Erwin Piscator Research Articles

An analytical insight into the structure of the Brechtian theatre based on the plays ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ and‘ The Caucasian Chalk Circle’

Bertolt Brecht developed the form of the ‘epic theatre’ which can be defined as the foundation of the logical diversion of the direction of the conventional theatre. Brecht through this route of the epic theatre utilizes the theatre as a social and innovative logical instrument with the motive of initiating a social change which will have an impact on the existing social texture and the mentality of the social beings. The research focuses on analyzing how Brecht pursued a rationalistic route deviating from the core of the conventional theatrical structure, in instituting the form of the ‘epic theatre’ which can be defined as the foundation of the logical diversion of the direction of the conventional theatre. The foremost Brechtian plays, ‘Mother Courage and Her Children and ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ were analyzed to examine to which extent Brecht portrays the inner conflicts which social beings undergo in identifying their survival in relation to the discipline of emotion and reason. The data collecting procedure was conducted by utilizing secondary data collection methods. Accordingly, content analysis (conceptual analysis, relational analysis), discourse analysis and structural analysis were used in collecting and analyzing the relevant data. The study focused on analyzing the two plays Mother Courage and Her Children and ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ based on the Marxist ideological perspectives. The plays, ‘Mother Courage and Her Children, and ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle, induce the spectator to contemplate and reflect on the Brechtian thematic perspectives such as ‘Victimization of the human being through the insatiable desire for material comfort, human incapability to confront the social evils, the dichotomy between emotion and reason etc. Thus, approaching the irrational social symptoms from a communist political point of view, Brecht within his plays portrays the inner conflicts which social beings undergo in identifying their survival in relation to the discipline of emotion and reason. ‘Grusha’ in ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle and ‘Kattrin’ in ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ pursue the route of the universal principle of humanity which functions as the instinctive element in contrast to the rationally moulded sphere of reason. Brecht can be identified as a rebel whose intention is to move the social structure towards a new sphere in persuading the people to perceive through the obscured social veil. Along with the ideologies such as Marxism and the influence of the political theatre of Erwin Piscator, Brecht made an effort to transform the theatre into a source of social revival, thought inspiration and a foundation for social discourse.

Создатель Товарищества пролетарского искусства в Берлине Фридрих Вильгельм Брасс: первый опыт биографии

The purpose of this article is to study the life and activity of Friedrich Wilhelm Brass, founder of Genossenschaft for Proletarian Art in Berlin (1920). Friedrich Wilhelm Brass (1873–1931) throughout his life sought to combine the commercial interests of a contemporary art dealer with the ideas of the social reorganization of the world. One of the first to call himself a communist in Germany, he created in 1920 in Berlin the Genossenschaft for Proletarian Art, the collection of which became the first contemporary western art brought to Soviet Russia. On the basis of this collection kept in the Hermitage and the Russian Academy of Arts, archival materials and work in museum collections in Germany, the history of the emergence of the Genossenschaft in Berlin in 1920, the composition of the participants and the biography of its creator are reconstructed. The relevance and novelty of the article is due to the lack of scientific research on this issue discovered by the author in his works. The life path of F.W. Brass is consistently considered. Trained as a craftsman in Krefeld, Brass made several attempts to establish an art trade there, primarily aimed at the workers’ milieu. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, he tried to interest the party in the prospect of such educational and agitational work. These initiatives proved to be financially untenable. Brass later worked at the German Workshops Hellerau, where the manufacturer Karl Schmidt implemented a project for the mass production of furniture designed by leading European designers and oriented to the widest and most democratic market. During the First World War, Brass was mobilized and spent several years in captivity in Russia, where he met the revolution and returned to Germany in 1919 as a convinced supporter of the communist reorganization of the world. After the November Revolution, several artistic organizations arose in Berlin, whose activities were directed towards the proletariat (the Workers’ Council for Art, the Association of Socialist Artists, the Union for Proletarian Culture, the Proletarian Theatre of Erwin Piscator, etc.). Among them was the Genossenschaft for Proletarian Art of the communist Brass, who collected the works of left-wing artists, mainly expressionists of the first and second generation. Like most of these artistic initiatives, the Brass Genossenschaft could not survive the economic crisis. The unique collection of the Genossenschaft was acquired during a trip to Germany by Comintern Chairman G. Zinoviev in October 1920 and brought to Soviet Russia. Later, during the years of the Weimar Republic, Brass no longer undertook such ambitious projects, continuing to trade in the works of left-wing artists. He worked in Hagen and Düsseldorf, where he died in 1931. The author comes to the conclusion that the figure of Brass represents a new type of entrepreneur for the art market of the 20th century, focused primarily on the promotion of the latest art among the workers, agitation for a new life in the language of art.

