I wanted to research about Brecht's technique and his concepts before I even touched any of his work. I want to understand his work so it's easier for me to get into character much faster and I've realised the more I look into the different acting techniques I actually like them. Getting into character; and liking things quickly has been a struggle for me because I am judgemental when it comes to certain aspects. But I am determined to not let that effect me in this unit. I actually like Brecht and I don't care if I look ridiculous on stage because its not me that's up there its a character that has been created. I struggled on Stanislavski's method acting because I blocked myself, saying I couldn't do it and I didn't like it. But when I started looking at his work and why he wrote his plays and the chemistry he built between characters. I was amazed. I also blocked myself on the TIE Primary School project because I made it personal. I mean don't get me wrong I love putting on costumes and face paints and performing for children but that Granny character I got given; made me realise and learnt a lot of things. I learnt that the body language of an actor is essential and I realise all acting is, is just taking a scenario breaking it up; adding life to it and showing others what you've seen; learnt. A character that is made up is still a human being because when it was being created it was created with all the things that consist of a human being. The most important thing I've learnt, is that as a performer you should never take things personally at all. So what if someone laughs at you or feels a certain way about something you've done I mean you've done your part;Everyday I find out something new; I mean I never knew that It is a humans instinct to make a judgement before looking in depth at something. I've learnt to: appreciate other acting styles and other things in general; to keep my opinions to myself even if I don't like something this is where I believe professionalism comes in; when you don't like something just be professional about it. I won't let it happen what happened in the other units to effect me in the Brecht Unit. I really want to play my character really well. As an actor whatever you learn you have to remember because it may come in handy one day so I don't want to just learn about him and then move on and forget his technique I want to learn about him and use his technique in my own acting and develop the method acting technique and use them both in my acting. In order for me to be unique.
Time Line/Bibliography
In 1898 Eugene Berthold Frederich Brecht was born on the 10th February in Augsburg.1924- Directorial Debut: Edward II. Later credited as the beginning of' Epic Theatre'. In 1939 Brecht wrote Mother Courage and her Children, this was one of his most famous works. Unfortunately in 1956 on the 14th August he died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight(58). Brecht B (1965) The Messingkauf Dialogues,London: Methuen. (1970-Present) collected plays, 10 vols. London: Eyre Methuem.
Quotations
Explanation of Brecht's Technique in a short organum for the Theatre, Brecht says:
Bertolt Brecht(1898-1956)' in Theatre Database, this can be accessed on line:
http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/bertolt_brecht_001.html
"The Brechtian style of acting is acting in quotation marks."
Brecht, B (2001) ' Studying Bertolt brecht' in www.universalteacher.org.uk.
http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/drama/brecht.htm.
'Sawing gently at the nerves,' said Marieluise Fleisser and Herbert Ihering( writing in 1926): He did not analyse the characters, he set them at a distance... He called for a report on the events. He insisted on simple gestures. He compelled a clear and cool manner of speaking. No emotional tricks were allowed. That ensured the objective, 'epic' style.
Willet, J(1959) Theatre of Bertolt Brecht, London: Methuen.
Biography
Brecht was a German writer and producer/ director who founded the Berliner Ensemble. He was a playwright, penning over fifty plays between 1923 and 1955. He is really famous for developing the Epic Theatre, Brecht's revolutionary set of techniques intended to allow his audiences to think objectively about the action they witnessed.
The result of Brecht's research was a technique known as "verfremdungseffekt".
It was made to encourage the audience to retain their critical detachment. His theories resulted in a number of "epic" dramas, among them Mother Courage and Her Children which tells the story of a travelling merchant who earns her living by following the Swedish and Imperial armies with her covered wagon and selling them supplies: clothing, food, brandy, etc... As the war grows heated, Mother Courage finds that this profession has put her and her children in danger, but the old woman doggedly refuses to give up her wagon. Mother Courage and Her Children was both a triumph and a failure for Brecht.
Although the play was a great success, he never managed to achieve in his audience the unemotional response he really desired. Audiences never fail to be moved by the plight of the stubborn old woman. Methods such as the Verfremdungseffekt or the 'Alienation effect', the use of gestures, music and projection were all in order to free the audience from the passive state; which was more the work of Constantin Stanislavski. Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski was a Russian actor and theatre director. He was born on the 17 of January in 1863-7 August 1938. His system of acting has developed into an international reach; it has spread across the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqBr5CjZXs
Verfremdungseffekt
The Verfremdungseffekt, alienation effect, is the primary notion of Brecht's epic theatre. By alienating the observer from the show underlying every incident on stage and open a space for critical reflection. Often alienation also means making the works of the spectacle possible, and crumbling the unity of the theatrical illusion. Brecht called for the spectator's alienation to oppose the esoteric tendencies of the well known stage, tendencies that reduced its audience to passive, trance-like states. The possible techniques of alienation are endless. Slight chances in pace, alternative arrangements of the characters on-stage, experiments in lighting, gesture, and tone. The success of each scene in Mother Courage revolves on these devices. I.e, Courage's "Song of the Great Capitulation," when played without alienation, risks seducing the spectator with the pleasures of surrender rather than exposing the iniquity in the submission to an unjust authority. Brecht's Epic Theatre follows Marxist philosophy using dialects to create didactic action. Didactic action is actually intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive. In his early plays, Brecht experimented with Dada and expressionism, but in his later work, he developed a style that more suited his own unique vision. He detested the "Aristotelian" drama and its attempts to lure the spectator into a kind of trance-like state, a total identification with the hero, resulting in feelings of terror and pity and, ultimately, an emotional purgation. Purgation is the process of releasing, and therefore providing some form of relief from, strong or repressed emotions. He didn't want his audience to feel emotions he wanted them to think and towards the end of his plays; he was very determined to destroy the theatrical illusion; that dull trance like state he actually so despised.
He was a poet at first; Brecht was mainly for political language. However, because this language is built on a certain direct simplicity, his plays often lose something in the translation from his native German. Nevertheless, they contain a rare poetic vision, a voice that has rarely been heard in the 20th century.
Brecht was influenced by a variety of sources including: the Chinese, Japanese, and Indian theatre, the Elizabethans (especially Shakespeare), Greek tragedy, Büchner, Wedekind, fair-ground entertainments, the Bavarian folk play, and many more. Such a wide variety of sources might have proven overwhelming for a lesser artist, but Brecht had the ability to take elements from seemingly incompatible sources, combine them, and mould them into his own work as a different form of theatre(EPIC THEATRE).
In Galileo, Brecht paints a portrait of a passionate and tortured man. Galileo has discovered that the earth is not the centre of the universe, but even though the Pope's own astronomer has confirmed this earth-shaking revelation, he's forbidden him to publish his findings. For eight years, Galileo holds his tongue. Finally, a new pope known for his enlightenment ascends to the Papacy, and Galileo sees his chance. But the Grand Inquisitor is lurking in the background, plotting to destroy the great astronomer's work.
Brecht went on to write a number of modern masterpieces including; The Good Person of Szechwan and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. In the end, Brecht's audience stubbornly went on being moved to terror and pity. However, his experiments were actually not all a failure. His dramatic theories in fact have spread across the globe, and he left behind a group of dedicated disciples known today as "Brechtians" who continue to propagate his teachings. At the time of his death, Brecht was planning to do a play in response to Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot.
The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui
When we started the Bertolt Brecht unit I realised his style of acting had a lot to do with voice and gestures so I decided to look at the different character's he created particularly their individual voice traits. So, I can merge some bits of theirs into mine and mould them into another voice; I also analysed their body language for instance their hand gestures; posture etc..
This play chronicles the rise of a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster (Arturo Ui) - and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition. It was written by Brecht in 1941 whilst in exile in Helsinki awaiting a visa to enter the US. The play was not produced on stage until 1958, and not in English until 1961. It is consciously a highly satirical allegory of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, whose rise Brecht represented in parallel to that of Ui.
All the characters and groups in the play had direct counterparts in real life; Ui represented Hitler, his henchman Ernesto Roma represented Ernst Roehm, Dogs borough represented Paul Von Hindenburg and so on. In addition, every scene in the play is based on a real event, for example the warehouse fire which represented the fire at the Reichstag.
