Bertolt Brecht 18981956

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Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
• 20th century political theatre

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Brecht Biography

• German socialist playwright and poet
• Studied medicine at college
• Turned to poetry and theatre worked for
  Reinhardt and Piscator in Berlin
• Weimar Republic and depression of 20s
• Reads Marx, envisions a new dramaturgy
• Threepenny Opera and Mahagonny with Kurt Weill.
• Exile 1933-47 41-47 in USA back to East Germany
  after HUAC testimony
• Berliner Ensemble hes a playwright, director,
  and theorist of the stage til his death in 56.

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Brechts Dramaturgy

• Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a
  hammer with which to shape it.
• Audience as active participants like a boxing
  match, smoking, arguing
• Highly theatrical plays episodic structure,
  songs, narrations. (Verfremdungseffekt
  Alienation)
• View means of production actors distinct from
  roles see lights, screens, fragmented sets
• Placards, projections or narration tells us the
  plot ahead of time. Focus on HOW, not WHAT.
• Disrupt identification typical of realism with
  song, acting style, direct address
• Anti-heroes view poor choices to throw focus to
  alternatives, disrupt ID

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Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

• Written 1941, 1st performed 1958
• Ui is a Chicago mobster, but represents Hitler
• Each major character and event parallels a Nazi
  or an event of 30s Germany

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Key Parallels

• Warehouse Fire (Scene 8) Reichstag Fire was used
  to eliminate Communist opposition and legitimized
  Hitlers right to restrict personal liberty
• Assassination of Roma (Scene 14) Night of the
  Long Knives was Hitlers purge of the SA

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Key Characters

• Ernesto Roma Ernst Rohm, Commander and
  Co-Founder of the Nazi SA
• Old Dogsborough President Paul von Hindenburg,
  appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany
• Ignatius Dullfeet Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
  of Austria who was assassinated by Austrian
  Nazis in preparation for the Anschluss (or
  annexation of Austria into Greater Germany)

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The End

• If we could learn to look instead of gawking,
  Wed see the horror in the heart of farce, If
  only we could act instead of talking, We wouldnt
  always end up on our arse. This was the thing
  that nearly had us mastered Dont yet rejoice in
  his defeat, you men! Although the world stood up
  and stopped the bastard, The bitch that bore him
  is in heat again. (Arturo Ui, Brecht, 128)