Brecht's Popular Theater and its American Popularity

BRECHT'S POPULAR THEATER AND ITS AMERICAN POPULARITY BRECHT'S THEATRICAL STYLE, his didactic tendencies, and, above all, the epithets of "Marxist" and "communist," often attached to his name, have done little to further his recognition as a dramatist in this country. Recently Francis Fergusson surveyed the art of Brecht, Wilder, and Eliot, stressing the allegorical element in their works, and expressed general concern for the prospects of such drama on the American stage. "The aims," he avers, "of those who seek to make an allegorical form for the modern theatre, in order to teach the group mind indirectly, by way of some mode of action which they can recognize and accept, would seem to be natural and right. But it is hard to see how this effort can get much farther in our theatre as it is."l In 1954, John Gassner had observed that Brecht "never had a successful professional production" in this country, although "Brechtian technique and idea ... have found ... some equivalents even in America."2 The fact that epic drama, of which Brecht is the foremost proponent, has appeared on Broadway only in the form of musical comedy (Gassner has in mind Weill's Love Life), indicates in his opinion "that our theatre has been insufficiently trained in stylization and is averse to lessons of any sort."3 Yet, Gassner has considered "Epic Theatre" the "closest approximation of a dramatic rite that is suitable for modern urban and industrial civilization in that it has the qualities of an illustration and explication of facts and ideas." He credits it with '1e~ving boundless opportunities for the play of imagination" and providing "an outlet for the dramatist who wants to create poetry and theatrically stylized art without escaping from modern life into the void of fancy" or into sentimentality.' Whether the success of Brecht's Threepenny Opera in New York, where it has attracted capacity audiences for over two years in the Theatre de lys, is due to an acceptance of Brecht and his epic theater or merely to the clever exploitation of the play's aspects of musical comedy, it is hard to tell. Whereas Gassner's remarks antedate this success, it was known to Fergusson at the time of his writing. He has shrugged it off as "fashionable and high-brow" and attributes it not to the "Marxism Brecht wishes to teach," but rather to the nouveau fris$on the "sleek audiences" derive from the opera with its "seductively -luring tunes by Kurt Weill, its demoralized atmosphere of 1. Francis Fergusson, "Three Allegorists: Brecht, Wilder, Eliot," The Sewanee Review, LXIV (1956),573. 2. Jobo Gassner, The Theatre in Our Times (New York, 1954), p. 94. 3. Ibid., p. 95. 4. Ibid., p. 95. 157 158 EDrrn KERN December post-war Berlin."5 Brecht's only claim to popularity in this country would, then, be due to elements entirely foreign to his art, to misinterpretation and error, and to total disregard of the true Brecht, the political and dramatic theoretician. Such views seem convincing but are based on false premises, it seems to me. For Brecht is not primarily the man of political and theatrical doctrine. He is above all a poet. This is his glory and his downfall. Brecht's language, though consciously artistic, is not literary. It is the language of the people and, rooted in life itself, it dies when extricated. Therefore, it cannot really be translated. His plays can only be adapted, and they need, moreover, an adapter of a very special kind. Like Brecht, he should combine the vigor and esprit gaulois of a Villon with the tenderly forceful strokes of a Chinese playwright. Then the theatrical techniques of Brecht's plays would unfold meaningfully and the didactic elements be relegated to the background: a motivating force, inspiring the poet in the way in which Christian dogma inspired Dante. Brecht himself has made, of course, much ado about his acceptance of Marxist theories. Like most men of his generation in Germany, he was profoundly affected by political theories that offered a solution to the post-war misery. These theories could not and should not be discounted among the motivating factors in Brecht...