Dramatically it is in keeping with Brecht's epic style of theatre. It opens with a prologue written in the form of a direct address to the audience outlining all the major characters and explaining the basis of the upcoming plot. It also describes in its stage directions the prominence that technical aspects of theatre should play in a production, in order to clarify the parallels. The play also uses frequent references to Shakespeare and other writers to further its messages.
This portrayal of the rise of Adolf Hitler, Brecht draws on a wide variety of sources. He follows quite closely the events in Germany between 1932 and 1938 (he wrote the play in exile in 1941), and many of the characters in the play are parallels of historical figures. Arturo Ui is of course Hitler; Ernesto Roma is Ernst Roehm, the SA chief:Giri is Goering of the Air Ministry, and Givola is Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief. Dogs borough is Germany's President Hindenburg, and Clark is Von Papen, Chancellor and Hitler's Vice-Chancellor between 1933 and 1934.
Brecht also reflects the events of the Gangster Era in Chicago; the death of Roma is an echo of the St Valentine's Day Massacre. He drew, too, on the imagery of the movies - Hollywood's version of the gangsters in films such as 'Little Caesar' and 'Public Enemy'. Where he differed from the movie was his belief that there was nothing to show that although a criminal may perpetrate great crimes, he should remain always despicable. The laughter Brecht evokes with his gangsters' antics is not to ennoble or excuse them, and certainly not to trivialise them, but to show them up in all their awesome and sinister worthlessness.
The scenario that Brecht presents is recognisably possible at other times, past, present and future. He points to a time of recession: people are suffering increasing hardship in deteriorating circumstances. Crime is on the increase, unemployment soars, street violence erupts. An enemy is at work, the people are told; a scapegoat is sought and hounded, while the well-off, anxious to preserve their position, join in the hunt or merely look the other way.
Under similar circumstances Chicago produced Al Capone, and Germany produced Hitler, who rose to power on the backs of the the wealthy establishment, which thought it could both control and use him, but which was blinkered by its fear of the "enemy within" - communism and the alien Jew.Brecht was not writing about a historical freak; his specific intention was to show that these circumstances could arise again and with the same results. Ui was resistible, Brecht argues, and urges his audience to find a lesson in that fact.
It is interesting to ponder on the fact that the Swastika is once more being blurred on the walls of our streets.
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang; some gangs are considered to be part of organised crime. Gangsters are also called “mobsters,” a term is derived from "mob" and the suffix "-steer." The terms "gangster" and "mobster" are mostly used in the United States to refer to members of criminal organisations associated with Prohibition or with an American offshoot of the Italian Mafia (such as the Chicago Outfit, the Philadelphia Mafia, or the Five Families). Gangsters have been depicted in American popular culture in films such as The Godfather, War, Hell Up in Harlem, Scarface, and Good fellas, and in television shows (e.g.,The Sopranos).
1930's Gangsters in America
History
As American society, new immigrants were relocating to the United States. The first major gangs were in 19th century New York City. the Irish gangs such as the Whyos and the Dead Rabbits, followed by the Italian Five Points Gang and later a Jewish gang known as the Monk Eastman Gang. There were also "nativist" anti-immigration gangs like the Bowery Boys.
Prohibition
The stereotypical image and myth of the American gangster is closely associated with organised crime during the Prohibition era of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution banned the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption. Many, many gangs sold alcohol illegally for tremendous profit, and used acute violence to stake turf and protect their interest. Often, police officers and politicians were paid facts about this decade.
America's history facts
In 1930 Population: 123,188,000 in 48 states
Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1; Female, 61.6
Average salary: $1,368
Unemployment rises to 25%
Huey Long proposes a guaranteed annual income of $2,500
Car Sales: 2,787,400
Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents a qt.; Bread, 9 cents a loaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound
Lynchings: 21off or extorted to ensure continued operation.
America in the 1920's
The powerful economy of America from; 1920 to October 1929 is frequently overlooked or simply submerged by the more exciting topics such as Prohibition and the gangsters, the Jazz Age, the KKK etc. However, the strength of America was generated and driven by its economic power.
In this decade, America became the wealthiest country in the world with no obvious rival. Yet by 1930 she had hit a depression that was to have world-wide consequences. But in the good times everybody seemed to have a reasonably well paid job and everybody seemed to have a lot of spare cash to spend.
One of the reasons for this was the introduction of hire purchase whereby you put a deposit on an item that you wanted and paid instalments on that item, with interest, so that you paid back more than the price for the item but did not have to make one payment in one go. Hire-purchase was easy to get and people got into debt without any real planning for the future. In the 1920’s it just seemed to be the case that if you wanted something then you got it.
But simply buying something had a major economic impact. Somebody had to make what was bought. This was the era before robot technology and most work was labour intensive i.e. people did the work. The person who made that product would get paid and he (as it usually was in the 1920’s) would not save all that money. He, too, would spend some of it and someone somewhere else would have to make that and so he would get paid. So the cycle continued. This was the money flow belief of John Maynard Keynes. If people were spending, then people had to be employed to make things. They get paid, spent their money and so the cycle continued. A good example was the motor car industry. The 3 big producers were Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. A boom in the car industry came from Ford’s with the legendary Ford Model -T.
This was a car for the people. It was cheap; mass production had dropped its price to just $295 in 1928. The same car had cost $1200 in 1909. By 1928, just about 20% of all Americans had cars. The impact of Ford meant that others had to produce their own cheap car to compete. The benefits went to the consumer. Hire-purchase made cars such as these very affordable. But there were major spin-offs from this one industry as 20% of all American steel went to the car industry; 80% of all rubber; 75% of all plate glass and 65% of all leather. 7 billion gallons of petrol were used each year and, of course, motels, garages, restaurants etc. all sprung up and all these outlets employed people and these people got paid.
To cope with the new cars new roads were built which employed a lot of people. But not everybody was happy with cars. Critics referred to cars as "prostitution on wheels" as young couples courted in them and gangsters started to use the more powerful models as getaway cars after robberies. But cars were definitely here to stay. Not only were cars popular. Radios (10 million sold by 1929), hoover’s, fridge’s and telephones sold in huge numbers.
By 1928 even the president, Hoover, was claiming that America had all but rid itself of poverty. The nation was fulfilling a previous president's pronouncement: "The business in America is business" - Calvin Coolidge.
But two groups did not prosper at all:
1) The African Americans were forced to do menial labour for very poor wages in the southern states. They lived lives of misery in total poverty. The KKK made this misery worse. In the northern states, decent jobs went to the white population and discrimination was just as common in the north as it was in the South (though the Klan was barely in existence in the north and the violence that existed in the South barely existed in the north) and many black families lived in ghetto's in the cities in very poor conditions. In the 1920’s the black population did not share in the economic boom. Their only real outlet was jazz and dancing though this was done to entertain the richer white population, and sport, especially boxing.
2) The share croppers of the south and mid-Americas. These people rented out land from landlords or got a mortgage together to buy land to farm. When they could not afford the rent or mortgage payments they were evicted from the land. There was such a massive boost in food production that prices tumbled as farmers desperately tried to sell their produce and failed. The European market was out of the question. Europe had retaliated at tariffs on their products going into the American market by putting tariffs on American goods destined for the European market thus making them far more expensive- this included grain. Many farmers in the mid-west lost their homes. Unmarried male farmers became the legendary hobos - men who roamed the mid-American states on trains looking for part-time work.
These two groups were frequently forgotten in the "Jazz Age". To many people, they were "out of sight and out of mind". It appeared that everybody had money - even factory workers and shoe-shine boys on city streets. In fact, people had spare money with nothing to do with it. They invested whatever they could in the Stock Market in Wall Street, New York. There were huge fortunes to be made here and many invested money they could ill afford to lose. However, the lure was too great and everybody knew that there was money to be made.
Stockbrokers were mostly at fault as they were happy to accept a ‘margin’ to buy shares for a person ; this was accepting just 10% of the cost of the shares that were to be purchased for a customer. The rest was to be collected when the price of shares went up - as they would, of course.. By 1929, over one million people owned shares in the united states of America. In October 1929, the Wall Street Crash occurred. Its impact was felt worldwide.
The Good Person of Szechwan
The Good Person of Szechwan is a play that was written by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffen and Ruth Berlau.
