Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 3

  Scene 7: SHOW THAT YOU CAN FIGHT! (Lenin to the women)

  Scene 8: The hammer and sickle emblem taken apart, to show hammer and sickle next to one another linked by the word ‘and’

  Scene 8: Hammer and sickle linked by superimposition

  Scene 9: THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF WOMEN MUST BE PROMOTED SO THAT THEY SHAKE OFF THEIR DOMESTIC AND FAMILY PSYCHOLOGY (Lenin)

  Scene 10: RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE (Marx)

  Scene 11: Photograph of the war leaders: THE TSAR, THE KAISER, POINCARÉ, WILSON, GREY

  Scene 12: AGAINST THE STREAM!

  Scene 13: Photograph of Lenin alongside inscription: FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE IMPERIALIST WAR INTO A CIVIL WAR

  Scene 14: 1917

  Scene 14, the ending: IN NOVEMBER 1917 THE RUSSIAN PROLETARIAT SEIZED POWER

  Film with documentary shots of the October Revolution (forbidden by censors)

  Auditorium, a banner saying: THERE CAN BE NO TRUE MASS MOVEMENT WITHOUT THE WOMEN (Lenin)

  (b) New York production

  Before Scene 1

  Title: THE LIFE OF THE REVOLUTIONIST PELAGEA VLASSOVA OF TVERSK

  Picture of the Mother

  Scene 1

  Title: IN 1907. THE WORKERS OF THE CITY OF TVERSK LIVED UNDER CONDITIONS OF EXTREME HARDSHIP

  Picture: Shopping list in large handwriting of untutored person:

  Scene 2

  Title: PELAGEA VLASSOVA SEES WITH SORROW THAT HER SON IS IN THE COMPANY OF REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS

  Picture: Four poor women of different nations including Negro and Chinese with caption: IN EVERY COUNTRY OF THE WORLD THERE ARE WOMEN LIKE PELAGEA VLASSOVA

  Scene 3

  Title: THE MOTHER HERSELF DISTRIBUTES LEAFLETS IN THE SUCHLINOV PLANT TO KEEP HER SON OUT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITY

  Picture: Leaflet:

  Workers:

  Don’t let Mr Suchlinov

  Cut your wages! Don’t

  Negotiate!

  Strike!

  Suchlinov Factory Committee

  Scene 4

  Title: THE MOTHER RECEIVES HER FIRST LESSON IN ECONOMICS

  Picture: Factory with picture of factory-owner in oval shape; caption under the whole: THE SUCHLINOV WORKS and under the photograph of the man: P. SUCHLINOV, THE OWNER

  Scene 5

  Title: ON MAY 1ST THE WORKERS OF TVERSK DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE WAGE CUT. THE MOTHER RECEIVES A LESSON IN POLITICS

  Picture: A demonstration

  Scene 6

  Title: 1908. PAVEL IS IN PRISON. IVAN VESSOVCHIKOV BRINGS THE MOTHER TO THE HOME OF HIS BROTHER NIKOLAI, THE TEACHER, WHO LIVES IN THE CITY OF ROSTOV

  Picture: Reproduction of Vlassova’s membership card with picture of the Mother superimposed and caption: MEMBERSHIP CARD OF PELAGEA VLASSOVA IN THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY

  Title: THE TEACHER SURPRISES HIS HOUSEKEEPER IN THE MIDST OF A MEETING

  Title: THE MOTHER LEARNS TO READ AND WRITE

  Picture: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER (Francis Bacon)

  Picture: The words: CLASS STRUGGLE – WORKER – EXPLOITER

  Title: IVAN VESSOVCHIKOV DOES NOT RECOGNIZE HIS OWN BROTHER

  Picture: Framed picture of the Czar

  Scene 7

  Title: THE MOTHER MAKES USE OF A VISIT TO HER SON IN PRISON TO GET THE ADDRESSES OF PEASANTS SYMPATHETIC TO THE MOVEMENT

  Picture: Prison

  Scene 8

  Title: IN THE YEARS 1909–13 THE WORKERS TRIED REPEATEDLY TO DRAW THE POOR PEASANTS INTO THEIR MOVEMENT

  Pictures of workers on one side and peasants on the other side

  Scene 9

  Title: PAVEL RETURNS AFTER A LONG EXILE IN SIBERIA

  Picture: Lines from the Third Thing

  Scene 10

  Title: CROSSING THE FINNISH BORDER, PAVEL VLASSOV HAS BEEN CAUGHT AND EXECUTED

  Picture: Photograph of Pavel. Later Rogues Gallery picture of him

  Scene 11

  Title: WAR IS DECLARED

  Picture: Photograph of the Czar and his generals

  Scene 12

  Title: DURING THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR THE WORKERS WOULD NOT LISTEN TO THE REVOLUTIONISTS

  Picture: Line of text: IF YOU SHOULD FAIL!

