In July 2019, the "Berlin Theatre Festival in China" brought Brecht's early work "Midnight Drums" to Beijing. Created in 1919 and premiered in 1922, it was Brecht's first political drama. This play evokes our dusty memories of the "Spartacus Uprising" of the German working class a hundred years ago, and also allows us to examine the contradictions and confusions in brecht's thought in his youth.
The protagonist, the soldier Andreas Klagler, was sent to Africa four years ago to fight for the Empire's war of aggression. For four years he had not heard from him, and his girlfriend Anna Barrick was lonely and pregnant with Frederick Mulk, a young clerk in his father's factory. Anna's father, Carl Barrick, was a war capitalist. He saw that Mulk, who was ambitious in the city, could act as a partner and successor to his own property, so he forced his daughter to be engaged to Mulk. Just when the engagement was finally confirmed, Kragler appeared unexpectedly.
The scene of the performance of "Midnight Drums" in Beijing, courtesy of the Goethe-Institut (China).
The engagement ceremony of Piccadilly, Anna and Mulk takes place in a noisy and boisterous atmosphere. Kragler followed, and his appearance shocked everyone. Anna was overwhelmed by the odds in front of him. The elder Barrick cursed Why Klagler did not die on the battlefield, and insisted that he was a rebel mob of the "Spartacus Regiment". Mulk condescendedly humiliated the penniless Kragler, repeatedly bidding to buy boots from his feet, the only remaining objects on his body that could identify him and testify to his past experiences. Ravaged by the war, Kragler returns to find that his lover has been taken. Outside the bar window, the cries of revolution were constantly heard, and the Spartak rebels were preparing to occupy the Berlin newspaper district. Desperate, Kragler turned away, ready to join the revolutionaries in the battle. Can he really leave behind his girlfriend, who has been thinking about it for four years? Revolution and love, how will he choose between the two?
The story of "Midnight Drums" takes place on a night from January 8 to 12, 1919. This night witnessed the climax of the battle of the Spartacus uprising. As a late-developing imperialist country, Germany declared war on Serbia in 1914 by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, opening the curtain of the First World War. Years of war have depleted the country's human and material resources. In 1918 Germany was on the verge of defeat, but the newly established bourgeois government continued the Reich's militaristic policy, forcing soldiers to continue to work for Germany's chauvinist expansion. This policy led to a mutiny in the armies, and the soldiers followed the example of the October Revolution in Russia in establishing Soviet power everywhere, which eventually led to the collapse of the German Empire.
Seafarers during the November Revolution in Germany, photograph taken on November 9, 1918
After the abdication of the Kaiser, the newly elected right-wing Albert government of the Social Democratic Party suppressed the November Revolution, which finally led to a complete intensification of contradictions. In November 1918, the left wing of the Social Democratic Party, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, was reorganized into the Spartacus League. In January 1919, Luxemburg and Liebknecht joined the left socialists in Bremen to form the German Communist Party and called on oppressed workers and soldiers to rise up against the reactionary rule of albert's government. The history of this revolution led by the German Communist Party is called the "Spartacus Uprising". The uprising, which began with the capture of the Berlin newspaper district on 5 January, lasted for a week and was bloodily suppressed by Albert's government on 12 January. On the 15th, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were arrested, tortured and then killed. The uprising failed utterly.
This failed revolution became the background to the unfolding of the story of "Midnight Drums". As a teenager, Brecht was brainwashed by German chauvinist ideology and participated in the clamor of "patriotism" in the early days of the war. Fortunately, at the age of 17, he woke up in time to morally question the imperialist war. After the war, in the face of all the deformities and pathologies of German society and the people, he wrote his first important play "Barr", expressing his dislike of the German civic class with a maverick anti-hero image. However, after the fierce upheavals of post-war German society and the bloody contest between revolution and counter-revolution, the expected political change did not come. As Brecht biographer Jahn Konopov put it: "The new republic consolidates the essence of the old empire in both social and political senses." In a mood of disillusionment, Brecht created the politically charged Midnight Drum. "The Drums of the Night" bear witness to a period of intellectual development in Brecht's youth. Looking at the ups and downs of that era through the subjective presentation of the playwright is helpful for us to understand the direction of the current history.