Prologue
Wang is an impoverished water seller, who tries to find lodging for three prominent Gods, who have come to Earth to find good people. Wang’s request is refused by everyone. Wang himself lives under a bridge and has no home to offer. He finally asks the town’s prostitute, Shen Teh, who agrees to take them in. The next morning, Shen Teh tells the Gods that she cannot make a living though she tries to be good. What happens in scene one is, the Gods, decide to pay for her lodgings when they leave.
Setting/Style - The Good Person of Szechwan is set in the capital city of the Szechwan province of China. The time of the play is not specified because, the play is a parable (a story which intends to teach a lesson). Though there is a little said specifically about the Chinese in the play, Brecht set the play there so that he could get several ideas from Chinese Theatre. The action of the play is primarily restricted in an area that is cramped. Also it is mainly in an impoverished part of the city, including city streets and the area in and around Shen Teh’s tobacco shop. Many of the interludes take place...
Issues in/ History
Bertolt Brecht’s play; The Good Person of Szechwan is one of the playwright’s major plays,
The popular play has continued to be performed throughout the world to the present day; it has been regularly produced because of its universal themes. Many critics believe the play is one of the best examples of Brecht’s epic theatre because it challenges the audience. Although, Brecht worked on the idea behind the play as early as the late 1920s, it was primarily written from 1939-43 in various European countries and the United States while in exile from his native Germany during World War II. Brecht tried to get Good Person produced in the United States of America in 1941, but the play did not make its debut until February 4, 1943, at the Schauspielhaus Zurich, in Zurich, Switzerland. The play was produced throughout Europe in the 1940s.
The first English-language production of The Good Person of Szechwan in the United States took place in Cleveland’s Eldred Theatre or Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1948. During this time in history in World War II (1939–1945) despoil Europe, and deeply affected life in the United States. Nazi Germany was led by Adolph Hitler, who had been in power for several years and was embarking on a campaign of European domination. Even before the outbreak of the war in 1939, many people (including Brecht and his family) with political views not in agreement with Hitler’s views had become political refugees, fleeing the country to avoid persecution and/or death. As Germany invaded country after country in Europe, many more fled. Many of those who were left behind suffered a lot. Many American colleges and universities put on the play after this date. The Good Person of Szechwan was first produced professionally in New York City in late 1956, shortly after Brecht’s death.
1943: Tobacco cigarettes are advertised as healthy in the United States.
Today: Tobacco companies are sued for false advertising as it has been revealed in court that they have known for many years that cigarettes cause cancer.
1943: In China a woman’s fertility is unregulated. In many rural areas, especially, women produce large families to provide labour for farms.
Today: In an effort to control an exploding population, the Chinese.
In part because it seems to be a modern parable about a basic human issue: how to be a good person in an imperfect, money-centred, class-divided society because of this focus, the play does not seem to be intended to be a reflection of the actual social, cultural and political life in China at that time, although the play uses some conventions of Chinese theatre and is set in China. Brecht’s original setting for the play was Berlin, and some recent productions have adapted the story to reflect the time and location of production. As John Fuegi wrote in The Essential Brecht, ‘‘The profound metaphysical question of why evil is permitted, indeed encouraged, in the world has seldom been asked with such force.’’
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera was written and staged in 1928, it soon became Brecht's first; greatest commercial success. It was produced two years after Brecht's famous work Man equals Man, the play represents a new style for Brecht. Whereas Man equals Man has its roots in Brecht's Augsburg youth and was developed from a variety of influences, The Threepenny Opera was written for a very specific purpose. Brecht chose not to alter the text as much as in his other works and so he developed the plot into first a screenplay and then a novel. As such, the text remains tightly bound to the moment of German history in which it was written.
The late 1920s were part of a more stable period in the Weimar Republic, a period where the hyperinflation was reigned in and foreign (particularly America) capital flowed into the country. For the theatre, this meant a significant re-working of the classics, noticeable among which stood Brecht's Edward II and Erich Engel's Coriolanus in early 1925. Later in that year the production of Carl Zuckmayer's Der froehliche Weinberg revolutionised theatre by introducing down to earth comedy to the stage.
At this point in his career, Brecht was experimenting with his "epic" theatre and also with the ideas of Karl Marx, whom he began reading in 1926. These interests led him to work for Erwin Piscator Piscator set up an independent company at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz in 1927, a Berlin West End theater but with Communist politics and a preference for the themes that Brecht was trying to deal with. In spite of this partnership, Brecht was unable to complete any major social-political plays for the theatre, notably; Joe P. Fleischhacker (about the Chicago wheat market) and Decline of the Egoist Johann Fatzer (concerned with soldiers deserting in the First World War).
His difficulties in producing these themes for the stage were off-set by his meeting with Kurt Weill in 1927. Soon occurring after Weill had enthusiastically reviewed his Man equals Man, the two men instantly started considering the opera medium for their respective talents. Weill was gaining a reputation at the time as a dissonant, contrapuntal neo-classical composer, and Brecht took full advantage of Weill's talents. Weill's first composition using Brecht's lyrics was the "song spiel" known as The Little Mahagonny, performed during a boxing match in Baden-Baden during 1927. The two men soon started working on a full-scale opera.
During this time the operatic atmosphere in Berlin was becoming quite favourable for modern operas. Krenek produced the jazz opera Jonny spielt auf in 1927, showing in both Leipzig and Berlin. At the same time Klemperer was appointed to head the Kroll-Oper, the second state opera house in Berlin.
In March of 1928 a young actor named Ernst-Josef Aufricht was given 100,000 marks by his father. He used the money to rent the Theatre am Schiffbauerdamm and booked Erich Engel who was workin on Brecht's Man equals Man at the time. After planning for an opening production on August 31st, the only thing lacking was the actual play. He soon brought in a man named Heinrich Fischer to act as his deputy. After tapping many of Germany's best known playwrights (including Kraus, Wedekind, Toller, and others), Fischer happened to run into Brecht in a cafe. Brecht mentioned his interest in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, a translation of which one of his mistresses (Elizabeth Hauptmann) was in the process of making. The fact that a revival of this play had been successful in London about six years earlier caused Fischer to allow Brecht to run with the idea.
Brecht took over the script and brought in Weill to write the modern melodies. Aufricht, worried about his investment, went to listen to two of Weill's operas and was appalled by their atonality. He ordered his musical director find the origal songs in case Weill's work would not be performable. In May the entire team, including Brecht, Hauptmann, Weill and Engel, were sent to Le Lavandou in the south of France to finish the work.
While in France and later on the Ammersee Brecht added several new scenes, such as the stable wedding, which does not occur in The Beggar's Opera. He also added his own songs, four of which he stole from a German version of Villon. In spite of the additions the rehearsals started in August with much of the original script intact, including songs by Gay and Rudyard Kipling (these later disappeared).
The play immediately encountered difficulties of an almost comical nature. The lead, Carola Neher, was two weeks late from her husband's funeral and gave up the part. Roma Bahn was immediately recruited and had to learn the role in four days. Helene Weigel (famous for her later portrayel of Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children) came down with appendicitis and had her part cut (she was supposed to play Mrs. Coaxer the brothel Madame). Then the actress playing Mrs. Peachum, Rosa Valetti, objected to the "Song of Sexual Obsession" and forced that to be cut as well. Other mishaps included the actress playing Lucy being unable to manage her solo (causing it to be cut), Lotte Lenya's name being left off the program, and the play being 45 minutes too long. After massive cutting, having Brecht write the finale during the rehearsals, and hastily adding the now famous song "Ballad of Mac the Knife", the play was ready.
The premier performance seemed to indicate that the play would be a disaster. The audience failed to react throughout the entire first half of the show. However, with the performance of the "Cannon Song", applause suddenly burst out and the collaborators had the greatest German success of the 1920s to contend with.
The play remains today as one of the more difficult Brechtian plays to interpret. It is hard to reconcile Brecht's outspoken later Communism with the flippancies inherent in the production, and with the fact that it has had repeated successes in bourgeois theaters. The problems stem from the fact that when Brecht wrote the play he was only beginning to explore Marxism and he did not yet identify with the class struggle. The issue is confused, however, by the fact that Brecht's notes were all written after the play and also after his adoption of a committed Marxist stance in 1929.
