Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance by David Barnett

2018; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/dtc.2018.0014

2165-2686

Stacey Connelly,

Theatre and Performance Studies

Reviewed by: Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance by David Barnett Stacey Connelly Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance. By David Barnett. Bloomsbury, 2015. Paper $27.00. 245 pages. The cover photo of David Barnett's Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory, and Performance captures Ian McDiarmid as the title character from the 2013 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Life of Galileo. The scientist gazes in wonder through his telescope at a night sky that shifts the paradigm of Earth's place in the solar system—an apt metaphor for another paradigm shift, from the theatre of illusion to what Brecht defiantly called "realism." Like the famed Galileo, however, Brecht has been misunderstood and his theories abused, largely through attempts in the English-speaking theatre at least, to de-politicize the playwright. Barnett traces this separation of Brecht from his politics back to Martin Esslin, but also blames Cold War tensions and a western aversion to Brecht's identity as a Marxist. With the collapse of communism that separation only worsened, linking the dramatist with a failed political system and "discredited politics" (3). Moreover, Barnett claims, today's audiences associate "political theatre" with party politics and partisan rancor, which are distasteful spectacles in real life, let alone on the stage. Yet Barnett insists that "Brecht's is a politically interventionist theatre" (4), and that de-coupling Brecht's art from his politics de-natures his dramas; thus Brecht in Practice seeks to demonstrate that Brecht's understanding of politics was both more comprehensive and more nuanced than parties and platforms, because it was embedded in a dramaturgy not about "making political theatre, but making theatre politically' (32). Barnett's jargon-free study, accessible to students and enjoyable for specialists, effectively re-introduces Brecht's performance theory, charts its evolution during the exile years, and demonstrates its application through Brecht's formation of the Berliner Ensemble, when his long-simmering ideas could at last be put into practice. In chapter 1, "Revealing the Radical Theorist," Barnett explains dialectics, the basis of Brecht's theory, as a mechanism capable of detecting contradictions and "unpicking things that appear to be fixed" (24). Chapter 3, "Brecht and Difference," stresses contradiction as Brecht's way of provoking questions and inspiring critical thinking about alternatives, a cognitive process meant to short-circuit empathy. Barnett roots Brecht's distrust of empathy in the Nazis' rise to power, claiming that Brecht considered Nazism a kind of performance which aimed to evoke identification, empathy, and uncritical acceptance (68). Unlike Stephen Parker, whose recent Brecht biography attributes the playwright's rejection of empathy to his precarious health, Barnett cites Brecht's efforts to believe that Germans were manipulated and "taken in," as opposed to willing and conscious followers of Nazi ideology (68). By re-conceiving the stage as a counterweight to the dangers of passivity and conformism, Brecht sought to instruct his audience, lending credence to Barnett's claim that "Everything on stage, however elaborately theorized and [End Page 165] practiced, is for the benefit of the spectator as the person who ultimately learns from the action on stage" (68). Barnett's analysis runs counter, then, to how some scholars downplay Brecht's didacticism in favor of his aesthetic techniques. In fact, Brecht's innovations in staging and stagecraft are now so widely practiced, regardless of a play's political intent, that, as Barnett wisely observes, "Today, then, Brecht's 'epic' devices are more about making the reception of the theatrical event complex rather than banishing illusion. They invite an audience to compare different kinds of theatrical communication or to challenge them to process a scene in a different kind of way" (72). Hence the author expresses an urgency in reclaiming Brecht's political roots and educational mission. In doing so, Barnett depicts the playwright's near-obsession with controlling audience response. Turning passive observers into political thinkers required a method, as shown in three excellent chapters about Brecht's directing and work with actors. Barnett uses primary evidence from Brecht's writings, detailed rehearsal notes, model books (Modellbücher), and interviews with former Berliner Ensemble members to analyze the playwright's approach to staging dialectical theatre, a process...