Shakespeare and Brecht: The Perils and Pleasures of Inheritance

Shakespeare and Brecht: The Perils and Pleasures of Inheritance John Rouse Much like Shakespeare, Brecht was a playwright, director, dramaturg, and poet—all at once. His plays are now, of course, famous, but it begins to appear that his most historic impact may be in the realm of practical theatre work—that is, on the interpretation of plays through theatrical production—rather than on the writing of plays themselves. Consequently, I should like to focus this discussion more on Brecht as a director and adapter than as a playwright, and to examine the relationship between Brecht and Shakespeare within the context of Brecht’s creative work in the German theatre as Brecht knew it, and tried to change it. We need to dwell on this notion of context for a moment. For however useful its consequences may be for us, the rela­ tionship between Brecht and Shakespeare is part of a German tradition, a specific national inheritance. Shakespeare lives in this tradition in translation—hence always removed at least one step from himself. He is interpreted on stage through perfor­ mance conventions similar to but not always identical with those that govern our stages. Last, but perhaps most important, the German Shakespeare is used as part of a cultural inheri­ tance with which successive generations of theatre makers and theatre goers attempt to interpret—or to avoid interpreting— their particular historical experience. On the other hand, many of the changes in the English and American approaches to Shakespeare in the first half of this century can be compared to the changes revolutionaries like Brecht brought about in Germany. Moreover, Brecht himself JOHN ROUSE, Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at Tulane Uni­ versity, has written on Brecht and on contemporary German theatre. A version of this essay was presented as part of the 1983 Mellon Colloquium at Tulane University. 266 John Rouse 267 has served to link more recent developments in the two tradi­ tions: When the Berlin Ensemble visited England in 1956 and 1957, its productions influenced a generation that includes the directors Peter Brook and William Gaskill, the designer John Bury, the playwright Edward Bond, and the dramaturg-director John Barton—to name only men who have professed their debt to Brecht’s theatre. This generation has exerted its own influence in return, through visiting productions by the Royal Shakespeare Company, William Gaskill’s productions with German theatre companies, and the work of Peter Zadek—a major German director who grew up in England and began his career there. The relationship between the two traditions can be instructive, if we do not lose sight of their differing historical and cultural contexts. Brecht’s relationship to Shakespeare may best be described as a life-long obsession. This obsession developed continually between the two poles of a major contradiction.1 On the one hand, Brecht considered Shakespeare and, one rung below him, the Elizabethans in general as the great forerunners of the new theatre he was attempting to create. In this respect, Shakespeare was a distinctly personal inheritance. On the other hand, Brecht’s personal inheritance was mediated through a social one. For Shakespeare was also one of the crown jewels in a cultural tradition claimed as its proper inheritance by the establishment theatre of Brecht’s day—a theatre Brecht despised. Shakespeare belonged to Brecht, but he also belonged to the opposition. Brecht’s contradiction is worth exploring in more detail; I shall begin with the second pole. At the time Brecht began working in the theatre, the classical stage tradition he inherited was no longer able to read its texts creatively or to interpret them meaningfully on the stage. This tradition limped on, how­ ever, supported by its audiences. As Brecht’s friend Hans Meyer has pointed out, the bourgeois society in which he and Brecht grew up considered the classics as its property. Audiences came to the theatre with strong expectations concerning how the plays should be interpreted and how they should be staged. Their theatres did not disappoint them; and they, in turn, helped these theatres enjoy a perverse version of life after death.2 This is the dark side of what Bernard Beckerman has...