This video is The Three Penny Opera original-cast album, performed onstage in Germany, it was recorded on the 7 December 1930, and reissued during 1962 by Telefunken on long-play disc TH97012.
The selections presented all feature Lotte Lenya.
1)Seerauber Jenny;
2)Barbara Song;
3)Zuhalter Ballade, with Willy Trenk-Trebitsch;
4)Moritat & Schluss Choral, with Chorus.
Brecht seems to have realised that the work was ineffectual in getting its message across, indicated by his subsequent switch to more didactic forms. However, he clearly liked the work and seems to have looked on it wistfully. Favorable critiques at the time did not focus on the issues of morality, but rather on the fact that the play represented a new theatrical genre. The play's subsequent interpretation as a political or social work seems to caused more by the Nationalist's rejection of it than from the work itself. As far as new theater goes, The Threepenny Opera served as a direct attack at Wagnerian opera, and through its display of the base elements of society brought theater to the people rather than to the elite "society". The impact on the music profession was also immediate, with Klemperer reportedly going to see the play ten times.
Brecht's burlesque of the bourgeois society of the Weimar Republic, appealing set in Victorian England's Soho, remains one of the great plays today. "The Ballad of Mac the Knife" became a popular jazz tune in the 1950s and the work inself has inspired numerous artists. Attempts have been made to update the play, but Brecht himself left it mostly in the original form. Although the play was central to his success in the theatre, it does not contain the central social and political elements that so many of his later works focused on. Indeed, The Threepenny Opera seems to have been an incidental creation that he and Kurt Weill put together, a brilliant but not perfect play. The Threepenny Opera is "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirise traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theatre base on the theories of two young German artists, poet-playwright Bert Brecht and composer Kurt Weill. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue the olay is about a shabby figure that comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song narrate;tell the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. Mauricia's group is doing this piece and here are some rehearsal process images of them in action.
Three PennyOpera by Bertolt Brecht
Sintesha plays JakeMauricia plays Polly
Stella plays Ned
Prince plays Macheath
Bradley plays a police officer
Esther plays Ned, Robert
Brandon plays a Rev. Pastor.
Paige plays Matthew
Ahmed Plays Walter
Peachum& COTracy Lomanga
Darren Bailey
Ayo
Ui
Cameron Flavien- Nicholas
Rebecca
Edward Justham
Mother Courage
Key Facts of Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children
Playwright· Bertolt Brecht
Genre · Epic theatre, social drama
Language · German
Time and place written · Written during Brecht's exile in Sweden, 1939
Date of first publication · 1941
Publisher · Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, Berlin
Narrator · None (Although each scene includes a poster summarising the future events)
Climax · As a work of "epic theatre," Mother Courage does not abide to the model of the plot and it does not involve a structure of rising and falling action, climax, and catharsis. In some sense, each scene exists for itself.
Protagonists · Mother Courage, Kattrin, Swiss Cheese, and Chaplain
Setting (time) · The Thirty Years War (Spring 1624–January 1636)
Setting (place) · Throughout Europe (Germany, Poland, Bavaria, and Saxony)
Point of view · Point of view is not located as there is no narrator figure
Falling action · Again, as a work of "epic theatre " Mother Courage does not adhere to the model of the plot.
Tense · The play unfolds in the time of the present
Most notably, Courage's game of fortune telling in the first scene foretells the death of her children. Tragi-comic
Major Characters
Mother Courage is played by Penelope Josephine Dobson(Penny) & Esther O(Tiffany).
Mother Courage is to borrow a phrase from Walter Benjamin, the play's "untragic heroine." A parasite of the war, she follows the armies of the Thirty Years War, supporting herself and her children with her canteen cart/wagon. She remains opportunistically fixed on her survival, winning her name when hauling a cartful of bread through a city under bombardment. Courage works tirelessly, relentlessly haggling, dealing, and celebrating the war as her breadwinner in her times of prosperity. As Eilif's song suggests, she is the play's wise woman, delivering shrewd commentary on the war throughout the play. For example, the defeats for the great are often victories for the small, the celebration of the soldier's bravery indicates a faltering campaign, the leader pins his failings on his underlings, and the poor require courage. She understands that virtues in wartime become fatal to their possessors. Courage will ironically see her children's deaths from the outset, foretelling their fates in Scene One. Courage's Solomon-like wisdom does not enable her to oppose the war. The price the war will exact for Courage's livelihood is her children, each of which she will lose while doing business. Though Courage would protect them fiercely—in some sense murderously insisting that her children and her children alone come through the war.
Her courage is her will to survive; a will that often requires her cowardice. Unlike Kattrin, Courage will sing the song of capitulation. For example, in Scene Four, she depravedly teaches a soldier to submit to unjust authority and then bitterly learns from her song herself, withdrawing a complaint she planned to lodge herself. In the scene previous, she refuses to recognize the corpse of her executed son, consigning it to the carrion pit. Kattrin's death will not incite her to revolt. Instead, she will resume her journey with the wagon, in some sensed damned to her labour for eternity. As Brecht notes pro-grammatically in the Courage Model Book, Courage, understandably bent on her survival, does not learn, failing to understand that no sacrifice is too great to stop war.
The Chaplain played by Mahin in scene 8 & Bicton Watson in scene 3
One of two characters dependent on Mother Courage as their "feed bag," the Chaplain initially appears as a cynical, wooden character. He remains loyal to the Swedish monarchy and the campaign as a war of religion though cannot but notice the horrors around him, for example, his reaction to Eilif's raid. This cynicism reaches its height after the surprise attack by the Catholics, which rips him from his social station and leaves him precariously dependent on Courage's wagon. Bitterly, the Chaplain will advise Courage to buy new supplies. The war can only prevail. After all, though degrading, it provides for all base human needs-eating drinking screwing, and sleeping. Like love, it will always find a way to go on.
The Chaplain also reveals more sympathetic qualities, particularly when he defies Courage and attempts to save the local peasants at the Battle of Magdeburg. To this point, he appears as a sort of outsider, refraining from intervening in Courage's practices for fear of jeopardizing his position. At Magdeburg, the Model Book shows him recalling a sense of his former importance and understanding himself as someone oppressed by the war. Indeed, as he will tell the Cook, his life as a tramp makes it impossible to return to the priesthood and all its attendant beliefs.
Eventually the Chaplain falls for Courage. Focused on survival, she denies him, refusing his demands that she drop her defenses and let her heart speak. The arrival of the Cook will spark a rivalry over both Courage's affections and bread. When both men believe that Courage has rejected them, they reminisce about the good times they shared together in the service of the Swedish Commander. Apparently, like Courage, they have learned little from their suffering during the war.
The Cook is played Sean Lennon in scene 8 and Pierce Tomlinson scene 3
The Chaplain's rival for Courage's affections and bread, the Cook is an ageing Don Juan, a bachelor long past his days as the dashing Peter Piper who seduced girls like Yvette. Darkly ironic, he is aware of the war as a continuation of business as usual, continually unmasking the divinely inspired military campaign as another massive profit scheme. In understanding his social position, he bears no loyalty to the rulers who would exploit him. As he tells the Chaplain, he does not eat the King's bread but bakes it. He comes to Mother Courage when penniless, their courtship consisting of their accounts of their respective ruin.
Mother Courage Plot Overview opens in Dalarna, spring 1624, in the midst of the Thirty Years War. A Sergeant and Recruiting Officer are seeking soldiers for the Swedish campaign in Poland. A canteen wagon appears, bearing the infamous Mother Courage, her dumb daughter, Kattrin, and her sons, Eilif and Swiss Cheese.
