Brecht's Weimar, 1919 - 1926

 Notes from 9/7/12 Brecht lecture, part  2 of 2

Rise of Weimar culture—

Kaiser steps down in favor of nominally representative government, but there is hyper-inflation, devastation, vast income disparity.

Response in art: all across Europe, formal naturalism in fine and performing arts giving way to new modernist and avant-garde styles (including first German-specific innovations)

Expressionism (in art and performance):

·     rejects naturalism,

·     embrace “telegraphese” and

·     subjectivity of experience

·     Abstract vs. Primitive:

Definition of

1.           Nietzschean “rausch”

2.           Kant autonomy of art

PRIMITIVE EXPRESSIONISM

Nietzchean “rausch”

“Schrei”

Hot

Immediacy

Primitive art: Fauvism

Expression

Distortion

Chaos

Intensity

Ritual

Ecstatic lyricism

Color energy

Painted sets

Lighting defines mood

Leads to... Artaud, Living Theater

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

Kantian autonomy of work of art

Voice

Cool

Distance

Cubism

Form

Symmetry

Geometry

Clarity

Confrontation

Debate

Color symbolism

Architectural sets

Lighting defines spaces

Leads to... Beckett, Brecht

“This Expressionism is horrible. All feeling for the beautifully rounded or splendidly crude human body languishes like the hope of peace. The intellect crushes vitality all along the line. Mystical, clever, consumptive, ecstatic pretentiousness runs rampant, and it all stinks of garlic. … I am starting to work with very old material that’s been tested a thousand times over, and I’m doing what I want, even if what I want is bad. I’m a materialist and a lout and a proletarian and a conservative anarchist, and I don't write for the press but for myself and you and the Japanese.”

—Brecht, letter to Caspar Neher, 18 June, 1918

The Artist as Magpie 

Brecht collects concepts and techniques from a wide range of POPULAR, ROUGH theater styles that already exist.

No single thing he does is “New” but the pastiche he creates from the parts is both totally original and totally of its time. This is what makes him a master and is the reason we study him.

“The popular theatre, freed of unity of style, actually speaks a very sophisticated and stylish language: a popular audience usually has no difficulty in accepting inconsistencies of accent and dress, or in darting between mime and dialogue, realism and suggestion.”

—Peter Brook

“It is always the Popular Theatre that saves the day. Through the ages it has taken many forms, and there is only one factor that they all have in common—a roughness. ...theatre that is not in a theatre, ...on carts, on wagons, on trestles, audiences standing, drinking, ... joining in, answering back.”

—Peter Brook

Brecht's influences are wide-ranging, but are all popular, rough theater sources:

Shakespeare

• No original texts—all “lifted” from known sources
• Primacy of text over sets/costumes, etc.
• Direct address of audience
• Speaks to audiences of all classes—physical, bawdy
• Inconsistencies/improbabilities

 

Street Theater

• Moritaten-Sänger
• Grab and keep people’s attention
• Narrate rather than impersonate
• Overt moral purpose
• Music important and visible
• No “illusion of the theatre”
• Attractive to the masses

Clowning
(Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt)


Cabaret/Vaudeville

• Collage nature of performance
• Emcee
• Political commentary mixed with pure entertainment
• Attractive to wide range of classes
• Audience comfort: can move around and eat/drink

Russian Constructivism 

• Art
• Theater: political, scientific (Biomechanics)

 

"Orientalism" and puppet theater

• Economy of action & character
• Clarity of focus
• Exaggeration
• People playing different genders

Amerikanismus

Sport

• Appeals to all classes
• Actively involved audience that is not “hypnotized” but analytical
• View from all sides
• Freedom of movement for audience
• You can smoke and drink
• Fun

Political Theater

“We came out of the filth of the war (WWI), we saw a people that was half-starved and tormented to death. We saw how their leaders were ruthlessly murdered, we saw, wherever we looked, injustice, exploitation, torture, blood… Our art was created from a knowledge of reality and inspired by the will to replace this reality. We founded political theatre.”

—Erwin Piscator

My view is that all theater is political—all theater has a world view that it is trying to discuss with and demonstrate to  the audience. "Political theater" is different because it is open about that fact.