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THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN AESTHETIC
translation and notes by
JOHN WILLETT
METHUEN & CO LTD
II NEW FETTER LANE LONDON EC4
English translation first published in 1964
Copyright 1957, 1963 and 1964 by
Suhrkamp Verlag. Frankfurt am Main
This translation and notes 1964 by John Willett
Printed in Great Britain by
Shenval Press, London, Hertford and Harlow
'. . . the inflexible rule that
the proof of the pudding is
in the eating'
I
contentr
Introduction
I Frank Wedekind
2 A Reckoning
3 Emphasis on Sport
PART ONE 1918-1932
4 Three Cheers for Shaw
.". 5 Conversation with Bert
6 A Radio Speech
7 Shouldn't we Abolish Aesthetics?
8 The Epic Theatre and its Difficulties
9 Last Stage: Oedipus
10 A Dialogue about Acting
I I On Form and Subject-Matter
12 An Example of Paedagogics
The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre
14 The Literarization of the Theatre
The Film, the Novel and Epic Theatre!
The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication
17 The (htestion of Criteria forfJudging Acting
IS Indirect Impact of the Epic Theatre
I , PART TWO 1933-1947
. .I h' .
19 IntervIew wit an Exde
I :
20 Theatre for or Theatre for Instruction '
21 The German Drama: pre-Hitler
22 Criticism of New York Production of Die Mutter
23 On the Use Music in an Epic Theatre ,
Effects in Chinese Acting:
25 Notes to Die Rundkopfe und die Spitzkopfe
26 On Gestic Music
The Popular and the Realistic
page xiii
3
4
6
10
14
18
20
22
24
26
29
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1
33
43
47
51
53
57
65
69
77
81
84
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100
10
4
107
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CONTENTS
28 On Rhymeless Verse with Irregular Rhythms
(,.
page 115
( (29) The Street Scene
"'30 On Experimental Theatre
31 New Technique of Acting 0
-p Two Essays on Unprofessional Acting
33 Notes on the Folk Play
34 Alienation Effects in the Narrative Pictures of the Elder Brueghel
35 A Little Private Tuition for my Friend Max Gcirelik
36 Building up a Part: Laughton's Galileo "
37 'Der Messingkauf': an editorial note .
PART THREE 1947- 1948
38 A Short Organum for the Theatre
PART FOUR 1948..;1956
39 Masterful Treatment of a Model
40 From the Mother Courage Model
41 Does Use of the Model Restrict the Artist's Freedom?
42 Formal Problems Arising from the Theatre's New Content
43 Stage Design for the Epic Theatre
44 From a Letter to an Actor
_-- 45 Some of the Things that can be Learnt from Stanislavsky
46 Theaterarbeit: an editorial note
47 Notes on Erwin Strittmatter's Play Katzgraben
48 Study of the First Scene of Shakespeare's Coriolanus ..
------1:A9 c.:llltural Policy and Academy of Arts_
50 Conversation about being Forced into EmpathY:>
51 Classical Status as an Inhibiting Factor -
52 Can the Present-day World be Reproduced by Means of
Theatre?
53 Appendices to the 'Short Organum'
54 'Dialectics in the Theatre': an editorial note
55 Our London Season
Other English Translations
Index
121
130
136
148
153
157
159
16
3
16
9
179
20
9
21
5
222
226
230
233
236
239
247
252
266
27
272
274
276
i.81
28
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28
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286
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Wedekind and his wife Tilly photographed near the Deutsches
Theater in Berlin, c. 1908-12. (Ullstein)' facing page XVI
Reinhardt's production of Saint Joan in 1924, with Elisabeth
Bergner (Joan), Rudolf Forster (Dauphin, at back) and Paul
Hartmann (Dubois). (Ullstein) I
Brecht with Paul Samson-Korner, about 1926 16
Mann ist Mann at the Berlin Volksbiihne, December 31, 1927,
with Heinrich George (front) as Galy IGay, and Viktor Schwan-
necke, Peter Ihle and Friedrich Gnas as the three soldiers.
(Foto-Schmidt)
17
ajter page ' 24 Fritz Sternberg, about 1932. (Ullstein)
Erwin Piscator, 1930. (Ullstein)
Caricature of Leopold Jessner's Oedipus production at the
Staatstheater, 1929. Left to right: Weigel, Granach, Roland,
Kortner and Franck
A scene from Konjunktur, by Leo Lania, staged by Piscator at the
Theater am Nollendorfplatz, Berlin, in 1928. (Reproduced from
Piscator's Das poNtische Theater, 1929)
Der Flug der Lindberghs, as performed at the Baden-Baden music
festival, 1929. (Reproduced from Versuche I) 24
Curtain for The Threepenny Opera, 1928. (Carl Koch) faC'ing page 48
Charlie Chaplin in City Lights, 1931. (Vnited Artists Corporation
Ltd) ,. " 49
M
. MI . B h ' d;' h
ann tst ann:lfi rec t s pro uctIOn ,at t e Staatstheater, 1931.
