Harold Clurman
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF BE ·RTOlT BRECHT
The trouble with theoretical discussion in the arts-most em–
phatically in the theater-is that it often turns our attention away from
the work itself and leads us into a semantic maze. A flagrant example
of this is much of the writing which has accompanied or preceded the
production of Bertolt Brecht's plays. Many more people have discussed
Brecht and his theories than have seen his plays or read his poems.
There are several reasons for this. Brecht's plays are in German
and are not easily translatable. Though Brecht himself has said that his
plays do not necessarily have to be produced in the manner he himself
employed as a director, I have yet to see a production in any other
manner which does his plaYi justice.
Yet these plays, whether their language is understood or"not, can–
not fail to make an impression. They are "different"; they look "new."
Without being in the least obscure, they strike the eye as much more
"modern" than do the plays by the innovators of the contemporary
French theater. Brecht's plays lend themselves to controversy of all sorts
-literary, theatrical, political.
The point so admirably made and elaborated in John Willett's
very useful and thoroughly sensihle introduction to Brecht's work* is
that the only proper way to know Brecht is to see the production of his
plays in the theater he founded (the Berlin Ensemble) or at least to
read them-if possible in the original. Brecht's theoretical writing–
stimulating and instructive though it be-does not convey the "feel" of
what he has created.
It
was
inevitable that Brecht should become the subject of every
type of exegesis. For
his
is the only manifestation of a total theater
style (text and presentation in organic relationship) since the emergence
The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht : A Study From Eight Aspects. By John Willett.
New Directions. $8.00.