Now

Now

The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1958–1971 (Excerpt)

The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1958–1971 (Excerpt)

Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to Cyber Theatre

The article addresses the question of integration and dispersion in theatre. Theatre is the art of representation, so it is presented as unified and integral, starting with Aristotle's principle of three unities, through Shakespeare, Calderón de la Barca's The Great Theatre of the World or Erwin Piscator and Walter Gropius's model of total theatre. With the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, theatre changed, not only by itself but also by necessity, becoming diffuse and imprecise. It broke with one of its foundations: the encounter between spectators and actors in a designated space. Theatre ceased to be a place of performance and the stage was moved to nowhere. Digital theatre assumed an anti-Aristotelian order; the classical principle of the three unities of place, time and action was broken. However, even though the pandemic shook the foundations of theatre and theatre used all the means offered by new technologies, the fundamental concepts of theatre and theatrical space were not abolished.

О влиянии перформативных черт авангардного театра на документальную оперу

Documentary qualities in the art of music are among of the bright, interesting and little researched phenomena of modernity. Having been generated in the sphere of cinema and drama theater, the present tendency also became circulated in the sphere of musical theater. The introduction of documentary innovative materials – verbal and audio – into the artistic context of works written in the opera genre substantially transformed the traditional structure of musical performance. The article ascertains that the source of such types of experimental attempts was the elaboration of the avant-garde dramatic theater, whose producers made broad use of the techniques of performative art. This became the artistic orientation for documentary musical theater. Analysis of the stage endeavors of theatrical producers Erwin Piscator, Giorgio Strehler, Andrei Serban and Peter Sellars has made it possible to bring to light the vectors of impact of avant-garde theater on the musical documentary theater, which broadly applied the principles of performativity. Accentuation is made of the role of contemporary computer technologies, which gave the opportunities to producers and composers to obtain an instrumentarium that is broad in its artistic resources and inclination towards synthesis, to realize the performative forms of presentation of musical theater. The new features include minimalistic scenography, political allusions, the extension of time and space, and special forms of interaction with the audience. Their appropriation by musical documentary theater proves the force of impact of avant-garde artistic practices, which have greatly transformed opera traditions.

Laughing at Architecture: Architectural Histories of Humour, Satire and Wit

Laughing at Architecture: Architectural Histories of Humour, Satire and Wit

A cena política, a política da cena: Reflexões sobre modernidade na arquitetura teatral alemã

O presente trabalho teve como ponto de partida as proposições sobre espaço cênico trazidas pelo livro A revolução do teatro: conclusões sobre o Teatro dos Artistas de Munique do dramaturgo e encenador alemão Georg Fuchs. O artigo revisitou as arquiteturas teatrais desenvolvidas por artistas alemães do princípio do século XX e a partir delas, refletiu sobre as propostas políticas contidas nos trabalhos dos encenadores Max Reinhardt e Erwin Piscator. O objetivo aqui foi refletir sobre as relações entre espaço cênico e política, e como as mesmas foram determinantes na construção do teatro moderno.

César Falcón and the Theatre Company Nosotros

In the theatre scene of the 1930s in Spain, in addition to the traditional commercial theatre and the republican avant-garde of Las Misiones Pedagógicas or La Barraca, an alternative proposal emerged whose objectives went beyond the pedagogical and the artistic. Proletarian, or political theatre, linked to European theatrical avant-garde with Soviet roots, was inspired by the principles of Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator. They proposed, from a Marxist perspective, class struggle as means to achieve an alternative socialist model. The theatre company Nosotros, directed by Peruvian exile César Falcón, is the best example of this theatrical avant-garde.

