{DOWNLOAD} Brecht Collected Plays: Baal, Drums in the Night, In
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Sonya Loftis
SHAKESPEAREAN SURROGATIONS: MODERN DRAMATISTS REWRITE RENAISSANCE DRAMA by SONYA FREEMAN LOFTIS (Under the Direction of Frances Teague) ABSTRACT This study uses performance theory to examine modern dramatic adaptations of Renaissance plays, arguing that modern and postmodern dramatists rewrite the literary past in an act of cultural and theatrical surrogation. The first chapter addresses modern playwrights’ need to destroy and replace their Renaissance forbearers. Presenting the human body, especially the body of the actor or playwright as an “effigy of flesh” that contains cultural memory and embodies the literary canon, these playwrights work metaphorical violence on corpses that represent the literary corpus. The second chapter focuses on Bernard Shaw’s life-long struggle to present himself as a cultural surrogate for Shakespeare, through the performance of his public persona as G.B.S., through his Shakespearean criticism, and through his appropriation of King Lear in Heartbreak House. Shaw’s need to destroy Shakespeare’s corpse and corpus leads to a battle against aestheticism and pessimistic passivity. The third chapter examines Brecht’s adaptation of Marlowe’s Edward II and argues that the alienation effect can be understood as a “surrogation effect,” focusing on images of violent skinning in Brecht’s play, as his characters enact surrogation by tearing the flesh from both corpse and corpus. The fourth chapter explores surrogation as cannibalism in Müller’s Hamletmachine and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, interpreting the father’s corpse and the mother’s womb as symbols for literary adaptation in Müller’s play. The fifth chapter deals with Beckett’s Endgame and Happy Days, reading Endgame as an adaptation of The Tempest and arguing that the disembodied characters in Happy Days represent the erasure of the Shakespearean past. -
Bertolt Brecht B
Bertolt Brecht b. Feb. 10, 1898, Augsburg d. Aug. 14, 1956, East Berlin EUGEN BERTHOLD FRIEDRICH BRECHT, German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Brecht was, first, a superior poet, with a command of many styles and moods. As a playwright he was an intensive worker, a restless piecer-together of ideas not always his own (The Threepenny Opera is based on John Gay's Beggar's Opera, and Edward II on Marlowe), a sardonic humorist, and a man of rare musical and visual awareness; but he was often bad at creating living characters or at giving his plays tension and shape. As a producer he liked lightness, clarity, and firmly knotted narrative sequence; a perfectionist, he forced the German theatre, against its nature, to underplay. As a theoretician he made principles out of his preferences--and even out of his faults. Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied medicine (Munich, 1917-21), and served in an army hospital (1918). From this period date his first play, Baal (produced 1923); his first success, Trommeln in der Nacht (Kleist Preis, 1922; Drums in the Night); the poems and songs collected as Die Hauspostille (1927; A Manual of Piety, 1966), his first professional production (Edward II, 1924); and his admiration for Wedekind, Rimbaud, Villon, and Kipling. During this period he also developed a violently antibourgeois attitude that reflected his generation's deep disappointment in the civilization that had come crashing down at the end of World War I. -
Mother Courage and Her Children
1 These notes are designed as a reference for students and teachers who have viewed Belvoir’s 2015 production of Mother Courage and Her Children. They intend to support discussion of this particular production in the classroom. Contents i. Production credits ii. Key biographies iii. Promotional image and marketing copy for the production iv. Character list v. Scene-by-scene synopsis of Michael Gow’s translation of Mother Courage and Her Children (2015) vi. A note on the translation and Eamon’s motivation to work on the play vii. A note on the time, place and production design viii. Set and costume design images ix. A note on Brecht, Belvoir and this production x. A note on the music and songs xi. The character of Mother Courage xii. Plucking up her courage: Robyn Nevin in conversation with Clive Paget (Limelight, June 2015) xiii. Mother Courage: A triumph for Robyn Nevin John McCallum (The Australian, June 2015) xiv. Will’s Final Speech: An extract from Michael Gow’s play Once in Royal David’s City, which premiered at Belvoir in February 2014 (Mother Courage and Her Children show program, 2015) xv. Brecht on the web: Online resources suggested by Belvoir Brecht & Political Theatre tutor Shannon Murphy xvi. Interview with Shannon Murphy (Radio National, March 2015) xvii. Acknowledgements 2 Belvoir presents MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN By BERTOLT BRECHT Translation MICHAEL GOW Music Composition STEFAN GREGORY Director EAMON FLACK Set Designer ROBERT COUSINS Costume Designer ALICE BABIDGE Lighting Designer BENJAMIN CISTERNE Fight Choreographer -