*
Brecht's work is set against the backdrop of revolution, but the real dramatic contradictions begin with the business of the bourgeoisie. The first act takes place in the living room of Carl Barrick's house. Barrick was typical of the German capitalists of that era. He was full of patriotism and enthusiastically praised the war, but because the war gave him the opportunity to get rich. His factory produced ammunition baskets during the war and made a lot of money. In front of his wife and daughter, he said this cheeky remark: "War has made me live a comfortable life that I am known for." The good stuff is there, and whoever picks it up counts whoever counts. Why don't you pick, isn't that stupid? If you don't want it, let someone else take it away. If you want to eat fried eggs, you have to break the eggs. See, war is a blessing in disguise for us. We can be regarded as fishing, eating round and fat mounds, comfortable. We could sit back and make strollers. There's no need to worry, am I right? ”
The defeat of Germany did not bother the "patriotic" capitalist, who had seen new business opportunities: "Ammunition basket, this business is finished. At best, a few more weeks of civil war, and then it's over. I know the ideal answer, not a joke: strollers. Barrick knew that his daughter was committing adultery with Mulke, an employee in his factory, and instead of thinking about it, he urged his daughter to get engaged to Mulk as soon as possible, because Mulk was his ideal business partner and successor. The shameless Barrick was the representative of the mainstream German civic class and its ideology at the time. He was full of patriotism, in fact, he hoped that the soldiers would obediently die on the front line like livestock under the slogan of patriotism, and would not come back to hinder him from making a fortune. In the 1922 version, Barrick denounced veterans who had returned from the front, saying that the "ragged, savage-like adventurers were good at work and no longer feared anything." He was also dissatisfied with the government because he felt it was too soft on the "revolutionary thugs."
Anna's fiancé, Mulk, was a petty bourgeoisie who had climbed up from the bottom and had no moral values other than to climb up and consolidate his position by any means. He called Anna "bitch" and "slut", and actively fought for marriage to Anna, thereby consolidating his economic and social position. At the scene of the engagement ceremony, when Kragler appears, causing great embarrassment to the Barrick family, Mulk gets up and leaves, flirting with a prostitute. As Kragler described it to Anna, Mulk, the petty bourgeoisie, "is like a toilet wall painted with filthy words." ”
Barrick and Mulke are typical portrayals of the "civic class" in Germany after World War I. Brecht portrayed mercenarism and conservative reaction in their bones. The playwright's hatred of these bourgeoisie and their political agents is palpable. The existence of the defeated soldier Kragler is itself a moral charge against the German bourgeoisie after the war. After their betrayal and humiliation, the disheartened Klagler marched into the ranks of the revolutionaries.
However, Kragler joined the revolution purely out of an individualistic motive. Brecht's tavern, the stronghold of the revolutionaries, is a group of drunkards and two prostitutes, none of whom have a working-class image. As these men drunkenly marched toward the newspaper district, the image of the revolution was painted into a low-level cartoon. This undoubtedly reflects the intellectual limitations of the young playwright: his revolutionaries are a bunch of drunken rabble-rousers. When Anna, who had forgotten her old feelings, followed, Kragler immediately abandoned the revolution. As he withdrew from the revolutionary ranks, he glorified his betrayal with a righteous and stern remark: "They held me and wept bitterly, almost drowning me with tears." I washed my shirt in their tears. Should my flesh rot in the gutter so that their ideas can enter heaven? Are they drunk? ”
During the uprising of sailors in Port Kiel in early November 1918, Brecht's girlfriend Paula was pregnant with his child. Because his girlfriend's father was not optimistic about his future, he rejected his marriage proposal. Penniless Brecht had to find ways to earn money and keep his wife and children. On February 29, 1919, Brecht told Paula that he was writing a play. In order to sell his work, Brecht went to the famous writer Rion Faussytwanger, who was then the theatrical composition of the Munich Theater. During the meeting, Brecht bluntly told Faustwanger that the purpose of writing the play was simple, to sell money to support his wife and children. In order to make money, Brecht naturally chose the topic of the greatest public concern today, that is, the chaos of the post-war revolutionary period. The play was originally titled Spartacus. At the suggestion of Mrs. Fawcettwanger, Brecht renamed the work "The Sound of The Midnight Drums".