  Scene 13

  Title: THE MOTHER CARRIES ON ANTI-WAR PROPAGANDA

  Picture: Casualty list (three battles on the Eastern Front)

  Scene 14

  Title: JANUARY 1917, IN THE TUMULTUOUS RANKS OF THE STRIKING WORKERS AND MUTINYING SOLDIERS MARCHES PELAGEA VLASSOVA, THE MOTHER

  Picture: Photograph of armed demonstrations

  End

  Title: IN NOVEMBER 1917, THE RUSSIAN PROLETARIAT SEIZED POWER

  [(a) From Versuche 7, 1933, ‘Anmerkungen’, para. III, expanded to include (b) in para. III of the Malik-Verlag Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, London, 1938.]

  MEMORANDUM ABOUT THE DISTORTION AND MUTILATION OF THE TEXT

  In view of the stylistic problems involved in performing Mother, Brecht for some weeks refused to allow its production unless he could be involved in the rehearsals and have complete control of the integrity of his text. In Denmark both these points had been guaranteed to him by Manuel Gomez on behalf of the theatre. While there was a contractual agreement to use a particular version which departed from the book version, the theatre was to have no right to cut its text without Brecht’s approval. On arriving in New York Brecht took part in the work on the third act of that version, but got the theatre’s permission to show the board his own earlier version based on the book. The board formally opted for this (i.e. Brecht’s) version of the third act.

  On Saturday 9 November 1935 the theatre told Brecht and Eisler that cuts were needed in Act 3. The shortened version would have to be put before the board on the following Monday (11.11). Brecht protested against the cuts, saying the weaknesses of the third act were due not to the text but to inadequacies in the acting. To protect the principle of textual integrity he and Eisler approached Comrade Jerome of the Agitprop department and called on the Party for an explanation.

  On the Monday evening Comrade Jerome went with Eisler to see the performance of the play as cut without Brecht’s approval. (The cuts in question added up to about half a page of text; they were points of dramaturgical and political significance.)

  Tuesday 12.11 saw a meeting with the Theatre Union fraction which led to a Party resolution calling on the theatre to respect the integrity of the text as approved by Brecht and last performed on the evening of Friday 8.11. The theatre accepted this resolution nem. con.

  On Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14, Brecht tried to reinstate the Friday 8 version as had been agreed. As the second of these was already the opening night Brecht volunteered the suggestion that, to reduce the strain on the actress, the cuts should be retained for one last time on condition that from the next performance on they would finally be abandoned.

  Once again this Thursday evening performance was most inadequate. Once again the theatre blamed this on the text of the third act. Brecht’s and Eisler’s efforts to correct the true errors, which lay in the acting, had been sabotaged by the theatre during the Thursday afternoon, and it became impossible to resume them on Friday. Friday evening also saw the maintenance of the cuts that the Agitprop department had agreed to cancel. On Saturday Brecht and Eisler managed to reach Jerome and begged him to enforce the Party resolution. Moreover Brecht asked his permission to inform all the critics invited to the premiere that the play had been butchered. Comrade Jerome wanted Brecht at all costs not to do this, and promised to get the Party resolution put into effect. He went to the Saturday night performance, only to discover that on top of the previous unauthorised cuts a whole scene (the farm workers) had now been cut too.

  Early on Sunday morning (17.11) Comrade Jerome told Comrade Eisler that the fraction had promised him to let the authors join in the work once more; they would be ‘invited into the theatre’. Manuel Gomez did indeed telephone them that morning, and the result was a session in Brech
t’s apartment, where a number of improvements were suggested by Eisler and Brecht, and discussed. Brecht once again insisted on the integrity of his text.

  On Sunday evening the previous cuts and the farm workers scene were once again missing.

  On Monday morning the authors were told that the theatre was now proposing to cut a further scene, the bible scene. They informed Comrade Jerome, who immediately rang the theatre and angrily forbade the cutting of the bible scene. Jerome did however criticise as politically questionable one passage in that scene, where the bible is torn in half, whereupon Brecht submitted to Party orders without demur and agreed that the passage should be deleted.

