Brecht and Beckett
The History of Modern Drama in a Response to New Ways of Understanding the World
What influenced playwrights of the 20th Century?
Theatre in the 20th Century can be viewed as a response to new modes of understanding the world. The Second World War directly influenced playwriting and drama throughout this period in history both politically and philosophically. After the war, people were without jobs, the death toll was unimaginable and in light of the devastation, art had lost all meaning. In this article, I will explain the social context of this era and how the development of drama responded to the changes in worldview. I will discuss the works of both Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett to convey these new concepts, In particular with the plays Mother Courage and Endgame.
It is of no surprise that throughout the twentieth century human perception underwent many changes. After humanity survived one World War, the second brought about further mass desolation and destruction, which one hopes we will never have to encounter again. The world had experienced unimaginable horror, concentration camps and atomic bombs left nations wondering how man could inflict such torture and suffering. It left society questioning the meaning of existence and the theatre became a good place to explore this. However, this was not an easy task, how could one go forward after such a blow?
World War II “was the first political event of indeed global proportions in the history of humanity.” And, Theodor W. Adorno’s paradigmatic statement from this period that “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” makes it seem as if art itself had become impossible.
Schildt and Adorno cited in Rupprecht, 2006, 36
Nevertheless, in reaction to the war both during and post, playwrights started to search for a physical truth and a way of representing both poetic and social reality. In the early nineteen thirties three major theorists emerged, namely Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud and Konstantin Stanislavski. These practitioners appeared towards the latter half of the modernist era, although Stanislavski was already established prior to this decade. (Carlson, 1993, 376–377)
Modernism was a series of interconnected movements within the arts that included theories such as, Realism, Symbolism, Dada, Expressionism and Futurism along with many others. The common denominator to all of these movements was a desire to find new forms of expression to impart the reality of the modern fractured world. The modernists generally speaking, were avant-garde, often against popular taste and the middle class. They worked in an environment of change brought about by revolution, electricity and the motor car. There was no unilateral stimulus to the work of the modernists, just a desire to discover the new, in a world of innovation. (Griffiths, 2002, [online])
Brecht emerged during this era in Berlin, the centre of German cultural life. He fled Germany with the rise of the Nazis in 1933 because of his Marxist and anti-fascist beliefs and lived in exile in Scandinavia. During this time he began to work on his theory of the ‘Epic Theatre’, a dramatic form that intended to unhinge the dramatic institution. The Epic Theatre challenged the concept of spectatorship, rather than the audience view an actor absorbed in his role, Brecht wanted the actor to engage with it. He believed this engagement would bring the relation between character and actor to light, forcing the spectator to become the decisive observer. He called this method Verfremdungseffekt, roughly translated meaning estrangement or alienation. (Schechner, 2002, 152)
Brechtian acting interrogates the character’s actions, proposes alternative actions, and demystifies events that might otherwise appear to be inevitable.
Schechner, 2002, 153–154
Therefore, on the Brechtian stage the audience views a series of contradictions and reflections, which aim to alienate them from their assertions, theories and socio-political thinking. Consequently, leading them to question their contemporary society brought about by present capitalism. (Worthen, 2002, 306) Mother Courage, which I will go on to discuss later, was written when Brecht was in exile in Sweden in 1939 and inspired by the polish invasion. It is both tragic and comic and tells of Mother Courage’s life during war, living off her canteen wagon and how the war will cost her children’s lives, as the price of war is human virtue.
Samuel Beckett, in likeness with Brecht, was also an avant-garde playwright, who appeared slightly later after the Second World War. An Irishman living in Paris when War broke out, in similarity with Brecht, Beckett fled the Nazis. However, he joined the French resistance and hid in a small village in Southern France. Whilst there he wrote poetry, however it was not until he wrote Waiting for Godot in 1948, later staged in Paris in 1953, that his impact was truly felt. Beckett emerged after the historical period of modernism and although his technique was ‘modern’ in convention, is not classed as such because it had no desire to challenge the meaning of political society. Instead, his work was a bleak portrayal of existence that conveyed life to have no meaning, brought about by a world confounded by war. (Jenkins, 1996, [online])
This post-war devastation brought about a new movement under which Beckett is classed, ‘Existentialism’. It was a literary and philosophical movement that was concerned with the here and now. The Existentialists believed that man is responsible for determining his development, through the choices he makes.
It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa. Drama in turn should deal with these basic realities: the pain of living, the fear of dying, our thirst for the absolute.
Ionesco in Carlson, 1993, 415
This new mode of thinking brought about the theory that political affairs were secondary to human affairs. Society was in fact a manifestation of our own anxieties, wistfulness and desires and therefore art was not about teaching, but to bear witness to one’s own existence. For the existentialist, art’s purpose was to merely be; therefore existence was purely to exist. (Carlson, 1993, 415)
Beckett belonged to an existentialist group of dramatists given the name ‘Theatre of the Absurd’. They believed that the world was chaotic and beyond logical explanation and therefore, man had to do something important to make his life have meaning. Beckett plays focused on death’s domination of our thoughts and how man is controlled by unspoken desires. He used new techniques to portray this, such as static or monotonous motion, stripped action and often limited or repetitive dialogue (Worthen, 2002, 533).