Brecht
Although the play deals with the hot topic of revolution, Brecht knows nothing about revolution itself. From an individualist standpoint, Brecht created the image of Kragler, an "outsider" returning from the battlefield. He was excluded from the political and economic landscape of post-war Germany, and all he wanted was a comfortable and comfortable life. The revolution itself was interpreted as a continuation of the killings of World War I. Brecht's brushstrokes are sharp and unrestrained, but the end of the play confuses the audience. As Brecht biographer Jahn Konopf put it: "Drama does not expect social change or even reform from either the (proletarian) revolution or from a solid civic class." Brecht summarizes history but does not look to the future, like a love story in a play, which is originally the theme of the play, but ultimately monotonous. ”
Brecht himself was never satisfied with this work of his youth. The play was rewritten in 1920, 1922 and 1953. And what most ashamed Brecht, and even wanted to get rid of him from the full set, is that the protagonist Klagler puts his comfort above everything else, especially revolution. This choice is actually presented by the writer with a rather sympathetic attitude. In Brecht's view, this was a dangerous counter-revolutionary attitude. Brecht, in his mature years, did his best and was unable to completely remove this counter-revolutionary individualism from the play. Stephen Parker, a British scholar and author of Brecht's Literary Career, said: "The young Brecht used a poetic mythological technique to praise the persevering individual, and for the elderly Brecht, such literary treatment is very problematic. In Brecht's Literary Career, Stephen Parker even argues that Brecht later downplayed his experiences during the 1919 Revolution because he was embarrassed by his political immaturity and the political and artistic choices he had made.
Like Brecht's other early work, Barr, the protagonist of Midnight Drum is an individualistic anti-hero. Brecht created a rough and wild stage texture to express his rebellion against the German Expressionist drama of the time. "The Drums of the Night" was also the beginning of Brecht's pursuit of a performance style that opposed the illusion of theater. This detached performance, as well as the stage style and technique borrowed from the vaudeville in the open-air playground, are attacks on expressionist theater. Brecht proceeded from individualistic values in this period and regarded revolution as a romantic and unrealistic concept. The premiere of the Munich City Theatre in 1922, with the hanging of "Glotzt nicht so romantisch!" (Don't stare so romantically!) ) slogan. Combined with the protagonist's final choice, it is clear that Brecht wants to tell the audience: do not be confused by the illusory ideas such as revolution, live in the moment, and it is most important to have fun in time.
“Glotzt nicht so romantisch!” Expresses brecht's political position of rejecting revolution in his youth. In the mature period of his thought and creation, Brecht repeatedly used the "defamiliarization" theatrical technique to make the audience reflect on the depoliticization of this small citizen. "The Gun of Lady Caral" and "Bold Mother and Her Children" clearly show what kind of disaster the city-servant philosophy of "not caring about oneself, hanging high" of the small citizens will bring to the whole society, and even to these small citizens themselves. In the 1930s, Brecht and his friend, the Soviet avant-garde writer Sergei Tretyakov, talked about his early work and was ashamed to say: "At that time I did not know how to use the effect of separation. In fact, as Enya Konopov pointed out in his biography of Brecht, Brecht's political stance at the time of writing The Midnight Drum led to the dissociation effect on the stage not being as revolutionary as it should be.
It was not until 1926, when he was creating Man is Man, that Brecht began his in-depth study of Marxism in order to show the current state of capitalist production. This study allowed Brecht to rethink the historical significance of the 1919 Spartacus Uprising. While in exile in the United States, Brecht looked back on his contemporary German history and said bitterly that the political and economic collapse of Germany in the late Weimar Republic, and the subsequent rise to power of Nazi fascism, had been irretrievably doomed from the moment "Red Rosa" was killed on January 15, 1919.
"The Drums of the Night" exposes the immaturity of Brecht's youth, but also foresees the direction of his later thoughts. Proceeding from individualism, the playwright adopts an unconscious counter-revolutionary stance in his creation. But in the torrent of the great era, his creations have paradoxically led the individualistic literary expression of the petty bourgeoisie to the end. The famous writer Hoffmannstal once brought Brecht's other early play" "Barr" to the stage at the Vienna Theater in Josef, which he understood as "the expression of the desire of the times to liberate from individualism". In this regard, Nya Konopf said: "This statement, although not entirely correct, subtly sums up the effects of the First World War: the complete disintegration of civic individualism. Their ideology is disillusioned. Individualism and exemplary behavior and pain provided a blueprint for civic literature, and Verdun and Arras put an end to civic literature in its true sense. The killing machines were put into use without being weighed by the balance of conscience, slaughtering or mutilating humans, rendering all moral standards ineffective (if there had ever been ones). ”
Although Brecht let the protagonist express his rejection and rejection of the revolution, his hatred of the right-wing reactionary regime in post-war Germany and its civic class made his work radical. At the beginning of the third act, Krubb, the tavern owner who represents the revolutionaries, sings "The Ballad of the Dead Soldier" and calls on the revolutionary masses to go to the newspaper district to participate in the battle. Ballad of the Dead Soldier is an anti-war poem written by Brecht during the war, and its first publication was in the midnight drum play. The poem made German nationalists hate Brecht to the bone. Until 1935, when the Nazi regime announced that Brecht had been stripped of his German citizenship, the poem was cited as evidence that Brecht had long been a traitor.
