don Juan, and Pauken und Troiqpeten as remarkable pieces of play- doctoring, definitely worthy of being considered as 16nLiterary Criticism," in The Aims and Methods of Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures, ed. James Thorpe (New York, 1963), p. 62. 17Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, p. 7. "original,1 ' but having little if any life as art. They belong perhaps with the reworkings by Colley Cibber and David Garrick of classical plays (their reworkings of Shakespeare and Moliere, for example). The Antigone rework ing might best be classed in its freedom from the original but general flatness in execution with Pushkin's (in my dogmatic opinion) rather wooden Nachahmuna of Shakespeare, 18 Boris Godunov. Though Pushkin certainly borrows immeasur ably less from Shakespeare than Brecht does from Sophocles- Holderlin, this play is comparable perhaps to the play of Brecht in artistic stature, or rather lack thereof. With Schwevk and Eduard II. Brecht constructs plays that, despite the fact that they often rely word for word on earlier works, reach, independently, the level of the art works on which they are based. With these two plays, Brecht achieves a level of skill and of artistic merit in his reworkings as high as that of Shakespeare in Coriolanus (based, often word for word, on North's translation of Plutarch) or of l®See Mirsky1s comments in his History of Russian Lit erature . p. 98, on Pushkin's dramatic poem. Mirsky feels that Pushkin should have treated his source (Karamzin's History) with greater freedom. Mirsky also complains of the verse form, a rather monotonous Nachahmuna of Shake spearean blank verse. Moliere's or Kleist's reworking of the Amohitruo of Plautus. I would, however, place even Brecht's best reworkings well below Shakespeare's reworking of North-Plutarch in Julius Caesar and below Goethe's reworking of the Iphigenia mater ial. Or, to use a less hazardous, somewhat less personal and dictatorial, and perhaps more readily graspable standard as far as the quality of the plays as plays (as distinct from the plays as Bearbeitunqen) is concerned, it seems fair to compare Brecht's Eduard II with his own Baal or Im Dickicht der Stadte. and to compare his Schwevk with his Leben des Galilei or his Puntila. works which are, in my opinion, but a cut below his best works, works such as Mutter Courage. Der gute Mensch von Sezuan. and Der kauka- sische Kreidekreis. Brecht's Eduard II and Schwevk deserve to be considered both as "original" and as of great artistic merit. They are, despite their frequent use of word for word passages from Marlowe-Heymel and Hasek-Reiner respec tively, as aesthetically "original" as the works upon which they are based. In these plays, "raw materials derived from elsewhere cease to be inert matter and are assimilated into 19 a new structure." In these plays, Brecht the artist 19Rene Wellek, Concepts of Criticism, p. 285. 442 brings his "transforming power" to bear on his "raw mater- ■ ..20 xals." Having examined the comparative problem of measuring six of Brecht's Bearbeitunqen against their numerous and varied sources, having passed beyond the detective work of source finding, and having also commented qualitatively on the texts involved, the task of literary scholarship I set myself in this study is done. I would, in closing, however, like to point out what has not been done in my study, what still needs to be done in areas adjacent to the ones I have examined, and to suggest ways in which the methodological tools which I have used (but which, of course, I did not invent) might be further applied by scholars with different areas of linguistic interest and competence than my own. The most obvious area of Brecht's achievement needing close "comparative" study is Brecht's use of German mater ials. The problem is "comparative" in the most basic sense of the word, even though it falls outside the realm of Comparative Literature as a separate discipline and square ly inside the realm of Germanistik. Plays in this area needing "comparative" attention are: Baal. Die heiliqe 20Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, p. 249. 443 Johanna der Schlachthofe. Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder. Per Hofmeister. Der Prozefl der Jeanne d'Arc zu Rouen 1431 (to list plays printed in the Stucke) and (plays outside the Stucke. so far, but having clear German sources) the Hc.- f aust. Die Bibernelz und Roter Hahn. Per Z.e£byQ.ghne, J&TUq, 21 Katzaraben. and the numerous, early, one-act plays. Another area needing more attention than it has yet been given (by Witzmann among others) is Brecht's use of Latin materials. Here the problem would seem to fall more clearly into the net of Comparative Literature. This area is particularly interesting, as it is the only one (with the partial exception of English) where it is probable that Brecht did at least some of his work with the original texts rather than relying on translations or intermediate rework ings . Additional work (without either the political bias of Witzmann or the statistical methods of the early Bunge) might be done with Die Horatier und die Kuriatier. Das Ver- hor des Lukullus. and Coriolan. The use of Oriental materials by Brecht is surely the richest area of comparative scholarship as yet relatively Just as I was reaching the end of my study, several of these early one-act plays were published in a one-volume addition to the Stucke. 