  That same evening Manuel Gomez rang Brecht with respect to a technical detail which would make this feasible.

  On Tuesday morning (19.11), as they could not raise anybody on the telephone, Brecht and Eisler came to the theatre and discussed various technical details with Gomez. They were extremely surprised to learn from Gomez that yet another scene might have to be cut, namely the anti-war propaganda scene which forms the core of the third Act. Once again the authors invoked the Party resolution. An hour later Jerome invited them to a meeting in the Agitprop department, where the Theatre Union fraction were waiting, and informed them that the theatre did indeed wish to cut the anti-war propaganda scene. Comrade Jerome referred to the authors’ protest and the Party resolution guaranteeing the text’s integrity. It was clear that the fraction had made their cuts without Brecht’s approval, indeed against his explicit refusal. Their attempt to accuse Brecht (and Eisler too) of failing to take an interest in the production was a piece of impertinence in view of the authors’ repeated efforts to have a say in it by means of writing and telephone calls. Brecht had continued to make written suggestions to the leading actress and gone on conferring with the designer even after he had been denied all possibility of working personally in the theatre. As late as Sunday, Brecht and Eisler had been supplying practical suggestions. The final decisive cutting of the anti-war propaganda scene had been concealed from Comrade Jerome and the authors until an allegedly technical fait accompli had been prepared. Thus in Tuesday’s discussion the fraction explained that ‘technical grounds’ (impossibility of altering the lighting plot again) made it quite impossible for them to include the anti-war propaganda scene. And indeed it was omitted at the premiere that evening, along with the farm workers scene and all the passages the Agitprop department had ordered to be restored. On top of that, various other politically and dramaturgically most important points had been cut. At subsequent performances too, though there could now be no technical pretexts, all that had been cut remained cut.

  To sum up, the cuts were:

  In the bible scene [scene 10], a speech by the Mother with an anti-religious message, ideologically the key point of the whole scene.

  In the scene ‘The Party is in Danger’ [scene II], the phrase ‘If the Tsar is mobilising, us workers must mobilise too’. (The decisive phrase that foretells the Bolsheviks’ preparation of civil war.)

  In the street-corner scene [12], the slogans spread among the masses by the Bolsheviks in 1914 (‘Down with the war, long live the Revolution!’).

  The whole scene [8] of the Mother and the farm workers, raising the issue of the alliance of the workers with the poor peasants.

  The whole anti-war propaganda scene [13]. If this scene is cut, then the refusal of the workers to listen to the Bolsheviks’ slogans at the start of the war leads directly to the triumph of the 1917 Revolution, which then appears as a gift from the gods for which no revolutionary effort was needed.

  On the pretext of political incorrectness the theatre changed the song ‘Praise of Communism’ to one in ‘Praise of Socialism’, and the Mother’s declaration in the anti-war scene that ‘I am a Bolshevik’ (in all performances where the scene was played) to ‘I am a revolutionary’. Then on the last day the costumes were Russianised in defiance of all agreements, and this in the clear understanding (stressed more than once by the theatre) that it would turn the revolutionary cause into an exotic, specifically Russian affair. When the authors, together with the designer Gorelik, suggested that the workers in the final scene (Demonstration, 1917) should be armed, that too was rejected.

  All these cuts represented a sad mutilation of the play from a political and artistic point of view. The theatre was behaving exactly like the average Broadway theatre, which treats a play simply as a commodity, or as raw material for some commodity that can be easily marketed. The Theatre Union fraction had moreover received a clear resolution by the Party to say that the integrity of the text must be respected as a basic right of the author. The authors were respecting the Party’s wishes when they agreed not to withdraw play and music if these got mutilated and distorted. Brecht, despite not belonging to the Party, even agreed not to tell the critics invited to the premiere that his play had been so treated. Thanks to the Theatre Union fraction’s lack of discipline, the Party’s undertaking to protect the integrity of the text could not be fulfilled.

  [Typescript signed ‘Brecht’ and dated 22 November 1935, as published in vol. 24 of the Berlin and Frankfurt edition, pp. 137–141. This is the document quoted in Lee Baxandall’s account ‘Brecht in America, 1935’ in Erika Munk’s symposium Brecht, Bantam Books, New York, 1972. Two points are somewhat overlooked in Brecht’s account: (i) Theatre Union were interested in Gorky’s novel and largely unaware of the work of Brecht, and (ii) only a few of their members belonged to the Communist Party. Manuel Gomez was a board member who conducted the negotiations with Brecht.]