Scholars also have different analyses of the end of the play. Nya Konopuv believed that after Kragler left the ranks of the revolutionaries, he would fall into the arms of the elder Barrick. Stephen Parker, on the other hand, believed that It was impossible for Kragler to enter the world of the German middle class. That world has been ridiculed by the author Iniki Sanji in the first half of the play. The masters of that world, Barrick and Mulk, were so abominable. Even if Kragler humiliated himself, he would never be able to sit on his side. Caught between Barik, the Murks, and the revolutionaries, Klagler, who knew where to go, could not get more than barely survive, nor could he really thrive. Barrick and Murk used the war to make a fortune. In addition to them, the German people struggled with poverty during the war and later during the Weimar Republic. Where can Krogler and Anna, disgusted with Barrick and Murk, turn away from the bourgeois family, find "white and soft beds"?
In 1953, when Brecht was collating and publishing his early plays, he tried to conceal the counter-revolutionary character of Midnight Drums. He regretted that he had "made the audience see the revolution as romantic as the protagonist Klagler" at the time, and at one point wanted to remove the play from the entire series, considering that the work was part of history and eventually retained. Despite his many grievances, Brecht pointed out in his later years: "I cannot change the role of soldier and small citizen Kragler. ...... The proletarians are more understanding than those who revolutionize because of romance or color, whether they are the poorest people or the enemies. "This statement is worth discussing. According to Nya Konopf, even after his transformation into a Marxist, Brecht never saw Marxism as an ideological idea and dogma, but as an ideological method of analyzing the state of reality. As a sober realist, he is not seduced by illusory ideas and ideologies. He believed in Marxism, but he never joined the Communist Party in his lifetime, and he always respected the party politics of the party. Feeling the ideological paranoia of the Stalinist period and later the Soviet And eastern bloc who wantonly suppressed dissent in the name of "communism", Brecht undoubtedly felt that the individualist Kragler, who defended his own interests, embodied more humanity than those who "revolutionized for romance or color".
This edition of "Midnight Drums" brought by the "Berlin Theatre Festival in China" was directed by Christopher Lüpin and premiered on December 14, 2017 at the Munich Theater. The performance echoed the premiere of the play at the Munich Theater on 29 September 1922, and at the same time thoroughly implemented Brecht's defamiliarizing theater concept, historicizing Brecht's original works through distancing techniques. Compared with Brecht's immature original, this version of the aesthetic concept is more radical and the ideological themes are more profound. At the beginning of the performance, the storyteller gives a brief introduction to the plot. In an ironic tone, he shows the contradictions and dilemmas in Brecht's original work. In his narration, the stage crew began to set the scene, and the stage scene from the premiere in 1922 was presented to the audience. In the following performances, the relationship and plot of the characters were greatly simplified, leaving a recording of the 1922 performance scene from time to time. This kind of stage treatment is, of course, not only to pay tribute to the premiere of the year. It breaks the illusion of the current theater and reminds the audience to put this complex and contradictory text in a specific historical context to understand.