444 unexplored. The critics who simply carelessly mention in passing the overwhelming importance to Brecht of Waley's translations are surely wrong. In discussing oriental in fluences on the style of Die Mutter with Elisabeth Haupt mann in East Berlin, it became quite clear to me that Brecht probably relied at least as heavily, if not far more heavi ly, on the work of the German Sinologist, Wilhelm. The general influence of oriental modes of dramatic expression on the Lehrstucke is particularly in need of a politically unbiased and linguistically competent comparatist. To my knowledge, oriental influences and sources for two of Brecht's very finest plays, Der gute.Mensch von Sezuan and Der kaukasische Kreidekreis. have not yet been examined by a comparatist with the requisite resources. Work in this area could lead to a significant re-evaluation of what is specifically Brecht's contribution to these plays. Grimm is at his scantiest in this area and even the most basic work, therefore, is yet to be properly done. Russian texts not printed in the Stucke but mounted by the Berliner Ensemble and bearing traces of Brecht the art ful artificer's hand are: Wassa Schelesnowa and Das Glockenspiel des Kreml. Finally, Brecht's borrowings from English drama are so 445 numerous and the studies so far done on this topic so spotty that several books need to be written on this theme i 22 alone. Until the various areas of comparative scholarship I have outlined (areas containing as they do most of Brecht's most significant plays) have been skillfully mined by scholars devoted to problems of literary excellence rather than to speculative biography and sociology, we shall not really be in a position to evaluate the final achievement of the dramatist or Stuckeschreiber. Bertolt Brecht. Until we know where and when he specifically applied his own creative powers as artist to his sources rather than simply carried out the somewhat mechanical tasks of the enormously skilled artisan and highly artful artificer that we know him at times to have been; until we are quite clear as to what (in a non-positivistic sense) was "his" and what was borrowed; until we know all these things we have no real basis for joining either the chorus of those who damn him 220ne forthcoming book should do much to fill this gap. Due for publication in late 1967 is Brecht's Transmutations of English Literature, ed. Marcia Allentuck, to be published (in all probability) by Wayne State University Press. The book will contain essays by various hands on Brecht's rela tionship to Marlowe, Shakespeare, Shaw, Synge, Farquhar, and several other English writers. 446 for his lack of originality, or those who praise him un- stintingly, who claim his universal originality, and who conclude that Brecht, despite his many borrowings, remained, 23 in Willett's words, "overwhelmingly himself." As the British critic, Gray, has observed, far too much time has been spent by Brecht critics (such as Willett and Esslin) on aspects of Brecht's life and far too little time on "an examination of the works in themselves, as works of litera- 24 ture." The result of this imbalance is that Brecht xs either praised or damned as an artist for reasons that do not necessarily have any connection whatsoever with his art. My close examination of texts does, I hope, do something to redress the imbalance that Gray has noted. If my close comparative studies of six plays have lifted but a corner of the curtain (of praise and blame) that has obscured the works from us heretofore, then, like the work of Reinhold Grimm that directly inspired my study, "Sie mochten weiterer 25 Forschung als Anregung dienen ..." 23Willett, Theatre. p. 124. 24Ronald Gray, Bertolt Brecht, p. 23. 25Grimm, Weltliteratur. p. 5. B I B L I O G R A P H Y 447 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abel, L. "Art While Being Ruled: Abram Tertz, Brecht and Calderon," Commentary. XXIX (i960), 405ff. Anders, Gunther. Bert Brecht; Gesorache und Erinnerungen. Zurich, 1962. Arendt, Hannah. "The Poet Bertolt Brecht," Brecht: A Col lection of Critical Essavs. ed. Peter Demetz. Engle wood Cliffs, N. J., 1962. Bach, Rudolf. "Marlowe, Eduard II und Bert Brecht," Die Rampe. VII (November 16, 1926), 137-148. Bachmann, Claus H. "Das Christliche und Heidnische: An- merkungen zu Claudel, Brecht, und Pound," Wort in der Zeit. V (1959), 52-54. Baierl, Helmut. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Fuegi, John Burgess (author)

Core Title The Artful Artificer, Bertolt Brecht: A Study Of Six 'Bearbeitungen.'

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, General,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Advisor Malone, David H. (committee chair), Arnold, Aerol (committee member), Spalek, John M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-145377

Unique identifier UC11360226

Identifier 6713743.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-145377 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6713743.pdf

Dmrecord 145377

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Fuegi, John Burgess

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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