The Treatment of Myth in Modern Drama
The Treatment ofMyth in Modern Drama (1923-1950): Towards a Typology ofMethods Aspasia Palouka Department of Drama Goldsmiths College of London University Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy April,2005 Abstract of Thesis The Treatment ofMyth in Modern Drama (1923-1950): Towards a Typology of Methods Between the years 1923 and 1950, a great number of plays employed myth as subject matter or theme. The thesis examines this phenomenon in relation: a) to the modernist movement and its fascination with myth and mythological motifs, b) in relation to the efforts of modernist artists to find means appropriate to non-naturalistic modes of expression. Criticism up to now has surveyed myth-plays focusing on the thematic and ideological treatment of myths (psychoanalytic, religious, political, etc). This thesis proposes a new approach to this issue: it concentrates on techniques of incorporating myth in the structure of a play and on how myth functions within and through it. It identifies three prevailing techniques as methods. These methods form exclusive categories within the period under discussion. Therefore, plays are grouped according to method in order to explore a series of different dramaturgical strategies. Each of the three methods itself reflects a self-conscious attitude towards myth. Therefore, the thesis does not limit itself merely to investigating methods of incorporating myths into dramatic structures. It also examines the ideological sub stratum of those attitudes as they determine the discourses developed. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 4 Dedication 5 1. Introduction 6 2. Joyce, Eliot and the Development of the 'Mythical Method' 24 3. -
A/8Fj S/O. Nih
37<? A/8fJ s/o. niH EDUCATION THROUGH ALIENATION: ELEMENTS OF GESTALTIST LEARNING THEORY IN SELECTED PLAYS OF BERTOLT BRECHT DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION By Ted Duncan Starnes Denton, Texas December, 1982 Cj Copyright by Ted Duncan Starnes 1982 Starnes, Ted Duncan, Education Through Alienation; Elements of Gestaltist Learning Theory in Selected Plays of Bertolt Brecht. Doctor of Education (College Teaching of Theatre), December, 1982, 191 pp., bibliography, 184 titles. This study explored the relationship between the dramatic and the educational theories developed by Bertolt Brecht and selected twentieth-century theories of pedagogy. A survey of Brecht's life and works revealed that although the stimulus-response theories of the associationist psy- chologists were inappropriate to Brecht's concepts, the three principal aspects of Gestaltism—perception, insight, and life space, as formulated by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Lewin—seemed profoundly related to Brecht's concern with man's ability to perceive and to learn about his environment. Brecht strove to create perceptual images of historical environments. The characters, who represented various ideologies and philosophies in situations which stimulated insightful learning, struggled with life spaces that accu- rately resembled life outside the theatre. Thus, Brecht utilized elements of the theories of perception, insight, and life space in his dramas as he strove to force his audiences to perceive the characters' environments, to grasp the significance and relationships between the characters' environments and their own social milieu, and to recognize those influences in one's life space which attract or repel the individual. -
Bertolt Brecht - Poems
Classic Poetry Series Bertolt Brecht - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Bertolt Brecht(10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956) Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht; was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble — the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife, long-time collaborator and actress Helene Weigel. <b>Life and Career</b> Bavaria (1898–1924) Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, (about 50 miles (80 km) north- west of Munich) to a conventionally-devout Protestant mother and a Catholic father (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. Thanks to his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would impact on his writing throughout his life. From her, too, came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama. Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied. At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership, Neher designing many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helping to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre. When he was 16, the First World War broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army". -
A Transatlantic Dialogue on the Aesthetics of Commitment Within Modernist Political Theatre