Swiss cheese is played by Shabill Kiyemba in both scenes 
Eillif is played by Derese in both scenes and he plays the young man
Crystal Spooner is the Sergeant in both scenes
Yvette is played by Claudia Dos Santos in Scene 3 and Simone Ziel in Scene 8
Yvette deep down is a nice person she willingly does stuff for mother Courage even though she does not deserve it. Also I thought just reacting to what the other characters are doing and saying. My characters physical appearance matters a lot to her but she does not show it. She is quite dirty. Deep inside she is really frightened of how others perceive her she starts to imitate Yvette's actions. My character is 158.5 (5'2) athletic build and dark chocolate. Her hand gestures are really sharp however her gestures aren't always clear. She loves the back of her mother's cart, that is how she feels she can hide when someone that may hurt her is coming for her. The cart is really old. It has wooden wheels and a white cloth going around it. The reason why the white cloth is there is the mere fact that Mother Courage likes to be secretive with the goods that she gets. Her garden is full of rose petals and other flowers. Kattrin has a bag that she leaves in the cart and anything she sees or hears she writes it down and tries to figure out how to tell her family that danger is near; but obviously she is never given a chance to express her thoughts because she can't speak and no one ever reads her book because it is often underneath Mother Courages goods. Since Mother Courage is also always in a hurry she never comes across it. Kattrin has a lot of hobbies, she likes to read and listen to her classical music as I mentioned before. She likes to wear shoe's like flats and Yvette's red boots. All her shoes are either black or red. Yvette is like the town prostitute that mother courage uses throughout the play since she sleeps with the guys Mother courage needs to get things from.
Crystal Spooner is the Sergeant in both scenes
Yvette deep down is a nice person she willingly does stuff for mother Courage even though she does not deserve it. Also I thought just reacting to what the other characters are doing and saying. My characters physical appearance matters a lot to her but she does not show it. She is quite dirty. Deep inside she is really frightened of how others perceive her she starts to imitate Yvette's actions. My character is 158.5 (5'2) athletic build and dark chocolate. Her hand gestures are really sharp however her gestures aren't always clear. She loves the back of her mother's cart, that is how she feels she can hide when someone that may hurt her is coming for her. The cart is really old. It has wooden wheels and a white cloth going around it. The reason why the white cloth is there is the mere fact that Mother Courage likes to be secretive with the goods that she gets. Her garden is full of rose petals and other flowers. Kattrin has a bag that she leaves in the cart and anything she sees or hears she writes it down and tries to figure out how to tell her family that danger is near; but obviously she is never given a chance to express her thoughts because she can't speak and no one ever reads her book because it is often underneath Mother Courages goods. Since Mother Courage is also always in a hurry she never comes across it. Kattrin has a lot of hobbies, she likes to read and listen to her classical music as I mentioned before. She likes to wear shoe's like flats and Yvette's red boots. All her shoes are either black or red. Yvette is like the town prostitute that mother courage uses throughout the play since she sleeps with the guys Mother courage needs to get things from.Plot Overview
The Recruiting Officer attempts to seduce Eilif into the army. Courage demands that he leave her children alone. The Sergeant protests and asks why, since Courage lives off the war, it should not ask something of her in return. When Eilif admits that he would like to sign up, Courage foretells the fate of her children: Eilif will die for his bravery, Swiss Cheese for his honesty, and Kattrin for her kindness. Courage readies to leave. The Recruiting Officer presses the Sergeant to stop them. While the Sergeant feigns to buy one of Courage's belts, the Recruiting Officer takes Eilif away.
In 1626, Courage appears beside the tent of the Swedish Commander, arguing with the Cook over the sale of a capon. The Commander, a Chaplain, and Eilif enter the tent, the Commander lauding his brave soldier for raiding the local peasants. Courage remarks that trouble must be afoot. If the campaign was any good, he would not need brave soldiers. Courage reunites with her son.
Three years later, Courage and Kattrin appear folding washing on a cannon with Swiss Cheese, now a paymaster, and Yvette Pottier, the camp prostitute. Yvette recounts the story of her lost beau, Peter Piper.
The Chaplain and Cook appear and they talk about politics. The Cook remarks ironically that their king is lucky to have his campaign justified by God: otherwise, he could be accused of seeking profit alone. Suddenly cannons explode; the Catholics have launched a surprise attack. The Cook departs for the Commander. Swiss arrives and hides his regiment's cash box in the wagon.
Three days later, the remaining characters sit eating anxiously. When Courage and the Chaplain go to town, Swiss departs to return the cash box unaware that an enemies are lurking about to arrest him. When Courage and the Chaplain return, two men bring in Swiss. Mother and son pretend to not know each other
That evening, Kattrin and the Chaplain appear rinsing glasses. An excited Courage enters, declaring that they can buy Swiss' freedom. Yvette has picked up an old Colonel who will buy the canteen; Courage only plans to pawn and reclaim it after two weeks with the money from the cash box. Thanking God for corruption, Courage sends Yvette to bribe One Eye with the 200 guilders.
Yvette reports that the enemy has agreed. Swiss, however, has thrown the cash box into the river. Courage hesitates, thinking that she will not be able to reclaim the wagon. Courage proposes a new offer, 120 guilders. Yvette returns, saying that they rejected it, and Swiss' execution is imminent. Drums roll in the distance. Two men enter with a stretcher, asking Courage if she can identify Swiss Cheese's body. Courage shakes her head, consigning the body to the carrion pit.
Courage then appears outside an officer's tent, planning to file a complaint over the destruction of her merchandise. A Young Soldier enters, threatening the captain's murder. Apparently he has stolen his reward for rescuing the Colonel's horse. Courage tells him to quiet down, since his rage will not last. Defeated, the soldier leaves, and Courage follows.
Two years pass, and the wagon stands in a war-ravaged village. The Chaplain staggers in; there is another wounded family of peasants in the farmhouse. He needs linen. Courage refuses, as she will not sacrifice her officers' shirts. The Chaplain lifts her off the wagon and takes the shirts.
The canteen sits before the funeral of Commander Tilly in 1632. Mother Courage and Kattrin take inventory inside the canteen tent. Courage asks the Chaplain if the war will end she needs to know if she should buy more supplies. The Chaplain responds that war always finds a way. Courage resolves to buy new supplies, and sends Kattrin to town. Kattrin returns with a wound across her eye and forehead, as she was attacked en route. Counting the scattered merchandise, Courage curses the war. Immediately afterward she appears at the height of prosperity, dragging her new wares along a highway. She celebrates war as her breadwinner.
A year later, voices announce that peace has been declared. Suddenly the Cook arrives, bedraggled and penniless. Courage and Cook flirt as they recount their respective ruin. The Chaplain emerges, and the men begin to argue, fighting for the feed bag When Courage defends the Cook, the Chaplain calls her a "hyena of the battlefield." Courage suggests they part. Suddenly an older, fatter, and heavily powdered Yvette enters. The widow of a colonel, she has come to visit Courage. When she sees the Cook, she unmasks him as the Peter Piper that ruined her years ago. Courage calms her and takes her to town.
Both men are now convinced that they are lost. Eilif then enters in fetters. He faces execution for another of his raids and has come to see his mother for the last time. The soldiers take him away and cannons thunder. Courage appears, breathless. The war resumed three days ago and they must flee with the wagon. She invites the Cook to join her, hoping that she will see Eilif soon.
It is autumn of 1634. A hard winter has come early. Courage and the Cook appear in rags before a parsonage. Abruptly the Cook tells her that he has received a letter from Utrecht saying that his mother has died and left him the family inn. He invites her to join him there. However, they must leave Kattrin behind. Kattrin overhears their conversation.
Calling to the parsonage, the Cook then sings "The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth" for food. It recounts how the great souls meet their dark fates on account of their respective virtues-wisdom, bravery, honesty, and kindness. Courage decides she cannot leave her daughter. Kattrin climbs out of the wagon, planning to flee, but Courage stops her. They depart.
It is January 1636 and the wagon stands near a farmhouse outside Halle. Kattrin is inside; her mother has gone to town to buy supplies. Out of the woods come a Catholic Lieutenant and three soldiers, seeking a guide to the town. The Catholic regiment readies for a surprise attack. Convinced there is nothing they can do, the peasants begin to pray. Quietly Kattrin climbs on the roof and begins to beat a drum. The soldiers shoot Kattrin. Her final drumbeats mingle with the thunder of a cannon. She has saved the town.
It's Morning and Courage sits by Kattrin's body in front of the wagon. Courage sings Kattrin a lullaby. The peasants bring her to her senses and offer to bury her daughter. Courage pays them and harnesses herself to the wagon. "I must get back into business" she resolves and moves after the regiment.