  DISCUSSION JEROME/BRECHT/EISLER

  [A partial transcription by Elisabeth Hauptmann (says James Lyon), taken down on 23 November 1935 and starting with V.J. Jerome’s remark ‘I would like to write an article on comparative dramaturgical methods of MacLeish and Brecht. I see certain points of contact between you. It would help me very much if you would give me some information on specific points . . .’.]

  J: MacLeish, too, has a chorus, he, too, uses verse. His verse method is also unique. He uses symbolism. Do you use symbolism?

  B: No.

  J: Symbolism is very strong in MacL, a metaphysical element. Would it be so with you?

  B: I hope not.

  J: You say, you do not employ any method of symbolism?

  B: No – but – there is a certain method that I use once in a while – but that is not symbolism – that is the parable – I don’t use it in ‘Die Mutter’, but in other play, i.e. ‘Heads Round and Heads Pointed’.

  J: You mean a simile –

  B: Yes, think of the simile of the vineyard in the bible, the similes of Buddha, Marx, Engels, Lenin –

  E: Lenin ‘On Climbing High Mountains’ – or when he speaks about Rosa Luxemburg – (eagle).

  B: Or about Paul Levi (fox-hunting, red flags).

  E: Or that with the car, the robbers, the guns and robbing the money.

  J: The Prodigal Son. Or the lamb of the poor, the story that was told David to demonstrate the Uria-case.

  B: That is the method I use.

  J: How do you use it? But may I first say this: I have seen one dramatist also use the simile, Strindberg in The Father, it is the opening of the play – the dialogue between the Father and the stableman etc. culminating in the sentence of the stableman: ‘How do I know it is my child?’

  B: Yes, that is a ‘parable’.

  J: A prologue in the form of a parable.

  B: You have it also in ‘The Dream Play’ – the story of Indra’s daughter.

  J: Also Ibsen’s ‘The Master Builder’.

  B: But executed (carried out) too naturalistically. Let me say this: The purpose of a ‘parable’ is to clearly demonstrate the relations of men to and among each other and their attitudes towards each other. In the simile you can see very distinctly whether their attitude is useful or not. I am interested in the relations and behaviour of men. Therefore I build up before you Men that behave in the right or wrong way. You see hi
m doing wrong and the outcome is a failure.

  J: That is a cinematographic method.

  B: Well, but the cinematographic method is not essentially interested in the behavior of people. I shall give you an example. Take my play ‘Heads Round and Heads Pointed’. I invent a country that is inhabited by two kinds of people, two races, those with round heads and those with pointed heads. One day there comes a man – at a very lucky moment – and says I shall divide this country into two kinds of people, the r.h. and the p.h., that is according to a racial standpoint. This division proves to be very good for the rich and very bad for the poor. The form of the play is the ‘parable’.

  J: You do not use this method in ‘Die Mutter’.

  B: No, there is no simile in ‘The Mother’.

  J: Do you employ a chorus in all your plays, or only in ‘The Mother’?

  B: Not in all.

  J: Why do you use the chorus in ‘Die Mutter’?

  B: In reality it is no special chorus. The chorus can take many parts. In the Commentary to the play ‘Die Mutter’ I add other kinds of choruses that are not in the play. (B. reads the passage out of the Commentary on the chorus.)

  J: In other words, the chorus is the teacher.

  B: Yes – the chorus determines i.e. the attitude of the spectator. In the examples for the use of the chorus as given in the Commentary small choruses are placed among the audience. Suppose you are in the theatre and a man sits beside you. He, in the course of the play, asks questions, criticizes, praises – informs you –

  J: So the chorus is a mentor –

  B: Yes – and then kind of measurestick. The experiences on the stage there in front and above you must be generalized, the processes there before you must be criticized –

  J: I am interested in the didactics of the chorus, let me put this question: You do not take it over from antiquity and use it in the same form? –

  B: No.

  J: – That would be a mechanical superimposition. I would like now to reason in terms of another category and you will tell me how you feel about it.

  B: Let me say this first: The antique chorus is principally idealistic. Take even Euripides. Even Aristophanes in his comedies has idealistic choruses though the processes are very realistic.