A Thorn in the Body Politic: A transatlantic dialogue on the aesthetics of commitment within modernist political theatre. Ourania Karoula PhD English Literature The University of Edinburgh 2009 Declaration I, Ourania Karoula, declare, that except for all citations referenced in the text, the work contained herein is my own. 2 Abstract of Thesis This thesis investigates the transatlantic manifestation of the debate regarding the aesthetics of commitment in the modernist literary and theatrical tradition. Within the debate theatre occupies a privileged position since (because of its two-fold roles both as theory and performance) it allows a critique both of performative conventions and methods and also a dialectical consideration of the audience’s socio-political consciousness. The debate, often referred to as form versus content – schematically re-written as ‘autonomy’ versus ‘commitment’ – and its transatlantic evaluation are central to modernist aesthetics, as they bring into question the established modes of perceiving and discussing the issue. A parallel close reading will reveal the closely related development of the European and the American traditions and evaluate their critical strengths and shortcomings. The first part of the thesis discusses the positions of Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin in tandem with those of the New York Intellectuals, especially as expressed in the latters’ writings in the Partisan Review. The second part extends this transatlantic dialogue through a consideration of the theatrical works of the New York Living Newspaper unit of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) in the USA and Bertolt Brecht’s vision of and relationship with ‘Americana’ as revealed through such plays as In the Jungle of Cities, Man Equals Man, St Joan of the Stockyards and the 1947 version of Galileo. -
Brecht Chronology
Brecht Chronology 1898 10-Feb Bertolt Brecht born in Augsburg, Bavaria. 1914 Brecht's first poems published. World War I begins. 1917 Brecht enrolls as a medical student at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. 1918 Brecht drafted into World War I as a medical orderly. Brecht writes first play, Baal. 11-Nov Armistice Day, WWI hostilities end. 1919 Brecht has son, Frank with girlfriend, Paula Banholzer. Adolf Hitler joins Deutsche Arbeiterpartei later known as Nationalsozialis- tische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist Party). 1922 Drums in the Night opens in Munich. Brecht wins Kleist Prize. 3-Nov Brecht marries opera singer, Marianne Zoff. 180 An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht 1923 Brecht has daughter, Hanne Hiob, with Zoff. Hiob later becomes a well- known German actor. In the Jungle of Cities premieres in Munich. Brecht begins collaborations with Lion Feuchtwanger. Brecht writes film script, Mysteries of a Barbershop. It stars Karl Valentin and is directed by Erich Engel. Baal premieres in Leipzig. 8-9-Nov Hitler leads the unsuccessful ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ in Munich. 1924 Brecht moves to Berlin. Brecht directs an adaptation of Marlow's Edward the Second, written by him- self and Feuchtwanger. Brecht meets future wife, actress Helene Weigel. They have a son, Stefan. Brecht begins collaborations with Elisabeth Hauptmann. 1926 Man Equals Man premieres in Darmstadt. Brecht begins reading Marx. 1927 Brecht divorces Zoff. Brecht's Hauspostille (Manual of Piety), a volume of poetry is published. Brecht begins work with innovative director, Erwin Piscator. 1928 The Threepenny Opera opens in Berlin with music by Kurt Weill. -
Brecht and Cabaret
3 OLIVER DOUBLE AND MICHAEL WILSON Brecht and cabaret One of the most popular anecdotes about Brecht’s early years in Munich involves a significant encounter with the popular comedian Karl Valentin (1882–1948). In October 1922, following on from the success the previous month of the première of Drums in the Night at the Munich Kammerspiele, Brecht was appointed to the dramaturgical team of the theatre and was immediately given the task of rewriting and adapting Marlowe’s Edward II. The writing took place over the winter of 1922/3, but the eight-week rehearsal period, then the longest in the Kammerspiele’s history, did not start until January 1924. In one of his conversations with the essayist and critic Walter Benjamin on 29 June 1938, Brecht told the story of how ‘the idea of Epic Theatre first came into his head’ at one of these rehearsals: The battle in the play is supposed to occupy the stage for three-quarters of an hour. Brecht couldn’t stage manage the soldiers, and neither could Asya [Lacis], his production assistant. Finally he turned in despair to Karl Valentin, at that time one of his closest friends, who was attending the rehearsal, and asked him: ‘Well, what is it? What’s the truth about these soldiers? What about them?’ Valentin: ‘They’re pale, they’re scared, that’s what!’ The remark settled the issue, Brecht adding: ‘They’re tired.’ Whereupon the soldiers’ faces were thickly made up with chalk, and that was the day the production’s style was determined.1 A few years later, Brecht himself wrote a version of the same story in The Messingkauf Dialogues: ‘When the Augsburger was producing his first play, which included a thirty minutes’ battle, he asked Valentin what he ought to do with the soldiers. -