Scene eight Summary
It is 1632; An Old Woman and her son appear in front of the wagon on a summer morning, dragging a bag of bedding. They attempt to sell it to an unwilling Courage. Suddenly bells starting ringing, and voices from the rear announce Gustavus Adolphus's fall at the battle of Lützen. Peace has been declared. Courage curses: she has just purchased new supplies. Crawling out of the wagon, the Chaplain decides to don his pastor's coat.
Suddenly the Cook, bedraggled and penniless, arrives. Eilif is expected at any moment. Courage calls Kattrin from the wagon, but she has come to fear the light in the wake of her disfigurement. Courage and Cook sit and chat, flirting as they recount their respective ruin. The Chaplain emerges wearing his coat, and the Cook chastises him from urging Courage to buy new supplies. They begin to argue. As the Courage Model Book indicates, they are engaged in a "fight for the feed bag " When Courage defends the Cook, the Chaplain calls her a "hyena of the battlefield," a war profiteerer who has no respect for peace. Courage observes that the Chaplain has been living off her with little complaint and suggests they part company.
Upon the Cook's suggestion, Courage rushes off to town to sell as much as she can. The Cook removes his boots and the wrappings on his feet. Poignantly, the priest begs the Cook not to oust him. Suddenly an older, fatter, and heavily powdered Yvette enters with a servant in tow. The widow of a colonel, she has come to visit Courage. When she sees the Cook, she unmasks him as the Peter Piper that abandoned her years ago, warning Courage of his history. Courage calms her and takes her to town.
Both men are now convinced that they are lost. They reminisce about happier days under the service of the Commander. Eilif, now a richly dressed lieutenant, then enters in fetters followed by two soldiers. He has come to see his mother for the last time. He has been arrested for another of his acts of plundering, now criminal under the new peace, one that left the wife of a peasant dead. He has no message for his mother. The soldiers take him away and the Chaplain follows, instructing the Cook to defer telling Courage for now.
Uneasily, the Cook approaches the wagon, asking Kattrin for food. A cannon thunders. Courage appears, breathless, with her goods in arms. The war resumed three days ago. They must flee with the wagon; she wants the Cook to join her and takes hope that she will be seeing Eilif soon. With the Cook and Kattrin in the harness, Courage sings triumphantly: "Report today to your headquarters! If it's to last, this war needs you!"
Analysis
With the onset of peace, this scene ironically shows the characters-all of whom have built their lives around the war-in ruin. Courage will lose everything on her wasted supplies. Eilif is punished for the murderous acts that gained him accolades during the war, and the absurdity of the situation leaves him speechless. The Chaplain finds himself ousted by the Cook. Though at first he turns upon Mother Courage, hypocritically attacking her scavenger's investment in the war, he must ultimately beg the Cook to leave him his place in the wagon. Notably, he cannot return to the cloth and all its attendant beliefs even if new congregations undoubtedly await him. His time as a tramp has made him a better man. Brecht underlines this transformation as revealing the "dignity of misery." Though triumphing over the Chaplain, the Cook, an ageing Don Juan, must beg for food and is humiliated by his old lover. Notably, the Cook and Courage stage their courtship through the discussion of the ruin that defines their new lives.
In contrast to this, Yvette returns to quote Mother Courage, the only character who makes her fortune through the war. The play's judgement of her is inscribed on her body. Fat, heavily made-up, and speaking with the affected accent of the Austrian aristocracy, she appears grotesque in her prosperity. As the Model Book indicates, "eating has become her only passion." Moreover, it is not for nothing that the character who makes it is the former camp whore. As Yvette trades her body for material gain, her disfigurement is the price she pays for her wealth.
Perversely, Brecht appears in some sense to consider her disfigurement in the same breath as Kattrin's. Thus, Yvette appears as "badly disfigured by good food as Kattrin by her scar." Their bodily mutilations are in no way analogous. Nevertheless, once again does the play Yvette and Kattrin become doubles. In some sense, it compulsively twins the whore and its most virtuous woman, betraying a certain fantasy its holds of the feminine.
One of the "islands of peace" described by the Chaplain earlier, the war reasserts itself. Courage's closing song, celebrating the war anew as her breadwinner, emphasises human complicity in the wars maintenance: "If it's to last the war needs you." As her recruitment song makes clear, war is not a force of the elements, but the workings of men. The crushing dramatic irony of this celebratory song is of course Courage's ignorance of Eilif's death, an irony underscored by her references to an imminent meeting with her son and her musings about his new heroic exploits. Courage will never come to know this loss during the play. As the Model Book grimly observes, she will literally ride over her son's grave.
Annoted script
Character Work
Kattrin
I play the role of Courage's dumb daughter, Kattrin distinguishes herself as the character who most obviously suffers from the traumas of war. These traumas are worn on her body, since the war robs her of her voice as a child and later leaves her disfigured. Throughout most of the play, she figures as the wars helpless witness, unable to save her brother Eilif from recruitment or Swiss Cheese from the Catholic spies. Later, she will stand by Courage when she refuses to identify Swiss Cheese's body. As Courage continually notes, Kattrin suffers from the virtues of kindness and pity, remaining unable to brook the loss of life around her. This kindness manifests itself in particular with regard to children, Kattrin's maternal impulses perhaps standing against Courage's relentless dealing and her resulting failure to protect her children. Ultimately Kattrin will "speak," sacrificing herself to save the children of Halle, and it is appropriate that the play compares her to the martyr Saint Martin.
The war in particular impinges on Kattrin's sexuality.
As Courage notes Kattrin is even in danger of becoming a "whore" that is, a victim of rape and must lie very low and wait for peacetime before considering marriage. Privately Kattrin will "play the whore" in a sense in her masquerade as Yvette, the camp prostitute, for sexual recognition. Notably, her disfigurement will ultimately make her marriage impossible. When I say disfigurement I don't necessarily mean as in someone has thrown acid on her face. A disfigurement can be anything, like a dumb person(mute), someone that can't hear or even see. That's my understanding of the word disfigurement. My character is actually older than me. She is twenty- five and not married; but I have decided to play Kattrin as a young child in an adults body to show her innocence in the scenes that I am in. Since I play Kattrin in both scene three and eight. I know in scene eight I need to show a bit more maturity whereas in scene three; I am really act child-like. Especially, when I put on Yvette's red boots and heels; strutting around in them. In scene three my interpretation of Kattrin is that see is clumsy, intelligent and really self-conscious because she always thinks people are after her. That is why she does not like to go out on her own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBIz7DPtTa0
This link is a different interpretation of Kattrin
I asked my friend Eleona Wai who is an artist in the making to draw a portrait of me with an image of a disfigured person that is kind and sees everything through her eyes. I told her to make my pupils show underneath the white substance she used to cover my eyes. I thought about how my character looked like and I used my bone structure to create another person with similar traits to me. She feels, hears and sees but can't speak that is why her lips blend in and are not as visible. But then she told me to do it instead; using a mirror using my imagination to draw Kattrin which I done; the picture on the left is the one I drew. Physicality wise I pictured her to be quite light on her feet and very quick at doing things. I.e when is trying to tell Swiss Cheese that the soldiers are very near and that they are coming to get him through her actions. Also while she is folding the laundry and when she climbs on top of the roof and start to play the drums warning the town about what she has heard. She knows the consequences of her actions but because of her kind nature she is not afraid to die saving the people in her town. What I think about Mother Courage.
In my eyes Mother Courage is without no doubt inconsiderate and she thinks about herself rather than her children. For example; she tries to Bargain for the release of Swiss Cheese instead of paying the money upfront and when she finally reaches the amount of money she is willing to pay she looses her son. I believe all of Mother Courage's children are like her but they have different ways of portraying it. Ellif is absolutely just like his mother in the sense that he is fearless and no doubt he is actually willing to die for others because if you get recruited in the army your only thing you put at risk is yourself. I could relate him to Kattrin in the sense where he is as nice as Kattrin the two of them have similar personalities. I feel for Swiss Cheese because of the fact that he is the first of Mother Courage's children to die. Swiss Cheese suffers from an excessive sense of duty and honesty and ultimately dies because of it- in other words, during the war, his virtues cost him his life. Courage in-stills these qualities in him because he is not particularly bright.