César Falcón and the Theatre Company Nosotros

In the theatre scene of the 1930s in Spain, in addition to the traditional commercial theatre and the republican avant-garde of Las Misiones Pedagógicas or La Barraca, an alternative proposal emerged whose objectives went beyond the pedagogical and the artistic. Proletarian, or political theatre, linked to European theatrical avant-garde with Soviet roots, was inspired by the principles of Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator. They proposed, from a Marxist perspective, class struggle as means to achieve an alternative socialist model. The theatre company Nosotros, directed by Peruvian exile César Falcón, is the best example of this theatrical avant-garde.

Czar rewii. Nowoczesne oblicze teatru robotniczego Erwina Piscatora

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of political revue, which in the 1920s became a form of political propaganda in Germany. Erwin Piscator’s revue RRR described here is a good example of its agitprop success. Piscator used the revue (which had been associated with bourgeois entertainment until then) for revolutionary goals, appreciating its form primarily for its huge staging potential. The open form of the revue enabled him to combine different genres and contrasting threads, and exploited the new technologies of the time, including the new media (film, photography, radio). Another interesting point is that for Piscator the revue was the future of modern theatre – not only agitprop theatre, but theatre in general.

Semejanzas entre procedimientos de Erwin Piscator y procesos de creación dramatúrgica actorales

El artículo presenta un análisis de los procedimientos adoptados por el director alemán Erwin Piscator en los procesos adaptativos de las piezas Rasputín (1927) y Las Aventuras del Buen Soldado Schweik (1927) y los compara con algunos procesos de creación dramatúrgica contemporáneos. Los procedimientos utilizados por Erwin Piscator pueden ser considerados como precursores del proceso de creación dramatúrgica actoral desarrollado por actores contemporáneos, pero desde el punto de vista del director.

Fuzuê

O artigo apresenta reflexões a respeito das noções de tragédia e trágico a partir das ideias de Peter Szondi em Ensaio sobre o trágico e Raymond Williams em Tragédia moderna, dialogando com as concepções de teatro político de Erwin Piscator e de teatro épico de Bertolt Brecht, bases teóricas da pesquisa artística desenvolvida no Núcleo de Estudos em Teatro Político do Grupo de Pesquisa em História, Política e Cena- Netep/GPHPC/UFSJ. No campo teórico, refletiremos sobre o modo como as dimensões da tragédia e do trágico atuam no campo político da cena, a partir dos modelos citados e de análise de um experimento contemporâneo. Por fim, à luz do conjunto teórico, analisamos o experimento cênico Fuzuê, resultado de pesquisa desenvolvida entre 2015 e 2017, buscando identificar como a dimensão histórica e trágica da exploração social foi ali debatida.

Pact with the People?

Pact with the People?

Fitzi, True-Believer: The Legacy of M. Eleanor Fitzgerald

Abstract M. Eleanor Fitzgerald (known to friends and colleagues as “Fitzi”) was the long-time business manager of the Provincetown Players and the subsequent incarnations of the group that continued until 1929. This article traces her legacy from her humble childhood in northern Wisconsin, experiences with the Seventh Day Adventist Church and Dr. Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium, to her work and relationships with anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and their publication Mother Earth. Beginning with the Players in 1918, she ultimately served as their business manager, as well as becoming their chief organizer, protector, guiding spirit, and conscience. Her work continued with the Group Theatre, Federal Theatre Project and, finally, the Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research, run by German playwright and director Erwin Piscator. Because of her passion and devotion to her work and those she worked with, she developed close and influential friendships with O'Neill, Berkman, Goldman, Piscator, and the many playwrights and actors she shepherded over the years. Malcolm Cowley wrote, “The story of the new American theater cannot truly be told without mentioning Fitzi's part in it” and this article attempts to do just that.

Performing Catastrophe: Erwin Piscator’s Documentary Theatre

This article explores the relationship between aesthetics and politics in documentary theatre. In contrast to approaches in both scholarly literature and artistic practice that assess the political significance of documentary theatre primarily in terms of content, the article discusses how the form of theatre itself can become political. I argue that Erwin Piscator’s post-war documentary theatre seeks, not only to intervene in political issues thematized in the productions, but also to claim a place for theatre as an institution uniquely capable of addressing two pressing questions of post-war politics: how to learn from the past and how to forestall future genocide. Piscator’s documentary productions relied on theatricality and aesthetic experience, offering a useful foil to current documentary theatre with its suspicion of theatricality. I base my argument on archival materials drawn from productions of plays, including The Burning Bush (New York Dramatic Workshop, 1949), The Crucible (Bühnen der Stadt Essen, 1958), The Investigation (Freie Volksbühne Berlin, 1965), and the pageant The Golden Doors (Madison Square Garden, 1943).