Women in Brecht and Expressionism Delia Pollock
Fall 1989 85 New Man to New Woman: Women In Brecht and Expressionism Delia Pollock Following hard on the heels of expressionism, Brecht's early work was shaped by expressionism's apocalyptic fervor, its sense that modern "progress" was proving the source of its own downfall, and its charge to find or create a "New Man"~a social savior and progenitor of a more benevolent form of human relations than the modern period had recently witnessed. Critics debate the nature of expressionism's influence. Some insist that Brecht entirely rejected expressionism and others-like Theodor Adorno-insist that early epic and expressionist theatre were similarly "infantile."1 But no critic has fully recognized the extent to which Brecht develops the emergent but stalemated figure of the "New Woman" in late expressionism.2 Throughout his work, Brecht modifies and extends the expressionist fantasy that a woman will bear the fruits of the New Man's inspiration and consequently enable Utopian regeneration. He does so in part by engaging or, in his words, "dialecticizing" the difference between what appear to be the late expressionist woman's two alternatives: passive adoration and cold activism. From the satirical image of Anna in Drums in the Night through the comic- utopian education of Pelagea in The Mother and the ironic juxtaposition of Kattrin and Mother Courage in Mother Courage, Brecht breaks down the opposition between love and social power in which the late expressionist woman seems trapped. Brecht turns the opposition into a contradiction. He locates the materialist and idealist interests that polarized expressionism in and between female characters. -
Brecht and China: Towards an Ethical Subject
This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Brecht and China: towards an ethical subject Zheng, Jie 2011 Zheng, J. (2011). Brecht and China: towards an ethical subject. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/46472 https://doi.org/10.32657/10356/46472 Downloaded on 02 Oct 2021 00:28:31 SGT AN ETHICAL BRECHT AND CHINA: TOWARDS SUBJECT BRECHT AND CHINA: TOWARDS AN ETHICAL SUBJECT ZHENG JIE ZHENG JIE ZHENG JIE 2011 2011 SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 2011 Brecht and China: Towards an Ethical Subject Zheng Jie School of Humanities and Social Sciences A thesis submitted to the Nanyang Technological University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Daniel Keith Jernigan, without whom I could never have survived through all hardship in dissertation writing. He not only guided me in my study and research but also provided unwavering moral support. His expertise and his meticulous scholarship have been of great value for me. One simply couldn’t wish for a more inspiring, responsible and caring teacher. I thank Dr. Neil Murphy for his continuous support in the Ph.D. program, which made my research life enjoyable. I own a great debt of gratitude to those who gave valuable criticisms and suggestions throughout my writing: Dr. Bede Tregear Scott, Dr. John Richard Tangney, Dr. Kwok Kian Woon, Dr. Sim Wai Chew and Dr. Sy Ren Quah. -
The Slow Frenzy of Brecht's in the Jungle of Cities Published on February 20, 1998 by Michelle Powell
The Slow Frenzy of Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities Published on February 20, 1998 by Michelle Powell Winter, 1998 marks the arrival on the American Repertory Theater's Loeb stage of Robert Woodruff, a director known for creating stunning visual productions that illuminate classic texts. Woodruff has a keen ability to explore difficult plays, and, with the aid of Paul Schmidt's new translation, he will bring his magic skills to bear on one of Bertolt Brecht's most enigmatic works: In the Jungle of Cities. Woodruff, an artist with a vision and a message, hopes to reveal both the beautiful and the grotesque to those who witness his productions. Michelle Powell: Since in recent years you directed Baal and Man is Man, Jungle is not your first encounter with Brecht's early work. Do Brecht's early plays hold more interest for you than his later, more famous works? Robert Woodruff: Yes, although it is not something I consider consciously. My attraction to Brecht's first attempts at playwriting is the same as it would be to a young poet. At that point, Brecht was searching for a voice. For that reason, plays like Jungle have a raw energy to them, a sense of space between the lines that suggest a young writer looking for a way to communicate. This "space" is an invitation to other artists to stage his plays. When thinking of this "space between the lines," I compare In the Jungle of Cities or Baal, for example, to Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, or Mother Courage.