She lives in her mother's cart. Kattrin can read but can't write so she uses her gestures to tell the story as she is a mute. She doesn't drink alcohol. She is a self-conscious, shy, timid character.
They are always fitted not too tight but not too loose either so it's just right. She wears a lot of dresses; they look more like stripped white old bed sheets. The worst thing that could happen to her is actually losing her mother; I believe she wouldn't know what to do and because her Mother is like the provider of the family she wouldn't know how to go about providing for herself. My character only owns a Journal where she writes her thoughts in since she can't speak. My character often gets frustrated because her family shrugs her off when she is trying to get her points across through her actions. She is afraid to go out because she knows that the people that raped her are after her. I would say her most treasured possession is the Journal. Kattrin was a catholic. Her deepest desire I would have to say is getting other peoples attention quickly when there is danger. I personally think she is the most intelligent character out of all them because she since she's mute the only way she can think of to save her town is to play the rhythm of the war beat.
IDEAS ABOUT HOW I AM GOING ABOUT PLAYING KATTRIN
Look at videos of other actors interpretation of her and how she is perceived. What kind of clothes she wears, is really important because she looks scruffy, she is never approached as being seductive or a prostitute unlike Yvette. For instance, I can see that my interpretation of Kattrin is that she has an invisible identity, in the play the only time people notice her is when Mother Courage says that's not an entrancing but decent young girl.They basically live in a cart and move around quite a lot so I imagined Kattrin to be really dirty. I doubt she changes her clothing either. Ripped Dresses.
- Her gestures and facial expressions tell the whole story. I need to be able to be bigger with my movements on stage and I am self conscious but I have worked on it and I am not as much as more like before. On the other side my character is self - conscious as well so I could use that to my advantage. But then again I do not want to be a denier when I am performing. I am glad I got the role of Kattrin because it is what I need at the moment. Not having no words to others may seem a bit strange; but to me it's like I have never played a mute so it's like I have a taster of how it feels like to be a mute and I think then I can start to build my emotional connection with a character.I am also going to do an exercise where I stay in character for a whole day; this exercise was so difficult, there were times when I wanted to speak and since I couldn't it turned into frustration. But there is a lot that I have learnt about Kattrin and about stage presence. Even though I have no lines I need the audience to know who I am and why I'm on stage without any words, that's the hardest job but once you know what you're doing it is the easiest. I now know how it feels like and I'm so glad I'm not in Kattrin's situation. I would literally would not know what to do with my life.
- Picture how the other characters look like, in order to add to start playing around with the eye contact. When I say playing I mean I want to imagine them all looking different even though Mother Courage and my character dress the same. I picture mother courage looking a bit more cleaner than Kattrin.
- I'm also going to work on creating shapes, since I'm a mute the only way I know how to communicate is through sign language which I have learnt) I now know the whole alphabet. It was very confusing at first I kept getting the letters mixed up but then I got the hang of it.
- The type of music she listens to. I think when she listens to classical music she only hears the rhythm and how fast or slow the beats are. That is probably why she can play the rhythm of the war danger alert beat.
- Keep looking back at the text to see if I miss any important characteristic out that I could use to my advantage.
Sound affects of the war - Here are some effects that I thought we could use for the war. When Kattrin hears the explosion and runs towards the cart to hide from her mother he runs out to take down her washing.
Props & Staging
I brought in a Stella bottle; I washed and filled three other bottles with water from the props cup-board, I then bought three kitchen cloths and liquid soap, from my character's(Kattrin's)washing scene with the Chaplin;
I brought in bread, sardines and corn beef for the meal scene with Mother Courage, Swiss Cheese and the Chaplin.
I bought in a black long skirt and black vest top for my character since that's what people of her status mainly wore. I made her clothes really dirty and her hair really bushy and messy to show how much she travels and how much she doesn't bath or care about her appearance or rep as much as her mother does.
Capitulation
Look at videos of other actors interpretation of her and how she is perceived. What kind of clothes she wears, is really important because she looks scruffy, she is never approached as being seductive or a prostitute unlike Yvette. For instance, I can see that my interpretation of Kattrin is that she has an invisible identity, in the play the only time people notice her is when Mother Courage says that's not an entrancing but decent young girl.They basically live in a cart and move around quite a lot so I imagined Kattrin to be really dirty. I doubt she changes her clothing either. Ripped Dresses. Props & Staging
I brought in a Stella bottle; I washed and filled three other bottles with water from the props cup-board, I then bought three kitchen cloths and liquid soap, from my character's(Kattrin's)washing scene with the Chaplin;
I brought in bread, sardines and corn beef for the meal scene with Mother Courage, Swiss Cheese and the Chaplin.
I bought in a black long skirt and black vest top for my character since that's what people of her status mainly wore. I made her clothes really dirty and her hair really bushy and messy to show how much she travels and how much she doesn't bath or care about her appearance or rep as much as her mother does.
I bought in a black long skirt and black vest top for my character since that's what people of her status mainly wore. I made her clothes really dirty and her hair really bushy and messy to show how much she travels and how much she doesn't bath or care about her appearance or rep as much as her mother does.
- Capitulation
This was written in the midst of the Nazi terror, Mother Courage would force its spectators to oppose war. In this respect it features a number of moments of capitulation as object lessons: most notably, the withdrawal of Courage and the Young Soldier from the captain's tent in Scene Four and the submission of the peasants in Scene eleven. Mother Courage emphasises the ritual character of capitulation. Years of war have frozen the people into fixed patterns of surrender and lamentation. Standing against these surrenders is Kattrin, disfigured and silenced by war trauma to which she continually bears witness, who risks both livelihood and life to save a town under surprise attack.
Maternity
Against Mother Courage a mother who fails to protect her children. Her kindness involves an impulse to mother in opposition to her mother's cold-hearted business sense. As the Model Book notes, if Courage's war spoils consist of the loot she can scavenge, Kattrin's are the children she saves. Notably, her heroic intervention one that breaks her stony silence is the salvation of the children of Halle.
Symbols
Yvette's red boots is one of the play's symbols. An archetypal fetish object, the boots represent femininity, Prostitution and money. It actually makes sense that they belong to the play's whore Yvette because that's what she's known for. Kattrin uses these boots playfully in Scene Three, imitating Yvette's walk in a private daydream. The Model Book argues that she does so because prostitution is the only way love remains available to her in wartime. In doing so, it overstates the case and, strangely enough, assumes Kattrin's total identification with her friend. Kattrin's masquerade as the whore does not necessarily mean she aims to become one
Themes
War as Business
Brecht states in the Courage Model Book that the play conceives of war as a "continuation of business by other means." War is neither some supernatural force nor simply a rupture in civilisation but one of civilisation's preconditions and logical consequences. In this respect, there are many dialogues—the most explicit one appearing in Scene 3(three)that cast war as another profit venture by Europe's great leaders. Mother Courage is the plays primary small businesswoman, parasitically living off of the war with her canteen waggon. As the Model Book observes the "big profits are not made by little people." Courage's commitment to the business of war will cost her children, the war taking back for what it has provided her in flesh.
Virtue in Wartime
The Model Book also makes remarks that the war "makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors." This "lesson" appears from the outset of the play, prefiguring the fate of Mother Courage and her children. Telling each of her children's fortunes, Courage will conjure their deaths at the hand of their respective virtues: bravery, honesty, and kindness. Later, The Cook will rehearse this lesson in "The Song of the Great Souls of the Earth." As we will see, Brecht often attributes these virtues ironically. Courage, for example, is often a coward, and Eilif is more a murderer than a brave hero.
Allegory and the Morality Play
As the name of its eponymous heroine suggests, Mother Courage poses the tradition of the morality play as its backdrop. Pedagogical in its intent, the morality play is conventionally organised around Everyman as its protagonist and various characters personifying Vices and Virtues. Action consists of their struggle, whether for the Every man's soul or otherwise. Similarly Mother Courage offers Courage and her children as sense personifications the virtues that do them in during the war: wisdom, bravery, honesty, and kindness. Obviously, it is also profoundly pedagogical in its intentions.
