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  • Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy
  • Susan Russell
Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy. By Sarah Bryant-Bertail. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture. Rochester: Camden House, 2000; pp. 245. $70.00 cloth.

In Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy, Sarah Bryant-Bertail weaves together semiotics, postmodern historiography, and historical materialism, analyzing epic theatre from its inception to its contemporary manifestations in Europe, India, and the US. The book bears some comparison to Freddie Rokem's Performing History in its theorizing about historicity and its broad range of theatrical examples. But instead of theorizing generally about history and its relation to representation, she grounds her analysis specifically in the self-conscious historicity of epic theatre. What distinguishes epic theatre is its foregrounding of the construction of space and time, its "dynamic, self-aware representations of space, time and history" (8), without any attempt to reconcile contradictions or tensions between these representations. According to Bryant-Bertail, Brecht and Piscator closely followed Marx's historical materialism: "the theater was to demystify the operation of social, economic, and political forces by showing how certain orders of reality had developed historically and were perpetuated" (2-3). In this way, she articulates semiotics itself as a political gesture, echoing Eco's idea that "because semiotics can reveal the construction of ideological texts, . . . it can be a form of social criticism and thus a form of social practice" (72). In epic theatre, everything is "history in the making," or, as Bryant-Bertail phrases it, "the staging of historicity itself," revealing history as "eminently changeable, a continuing work capable of being rewritten" (5). Herein lies its political efficacy, for the present as well as for the past.

After defining epic theatre, her concept of theatrical spatio-temporality, and explaining the ways in which epic theatre specifically acts as a "histor-icizing critique," she demonstrates semiotics as a form of social criticism through her often brilliant analyses of specific performances. The first chapter deals with the initial collaboration between Piscator and Brecht, The Good Soldier Schwejk (1928). She focuses on the ways they used technology to foreground the play's own creation and codification of history. She employs Michel de Certeau's notions of "strategies" vs. "tactics" to reveal the soldier's agency as well as his oppression. In the next chapter, on Brecht's 1949 production of Mother Courage at the Berliner Ensemble, she demonstrates how Schwejk informed Brecht's representation of time and space and use of technology in Mother Courage. The most valuable aspect of this chapter is its materialist feminist analysis, including an interesting overview of the role of the female characters, and also of the history of feminist criticism of Brecht's plays and theories as well as his life. Chapter 3 rounds out her section on the epic theatre by discussing Brecht's adaptation of Lenz's The Tutor, written in 1774, and directed by Brecht in 1950 in East Germany, shortly after its founding. Bryant-Bertail argues that Brecht used the play as a warning to the intellectuals of the new republic to avoid subservience to the powers that be. The play is also notable because of its strong emphasis on the subjugation of the body by an oppressive society. Utilizing Foucault and Kristeva, Bryant-Bertail details the ways that Brecht's production revealed not only this subjugation but also tactics of resistance.

The second half of the book examines several productions which Bryant-Bertail considers "the epic legacy in contemporary theater." Unlike some other studies of "Brecht's legacy" which simply examine plays that use Brechtian theatrical techniques, devoid of any political meaning, Bryant-Bertail has chosen well. She shows how these plays stage dialectical ideologies through culturally specific representations of time, space, andhistory. One of the most intellectually impressive chapters in the book is chapter 4 on Peer Gynt, in which she [End Page 131] compares and contrasts five different significant productions: the premiere in Norway in 1876; the American premiere in 1905; Hans-Jacob Nilsen's 1948 production in Norway; Peter Stein's production in Berlin in 1971; and Rustom Bharucha's production in India in...

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