Bertolt Brecht Arbeitsjournal ed. by Werner Hecht (review)

118 BOOK REVIEWS ing, the word "cruelty" means to create, to breathe, to cry - any act is cruelty. Everything that is not dormant in life is cruel. When Brahma, for example, left his state of rest, he suffered. When a child is born, it knows pain. Death, transformation , thirst, love, appetite are all cruelties. The Theatre of Cruelty production must contain "physical" and "objective" elements, capable of acting and reacting upon everybody's sensibilities: screams, apparitions, surprises, magic, beauty, rituals, harmony, movement, colors, etc. Artaud relegated the word to its proper place as one of the ways of expressing and acting upon man's inner world. If words are to be effective, they must be manipulated like solid objects; they must act and react upon each other and upon the spectator. The word is a concrete reality and it must be uttered with the vehemence of the emotion that gave birth to it. Words are not merely a means ofcommunication. Artaud sought to restore to them their primitive functions and qualities, their incantatory nature, supernatural aura, mesmerising and magical faculties (as in hymns, prayers, etc.) - all lost to modern man. To recreate the world of the word necessitated first its destruction. Established words, meanings and sounds would have to be shattered before new content could emerge. Words then become as hieroglyphics, a visual translation of certain mysterious elements within man and the universe. Artaud had expressed a desire to dramatize one of the Marquis de Sade's tales for his Theatre of Cruelty venture. Tonelli believes that in de Sade's narrative works "evil reigns in an autonomous and almost gratuitous manner" but in his play~, it is subservient to the plot. In La Nouvelle Justine evil triumphs, and therefore this work is charged with mythical ramifications. Vitrac's Victor ou Les Enfants au Pouvoir presents a paradox: that of the child who is in danger of annihilation as he attempts to confront the adult world and yet, who is better equipped than the adult to do so because he is capable of transcending the hazards of such a society. Victor, Tonelli asserts, obeys the aesthetics of a Theatre of Cruelty production, because it goes beyond the world of "false appearances, of utilitarian categories." In Ghelderode's dramas, whether Faust, Christopher Columbus, or Don Juan, the characters are forever searching for "their authentic moi." Ghelderode's world is instinctual, ugly, haunting, and destructive. His protagonists are always "pushed by a desire for authenticity" and struggle ceaselessly to divest themselves of their multiple identities - but in vain. The chapters devoted to Beckett and Arrabal are equally illuminating. L 'Esthetique de la Cruaute will appeal to those interested in Antonin Artaud's theatrical views. BETTINA L. KNAPP Hunter College and the Graduate Center of CUNY BERTOLT BRECHT ARBEITSJOURNAL, 3 vols., ed. Werner Hecht. Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main, 1973. 1022 pages of text, 217 pages of editorial notes. DM.70. With the publication of Brecht's "Working Diary" only two major works remain BOOK REVIEWS 119 to be published: his more conventional or private diary from the early twenties and his voluminous correspondence. Those seeking information on Brecht's private as opposed to his working life will have to wait for the two remaining bodies of texts as Brecht has, very deliberately, included very little about his private life in the "Working Diary." Covering the years 1938-1955, the Arbeitsjournal takes us behind the scenes in the period in which Brecht not only wrote a large number ofhis best known works but also magnificently staged these works upon his return from exile in the late forties. Brecht began the Arbeitsjournal while living in exile in Svendborg in Denmark. As he wrote he was aware that there was but little prospect ofhis major plays being either published or staged as Europe daily drifted closer to war. Mixed with his various attempts to write texts that could be used in the fight against Hitler, are his jottings on his wide reading during this period and his notes towards a less strident aesthetic than the one he presented in 1928 in his notes on the opera, Mahagonny. The notes of the Scandinavian period (1938-41...