As with the performances of that year, the theater is full of "Glotzt nicht so romantisch!" and Chinese a sign that translates "Don't be too emotional.". However, there is no question about what is meant by "Glotzt nicht so romantisch!" This version is not consistent with the premiere of that year. In Brecht's original work, the protagonist Kragler denounces the revolutionaries as unrealistic romantics when he chooses to follow his lover in search of a "soft white bed." Brecht's first attempt at distancing in his plays inadvertently turned distancing into an artistic means of indicting the revolution. The new version of the performance has flipped and subverted the theme idea. One of the most impressive indictments of "romanticism" in the show comes from the bourgeois chauvinist Barrick. And when the revolutionaries in the tavern appear, they are no longer portrayed as a ragtag bunch of drunk people, but as women, disabled people in wheelchairs, scrawled young people, "ninety-nine percent" in contemporary capitalist society. Rows of huge spotlights fell from the sky on the stage, illuminating the audience. The actors recited the Revolutionary Manifesto in unison to the broad, lyrical melody of Smetana's symphony Vltava. The protagonist Kragler is involved. At that moment, the great appeal of changing reality made every audience member of the audience bloody. Petty-bourgeois individualists are radically deconstructed at both ends of the face of revolution.
The new version has two different endings. One is the so-called "Brecht original version" and the other is the "director Lü Ping version". The original version continued the theme of farewell to the revolution, while the director version let the protagonist and the revolutionaries walk together to the newspaper district. In terms of my personal feelings of watching the play, the director's version of the revolutionary ending is not realistic enough to be convincing, and to some extent seems to fall into the trap of "revolution for romance and color" that Brecht once criticized. In contrast, the "Original Brecht" is handled even better. At the moment when Kragler had finished his counter-revolutionary manifesto and was taking his lover's hand and leaving the stage in search of a "gentle white bed," an actor raised his right hand to them in a Nazi military salute. Then the stage crew began to dismantle the stage. The stage frame was destroyed, and pieces of wood were stuffed into the sawmill and turned into powder. Until the stage lights went out, the roar of sawmills came from the darkness. The petty bourgeoisie rejected the revolution, and the Nazis came to the fore. With the help of the metaphorical visual image of the stage, the process of increasing chaos and reaction in German politics in the decades after the defeat of the revolution is amazing!
However, the new version of "Midnight Drums" not only historicizes Brecht's original work, but also dilutes the background of the 1919 revolution. The first act takes place in barrick's house, in a bourgeois private space. In his 1922 premiere, Caspar Nell's stage design used a half-screen projection to show the revolutionary events taking place in the newspaper district. In the new version of the performance, only when the characters open the curtains, the noise of the revolution is faintly heard. In the second act, the song of the Internationale is introduced to Piccadilly bar, announcing the news of the revolution. In the new version of the performance, the singing is no longer sung, and the nature of the German proletarian revolution of 1919 is abstracted.
In our post-Cold War/post-revolutionary era, this may be an inevitable approach. Today, however, when we revisit the ideological contradictions in Brecht's early works, we may find that we face a similar dilemma. There are constantly thinkers warning that the final crisis of capitalism is about to erupt, but where is the solution to overcome it? Is there still the possibility of a new world? Of course, a play cannot answer these questions, but by showing a piece of historical experience, it may allow the audience to think. Compared with Brecht's time a hundred years ago, our current contradictions and crises are even greater. The creators of the new version of "Midnight Drums" obviously want to use the revisit of historical texts to respond to and deal with complex real problems.
In the two pre-performance guided tours, Dr. Ke Li, dean of the Goethe-Institut in Beijing, and Ava Berent, a judge at the Berlin Theater Festival, both mentioned a passage from the director: "At this moment, we need to think about the question, that is, why are we fighting today?" Who are you fighting? In the face of all kinds of injustice in today's world, if we don't stand up against it, then who else will stand up? "This philosophy of activism that comes forward is exciting. And it is precisely in order to stand up and make a difference in the present that it is necessary to reflect deeply on the revolutionary history of the twentieth century, which has ended.
At this point, I can't help but think of an anecdote. On August 15, 1945, the Heibel Theater in Berlin performed Brecht's famous opera "Three Cents Opera" for the first time in post-war Germany. This performance served the "re-education" cause of the American occupation authorities, and the venue was full and a great success. However, it was not surprising that it was protested by the Soviet occupation authorities and eventually canceled. In protest against the cancellation of the performance, the BBC quoted Brecht's ballad "Fill Your Stomach First, Then Talk About Morality" in its related reports. Inadvertently, Brecht's work became a tool for the post-war ideological contest between East and West. In response, Brecht, who was in the United States on September 25, 1945, wrote: "I myself will not agree to perform this play. In the absence of a revolutionary movement, the 'message' it transmits is purely anarchism. The same may apply to The Drums of the Night.
The history of a hundred years ago that stirs in "The Sound of the Midnight Drum" is not without meaning to our present.