(Carl Koch) , 56
Scene 6 of Mutter in the 1932 production, with Helene
Weigel (left) : '57
A group of [Brecht's actors at a rehearsal for Happy End in the
Theatre am iSchiffbauerdamm, August 1929. (Ullstein) 64
Tretiakov's Roar China in Meyerhold's production at the Meyer-
hold Theatre, Moscow, 1926. (S.C.R.) 65
BRECHT ON THEATRE: 1948-1956
Yet another (49/05-06) comes close to the Neues Deutschland article. 'The
principles of a realistic and socialist art,' it says, 'were not examined but simply
treated as a style to be imposed on artists of very different sorts, some of them of
world-wide reputation. This led to a pernicious levelling and to the discourage-
ment of that individual and independent sense of form without which no art is
possible. The campaign against the formalism of decaying bourgeois art was
turned into a campaign against the sense of form .... Art has no competence to
make works of art out of the artistic notions of some official department. It is only
boots that can be made to measure. In any case many politically well-educated
people have mal-educated and therefore unreliable taste.
'Without Marxist knowledge and a socialist outlook it is impossible today to
understand reality or to use one's understanding to change it. For art, however,
this is not a question of style, least of all today. Style only comes into the matter in
so far as the style needs to be as simple as possible, as intelligible as possible; the
battle for socialism cannot be won by a handful of highly educated connoisseurs,
a few people who know how to understand complicated charades. But I said as
simple as possible. Certain complex processes which we need to understand cannot
be quite simply portrayed.'
Such opinions do not apply specifically to the theatre, and it may be wondered
why they are reproduced here. But they are relevant to the whole framework
within which Brecht chose to work.
50 . Conversation about being Forced into Empathy
B. I have here Horace's Ars Poetica in Gottsched's translation. He really
expresses a theory that often concerns us, one that Aristotle proposed
for the theatre:
You must enchant and conquer the reader's breast.
One laughs with those who laugh and lets tears flow
When others are sad. So, if you want me to weep
First show me your own eye full of tears.
In this well-known passage Gottsched cites Cicero writing on oratory,
describing how the Roman actor Polus played Electra mourning her
brother. His own son had just died, and so he brought the urn with his
ashes on to the stage and spoke the verses 'focusing them so
painfully on himself that his own loss made him weep real tears. Nor
could any of those present have refrained from weeping at that point?'
I must say there is only one word for such an operatIon: barbaric.
W. You could equally well have Othello wounding himself with the dagger
in order to give us the pleasure of sYiillpathizing. Though it might be
270
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CONVERSATION ABOUT FORCED INTO EMPATHY
simpler to have somebody ha*d him one or two favourable notices
about a before comrng on. That would be as good a way as
any of puttmg us m that pet state where it is impossible to refrain
from tears. .. I
B. In case t?e object IS to f@b us off with some kind of portable
angUIsh - s to say anguish
i
that can be detached from its cause,
tn toto and lent to some other cause. The incidents proper to
play dIsappear like meat in a cunningly mixed sauce with a taste of
Its own.
P. All right, let's admit that Gottsched's attitude is barbaric, and Cicero's
too. is talking about a genuine feeling stimulated by the
actualmcldent portrayed, not albout some borrowed one.
W. :Why does he say 'If you want me to weep ... .' (Si vis me flere)? Is the
Idea to trample on my soul tears come and liberate me? Or is it
that I should be shown ePisores that soften me until I become
humanely disposed?
P. to stop you, if you see a man suffering and are able to suffer
WIth hIm? .
W. Because I must know why he's shffering. Take Polus for instance; his
son may have been a scoundrel. That needn't stop him suffering but
why should I suffer too? '
P. You can find that out from the incident that he played and lent his
sorrow to.
W. If he lets If he doesn't force me to surrender at all costs to his
wants me at allicosts to feel.
B. a SIster IS her brother's departure for the war; and
It IS the peasant war: he IS a peasant, off to join the peasants. Are we to
surrender to her sorrow completely? Or not at alI? We must be able to
to her sorrow and at the same time not to. Our actual emotion
wIll \rom recognizing and the incident's double aspect.
I ,
['Gesprach Jber die Notigung zur Einfiihlung"
from Schrifien zum Theater, 1957] ,
Da,ed 1953, this short dialogue forms the last section of 'Dialektik auf
em Theateri'". H,Qrace was a favourite author of Brecht's; his short poem 'B:im
des H?lazdates from the same year. The passage quoted is a translation
o mes 99-113 of the Ars Poetica.
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