Despite these similarities, it is clear that Brecht fundamentally departs from the morality play tradition as well. Certainly Courage explicitly located in her particular socio-historical context as well as the context of the performance is no Everyman. Moreover, the epic form militates precisely against a structure of ready identification between spectator and character that the universal Everyman clearly establishes. In the morality play, we are all "Everyman." Also, Brecht's play distorts the one-to-one correspondences (e.g. Kattrin is kindness) the morality play poses, exploiting the dissonances and arbitrary relations between the terms of its allegories. In the "Song of the Great Souls of the Earth," which awkwardly uses Socrates to figure for the simpleton Swiss Cheese, the spectator becomes conscious of the structures of figurative language that make these relations possible. By playing on the dissonances between song and action, song and character, the play would again distance the spectator from the spectacle and generate his critical reflection.
Music
At times the reader of Brecht feels trapped in a Marxist Gilbert and Sullivan musical. Rather than accompany or integrate itself into the theatrical illusion, music largely assumes an independent reality in Mother Courage, standing apart from the action. Brecht often underscored this separation by lowering a musical emblem whenever such a song would arise. Music is neither a simple accompaniment nor exclusively the expression of a character's current state, at times functioning instead in its autonomy as allegory, or as covert political commentary. Often it assumes a pedagogical function. Note, for example, how Courage teaches the soldier surrender through her song of capitulation or Yvette attempts to harden Kattrin to love through her "Fraternisation Song."
Business practises
Deemed a "damned soul" in the Model Book, Mother Courage works tirelessly, resting only once in the course of the play. Her haggling, careful inventory, and so on frame and punctuate the actions. Courage always protects her keen interest, enquiring into the fate of the war with only her profit in mind. Her practises emerge from the social conditions that determine the characters, committing her to the war. Ultimately she will lose each of her children as a result. Moreover, as the final scene chillingly shows, so ritualised are these practises that Courage will not learn from her losses.
Attitude of the Spectator
In this respect, Brecht often said that the attitude of the spectator should be that of a man at leisure, a man smoking a cigar. This man is not overly drawn into the action on the stage, he is sitting removed from it and contemplating. In this way, he is free to form judgements on the action which he observes, and to come to conclusions about what this means for his real life outside this moment of entertainment.
However Brecht did not intend his theatre to supply intellectual conversation points. The attitude of the cigar smoker may be detached from the spectacle but it is entirely attached to reality, to the knowledge of the individual’s existence and the real life situations they are involved with every day. Furthermore, as children of the scientific age, the attitude maintained by one smoking is the attitude of the worker. Though the smoking spectator is at leisure, the nature of this leisure is in remaining detached from the labour of empathetic identification with the character on stage, the spectator is not becoming one with the hero and working through the situation represented. This spectator remains in their own mind, the same mind which is occupied during the day fulfilling some purpose whatever that may be. This is the man that Brecht is really interested in. It its real life that is to be changed, and this cannot be affected by any change on the stage. The change must be effected by those who operate in the world, in whatever way it is that they do so:
“The attitude is a critical one. Faced with a river, it consists in regulating the river; faced with a fruit tree, in spraying the fruit tree; faced with movement, in constructing vehicles and aeroplanes; faced with society, in turning society upside down. Our representations of social life are designed for river-dwellers, fruit farmers, builders of vehicles and upturners of society, whom we invite into our theatres and beg not to forget their cheerful occupations while we hand the world over to their minds and hearts for them to change as they think fit.”
In creating an estranging representation of a world which appears to be unchangeable, but in which the possibilities for change are laid bare and displayed, the cigar smoking spectator is invited to think about their world; how it seems to them to be, and how it actually is, and what their active role in that world is as a worker in it; what they can do to change it.
Entertainment
Brecht’s attitude was that theatre should be enjoyable. He wrote that enjoyment was theatre’s noblest function, and that it should attain to no higher purpose. To many this would seem to be at odds with his goal of societal change. The popular conception is that Brecht is all about teaching the public about their depraved conditions and how they must liberate themselves. Surely it doesn’t matter if they enjoy the play because the conditions of their lives will soon be vastly improved through the revolutionary content! Brecht would absolutely deny this. To him, theatre was entertainment. If people were not going to be entertained by theatre then they would not go to the theatre and there is little point in putting on a play to an empty house. Brecht wrote that the epic theatre must be defended “against the suspicion that it is a highly disagreeable, humourless, indeed strenuous affair.”Techniques of social realism in which the miserable ‘truth’ of social conditions is accurately shown to the audience, or necessarily unpleasant shock theatre such as Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, are obviously out of the question. If theatre is to exist, then it must be entertaining.
However, Brecht was definitely opposed to the type of entertainment which the traditional dramatic theatre offered. The spectacular dramatic theatre whose audience “hangs its brains up in the cloakroom along with its coat.” For Brecht, true entertainment was not to be found in the escapism and illusion which dramatic theatre offered. The empathy and identification with characters on stage which draws the spectator into a zombified dream-state in which emotions run high was to be avoided at all costs. Brecht often described it using the metaphor of drugs, calling it the common man’s “accustomed opiate, his mental participation in someone else’s uprising, … the illusion which whips him up for a few hours and leaves him all the more exhausted, filled with vague memories and even vaguer hopes.”
This kind of entertainment is not socially desirable as it inhibits the individual’s ability to think about the issues being presented on the stage. However Brecht states that these illusions do serve to fulfil an important social function and cannot simply be abolished. “The drug is irreplaceable, it cannot be done without” There exists a need, and what Brecht suggests to fulfil this is a new type of entertainment, a rediscovery of pleasure while still in possession of one’s brain.
Walter Benjamin reported a Brechtian Maxism: “Do not start with the good old things, but with the bad new ones.” Rather than stating that the desire for entertainment of learning is wrong, Brecht attacks what he sees as the relatively recent, and false, distinction between learning and amusement in which learning may at best be categorised as useful but only amusement is pleasurable and therefore desirable. The circumstances under which this distinction has come about are those of a system under which knowledge has become a commodity, traded, sold, and restricted to certain economic relationships in which, whatever it is, it is not fun. Brecht maintains that theatre can involve learning which is entertaining. The new pleasure is to be found in the discovery that the world can be changed; the liberating pleasure of the transformation of society.
By the 1930s money was scarce because of the depression, so people did what they could to make their lives happy. Movies were hot, parlor games and board games were popular. People gathered around radios to listen to the Yankees; when they would play. Young people danced to the big bands. Franklin Roosevelt influenced Americans with his Fireside Chats. The golden age of the mystery novel continued as people escaped into books, reading writers like Agatha Christie, Dashielle Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. Hitler meant War was clear to Brecht by the beginning of 1937. This was some two quarter years. Communism is the most logical and extreme form of Socialism, outcome of the revolutionary theory of Karl Marx. The underlying philosophy is materialistic and deterministic the social order evolves through economic struggles between the classes in the direction of the violent revolution and a dictatorship of the proletariat, to be followed by a "withering away" of the state and the substitution of a society where ownership of all things is common, where all will work voluntarily, and all take freely of goods produced according to his needs. As well as the abstract theory of Communism there must, since 1917, be considered the concrete attempt to apply its principals in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, where one aspect of it can be summed up in the words of Stalin: "Scientifically speaking, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a power which is restricted by no laws, hampered by no rules, and based directly on violence."
Whether in theory or in practice, the Church utterly rejectsed Communism on account of its errors, notably: its atheistic materialism, its doctrine and practice of class-war, its denial of the rights and liberties of the human person, including the natural right to possess some measure of private property, and its contempt for good morals under several heads.
Church teaching on Communism
"To this goal also tends the unspeakable doctrine of Communism, as it is called, a doctrine most opposed to the very natural law. For if this doctrine were accepted, the complete destruction of everyone's laws, government, property, and even of human society itself would follow." I got this from Encyclical On Faith and Religion by Pope Pius IX, 1846
"IV. SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, SECRET SOCIETIES, BIBLICAL SOCIETIES, CLERICO-LIBERAL SOCIETIESPests of this kind are frequently reprobated in the severest terms in the Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1846, Allocution "Quibus quantisque," April 20, 1849, Encyclical "Noscitis et nobiscum," Dec. 8, 1849, Allocution "Singulari quadam," Dec. 9, 1854, Encyclical "Quanto conficiamur," Aug. 10, 1863" THE SYLLABUS OF ERRORS CONDEMNED BY PIUS IX, 1864
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