Erwin Piscator's Russia's Day: Agitprop between History and Myth

The work of Erwin Piscator as a theatre director is marked by attempts to introduce communist ideology into theatre, which was reflected in various aspects of his theatrical practice. This paper focuses on the agitprop productions staged by his Proletarian Theatre, which propagated the communist narrative of class struggle by the use of an irrational aesthetics. These performances embodied the contradiction that can be found in communist practice, which appealed to the scientifically rational analysis of history as class struggle, but in practice abolished criticism and transformed class struggle into a myth. Piscator’s production of Russia’s Day staged the conflict between the capitalist and the proletarian class according to the scientific analysis of history as class struggle, but the irrational aesthetics of the performance immersed the audience into the staged history, transforming the communist narrative into a myth.

Treading the Boards: the Significance of Walking on the Stage

In this article Kris Darby examines the significance of walking on the theatre stage, responding to the growth of pedestrian performance as an area of research. He seeks to provide a point of expansion for a field that is still largely concerned with site-specific works where audiences walk during the performance. Beginning with a discussion of the possible reasons for the neglect of walking on stage, the author addresses the prominence of walking and the journey as a rehearsal tool employed by a wealth of practitioners. As further justification for the inclusion of the stage in pedestrian performance research, a series of historical case studies is presented which spans over a century of theatrical history, and includes an examination of the audience's pilgrimage to Richard Wagner's Parsifal (1882) and the ‘epic flow“ of Erwin Piscator's treadmill in Good Soldier Schwejk (1927). The significance of walking in Samuel Beckett's life is also explored through the ‘inward walking’ of Footfalls (1976), and the proscenium staging of Matthew Earnest's Wanderlust (2010) is made significant through its critique of supermodernity. The author concludes by arguing that an immobile audience can kinaesthetically empathize with the performers, embarking on their own internalized journey within the theatre. Kris Darby is a Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow in Drama at Liverpool Hope, whose research interests concern the relationship between walking and performance.

Béla Balázs: The Face of Cinema

Herbert Bauer, known to the world as Béla Balázs (1894–1949), led the sort of life about which contemporary intellectuals might fantasize. He knew everyone and he did everything. Born in Hungary, he included György Lukács, Karl Mannheim, Arnold Hauser, Béla Bartók, and Zoltán Kodály in his circle, among others. He knew the filmmakers Alexander Korda and Michael Curtiz before their names were Anglicized. He studied with Georg Simmel and met Max Weber. As time went on, he came, so it seems, to know virtually every major European intellectual—Stefan Zweig, Robert Musil, Walter Benjamin, Sergei Eisenstein, Erwin Piscator, and on and on. He lived in the midst of a universe of conversation that dazzles us as we look back enviously upon it.

The Haunted Stage ofSummer and Smoke: Tennessee Williams’s Forgotten Silent Film Sequences

ABSTRACT:Recent re-evaluation of Tennessee Williams’s late plays has brought to light another side of the playwright, an avant-garde impulse ignored by his contemporaries because it did not match his image as a poetic realist. Of course, this new Williams did not appear out of the blue; he was there from the beginning, if less conspicuous, but the weight of prejudice drove him underground. Thus, the avant-garde is most visible in the early plays, in deviations from artistic norms that did not always make it to the published versions. Summer and Smoke (1948) is a case in point. Examination of the unpublished drafts of the play reveals an ambitious project that never saw the light of day. Inspired by Erwin Piscator’s Epic Theatre, Williams intended to put a screen on the stage, inviting the spectator to see differently, in a manner reminiscent of Brecht’s “exercise in complex seeing.” The drafts, therefore, unveil the avant-garde ideas of a playwright who never ceased experimenting with form, finally to find his true voice, a voice that resonates most loudly in the late plays.