Dialectics in the Theatre

D iscussion o f\B rech t’s d ram atic theory has centred on the triple concepts of ‘ep\c thea tre ’, Verfremdung and Gestus, and described the techniques of staging, acting, and the in tended social function of B rech t’s work in these term s. For an English-speaking reader Jo h n W ille tt’s Brecht on Theatre rem ains the best introduction to B rech t’s own theoretical statem ents and to his developing aesthetic. It is sym ptom atic of m uch of the com m entary and criticism of Brecht, how ever, tha t W illett m arginalises B rech t’s use of a different theoretical vocabulary draw n from M arxist dialectics, and tha t in the process he narrows the provenance of the m ore custom ary term s. In the last years of his life in Berlin, for exam ple, Brecht conceived a series of nine articles (consisting of a le tter, notes and dialogues) u nder the general head ing of ‘Dialectics in the th e a tre ’. 1 W illett prints two of these, ‘T he study of the first scene of S hakespeare’s Coriolanus, and ‘C onversation about being forced into em p a th y ’, although it is not im m ediately clear from their placing in his book that they belong together with other essays under a com m on heading. (B T, pp. 252-65, 270-1) T he rem aining essays are titled ‘R elative h as te ’ (O n O strovsky’s Zeihtochter p roduced in D ecem ber 1955);‘A diversion4 (on a revision to The Caucasian Chalk Circle); ‘A no ther case of applied dialectics’ (on the playing of F rau C a rra r in Frau Carrar’s Rifles); ‘L etter to the actor playing the young H o rd er in Winterschlachi* (a play by Jo hann es R Becher p roduced by Brecht in J a n u a ry 1955); ‘Mother Courage perform ed in two w ays’; ‘An exam ple of scenic invention through the perception of e rro r’ (on the Chinese agit-prop play Hirse filr die Achte, perform ed by the Berliner Ensem ble on 1 April 1954); and ‘C oncerning the p resen ta­ tion of charac ter’ (a note on the same play). W illett lists these essays in the ‘editorial n o te ’ he chooses to w rite on ‘Dialectics in the

th e a tre ’ (this is a one and a half page section separated from the two essays he prints referred to above). H ere he presents B rech t’s prefatory note to the series and quotes from a set of fragm entary notes titled posthum ously‘Epic theatre and dialectical th e a tre ’. Elsewhere he quotes from the sam e notes, from o ther later notes including an article titled ‘Socialist realism in the th e a tre ’ and includes a translation of ‘C an the present-day world be reproduced by m eans of th ea tre? ’ (B T, pp. 281, 269-70, 274-5)

These statem ents and essays are quite clearly related to B rech t’s m ain them e and indeed have appeared in his published Collected Works along with several others, including pieces titled ‘Notes on dialectics in the th e a tre ’ and ‘Dialectical aspects’ in a 73-page section given the overall title ‘Dialectics in the theatre 1951 -1 9 5 6 ’. W illett confines him self in his ‘editorial no te’ to the nine essays referred to; he says that the Coriolanus discussion ‘is the backbone of the whole affair’, that three of these essays ( ‘A nother case of applied dialectics’ and the two notes on Hirsefilr dieAchte) ‘are seem ingly not even by B rech t’ and that as a whole the collection ‘ is a miscellaneous one which is far from presenting a coherent a rg u m e n t’. ‘It is’ he says,‘som ething of a m akeshift, and interim report’. (BT, p. 282) These comm ents are prefaced, finally, by an opening rem ark suggesting that the reorientation of Brecht’s theory and the substitu tion of a ‘d ialectical’ for an ‘ep ic’ theatre which it involved, was lim ited to ‘the last year of his life’. (B T, p. 281)

Two points can be m ade quickly in response to this. It should be clear, firstly, from w hat has been said, tha t W illett’s selective and separated presentation of the relevant late essays by Brecht, itself contributes to an im pression of incoherence. Secondly, the dates of the nine essays alone m ake it quite clear that the revision of Brecht’s theory, if not the title of the series, was in progress from 1951. O ther essays, under o ther titles, bu t contain ing as a simple test a direct reference to dialectics, suggest tha t this revision had begun even earlier, in the late 1940s. T o set these essays along with o ther still earlier exam ples of B rech t’s study and use of dialectics produces a different graph of his theoretical developm ent than the custom ary one which sees dialectics as appearing in the early 1930s, only to im m ediately fade, then d isappear, before surfacing again in the very last years of B rech t’s life.