ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for rehabilitating the ‘Lehrstück’ (‘learning play’) by examining the genre’s prototype: Bertolt Brecht’s Die Maßnahme (The Decision). Rather than formulate an obvious political doctrine, the Lehrstück produces political ambivalence through dramatic ambiguity. This line of argument is presented in three stages. Firstly, the following will briefly describe the general structure of the Lehrstück. Secondly, it examines the concept of political ambivalence in Jacques Rancière’s political aesthetics. And, thirdly, the chapter analyzes Die Maßnahme, a play which negotiates a prototypical political dilemma because it asks whether the homo politicus may be killed. Using a multi-level structure of representation, on the first level, the play is set during a political tribunal which asks four agitators to re-enact, in a play within a play, that is, on the second level, the events that led to them killing a young comrade. The events depicted on the second level seem to function as a defence on the first level. But the system of representational levels gradually collapses, as does the justification of the Maßnahme. Eventually, provocation supersedes legitimation; both the party tribunal and the Lehrstück are ambiguous. Thus, dramatic ambiguity leads to political ambivalence.
