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  • Bertolt Brecht: Performance and Philosophy
  • James M. Brandon
Bertolt Brecht: Performance and Philosophy. Edited by Gad Kaynar and Linda Ben-Zvi . Tel Aviv: Assaph Books, 2005; pp. xx + 210. $35.00 paper.

This collection of essays emerged from the March 2004 conference, "Bertolt Brecht: Theatre, Philosophy, Life," held at Tel Aviv University. While almost all of the authors in this volume have had some kind of professional affiliation with Tel Aviv University, and this might, at first glance, seem to limit the scope of the book, in fact the multidisciplinary nature of the conference and the specialized expertise of the various writers have combined to bring about a [End Page 330] solid and vital contribution to the canon of Brecht scholarship. Bertolt Brecht: Performance and Philosophy contains a number of considerations of Brecht as, primarily, a philosopher. This approach (related to the one found in the Tom Kuhn and Steve Giles edited collection of Brecht's writings, Brecht on Art and Politics [Methuen, 2003]) forcefully opens up the discussion of Brecht into extra-theatrical realms, and is a useful way to consider the totality of Brecht's discourse, influence, and impact upon many facets of the world: theatrical, political, and intellectual.

Most collections of this sort contain studies of varying quality, but while there are some articles here that may be more useful for scholars and practitioners, all are well written, properly focused, and vital to the collection. Even so, the reader will find it convenient to consider each of these articles as an entity in and of itself. Reflecting the nature of the conference from which it emerged, the editors of Bertolt Brecht: Performance and Philosophy, and indeed the authors themselves, do a nice job of showing the intertextual relations of the various studies, but they can be easily considered individually.

The editors have divided the collection into two parts: eight articles under the heading of "Philosophy, Theory, and Performance," and five articles under the heading of "Philosophy and Strategy." In the former section, the focus is provided in the lead article by Freddie Rokem: "Philosophy and Performance: Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht in Conversation about Franz Kafka." Rokem sets the tone by demonstrating how Brecht's philosophy manifests itself in his performative world, and how this can "serve as a matrix for theatrical theory, strategies and rhetoric upon which to be modeled" (x). The latter section works through these ideas as they manifest themselves in specific works, both by Brecht and his later followers.

In addition to Rokem's essay, the first section of the book also contains an insightful contribution by renowned Brecht scholar Joachim Fiebach. But the one essay that truly stands out in the first section is Ilit Ferber's "Interruptions in Brecht and Benjamin: The Case of Brecht's Radio Plays." Here the author demonstrates how moments of silence and interruption are integral to Brecht's notion of Epic Theatre, and shows the unique ways in which Brecht's radio plays provide opportunities for this phenomenon. Through a useful and insightful analysis of The Trial of Lucullus and The Lindbergh Flight, Ferber concludes that radio drama "endows its listeners, through its continuous interruptions, with the ability to transfigure into critical subjects" (50). Thus Brecht's radio plays provide sites for study where his theory and practice are closely entwined, and Ferber is successful in explicating these intriguing examples of Brecht's creative work.

While the first eight essays contain the intellectual framework for the discussion, it is the latter section that includes the most accessible and useful contributions to the collection, particularly in the articles by Dror Harari, Millie Taylor, Tom Lewy, and Shimon Levy. Harari's "Mother Courage and Her (Tactical) Practice of Everyday War: An Alternative Reading in Six Parts" is a delightfully stylish reexamination of one of Brecht's most famous plays. Harari articulates how Brecht uses his protagonist to reinvent Marxism, and the result is a more "rational" and "practical" (146) Marxism than is found in Brecht's earlier plays. Hence, "Mother Courage is neither a victim of war nor a parasite. Rather, Courage is a pragmatic mother" (147). Her approach mimics Brecht's maturing approach towards Marxism...

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