These techniques are clearly displayed in Endgame, written after the war in Paris in the 1950’s it was first staged in London in 1957. It conveys the cyclical nature of beginnings and endings, whilst the characters are coming to the end of their lives. It is absurdly comic and philosophical portraying emptiness and loneliness, its use of no clear ending and repetitive movement disallows the conjecture of meaning.
Hence, working under different historical movements, both Brecht and Beckett alike were searching to portray a reality through new modes of understanding. The difference being whilst Brecht endeavoured to portray social reality, Beckett conveyed poetic reality. Mutually, Mother Courage and Endgame were written in reaction to a war-torn world and use a range of themes, styles and symbols to demonstrate this.
Mother Courage asks its audience to question virtue in war-time and drive them to oppose war. This can be seen in moments of capitulation, the first being in scene four, when having sung the song of Grand Capitulation, Mother Courage says to the young soldier with a complaint:
That’s why I reckon you should stay there with your sword drawn if you’re truly set on it and your anger’s big enough, because you got grounds, I agree, but if your anger’s a short one best leave right away.
Worthen, 2002, 521
This conveys the futility of war, in this case a personal war with the Captain for both the young soldier and Mother Courage herself, from which after giving advice to the soldier, she also walks away from. It further reiterates that from a small concern, something big can erupt and this in turn can lead to disastrous consequences. On the flip side in scene eleven, Kattrins refusal to surrender her drumming, exposes the immorality in submission to an unjust power.
Brecht’s use of ironic representation also serves to underpin his theme of virtue in war-time. For example the so named Mother Courage suggests bravery, when often in fact she is a coward. Eilif is at first conveyed as a brave hero, “Take more than a war to scare me” (Worthen, 2002, 510) however, in scene two when describing his treatment of the peasants, “Aye, in a flash I’d picked up my sword and was hacking them to pieces’’ (Worthen, 2002, 512) ironically expresses him as nothing more than a murderer.
Furthermore, throughout the play we need to consider the use of allegory coupled with Brecht’s alienation technique. The use of song seems to stand apart from the dialogue, thus functioning as both a political commentary and a moral teaching. Mother Courage herself and her children are a personification of human virtues, paradoxically twisted and changed by war. In truth, Mother Courage loses her children to the business of war, haggling from scene to scene. She is a tireless damned soul, who at the close of the play still gets “Back to business again” (Worthen, 2002, 532) after denying her daughter’s death. This ending in similarity with Endgame is cyclical in nature.
Whereas Mother Courage drives its audience to oppose war, Endgame can be interpreted as man’s search for the meaning of existence after the destruction of war. However, in true existentialist style, through the choices they make, the main characters ‘Hamm’ and ‘Clov’ can find no meaning to their life and in fact are just waiting for death. The play opens with the line “Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished” (Worthen, 2002, 535) then goes on to convey that beginnings and endings are entwined and that existence is cyclical. This repetitive use of the word finished has a double edged meaning. Endgame refers to a game of chess, with each character having specific movements like the pieces on a chess board and the occasional utterance that it is Hamm’s turn to play, reiterates this. (Worthen 2002, 534) However, when the game is over, so is their existence, reiterating that life has no meaning; we are simply ‘pawns’ in the grand scale of the universe.
The tone of emptiness and loneliness coupled with the symbols of light and dark create a constant oppressive tension. During the course of the play, Hamm states to Clov “You’re leaving me all the same” (Worthen, 2002, 536) and we wonder if indeed he will. However, although Clov often threatens to leave, and Hamm rejects him, there is always an invisible pull that keeps them together. Perhaps this dependency on each other is born from fear of facing the unknown but inevitable alone. We often denote light for life and darkness for death, yet in the play the characters live in a shadowed grey world. This use of colour denotes that they are in limbo, under the shade of death but still with a small hope of life. Towards the end of the play, Hamm asks Clov to “Bring me under the window. I want to feel the light on my face” (Worthen, 2002, 549) this request reiterates the small amount of optimism, in their bleak existence.
‘Nell’ is the only character in the play that seems resigned to their farcical life, she is Hamm’s mother and the one reason that her husband ‘Nagg’ keeps living. Nell seems to stand as the only example of healthy love within the play, carrying on with the routine of trying to kiss her husband each day; even though she can see the absurd situation they are in. Perhaps because of this realisation, she is the only one who is rewarded with death as she has bared witness to her own existence.
Mutually Mother Courage and Endgame convey a reaction in the arts to World War Two. Equally Brecht and Beckett sought to change their audiences’ perception of their fragmented world. The difference being they did it from different viewpoints. Brecht believed that his spectators needed to see his play for what it was, question it and in turn come to a new political way of thinking. Whereas, Beckett believed that one had to deal with human condition first, experience the pain and become self aware, which in turn would then begin to influence social condition. For this reason, they are not a million miles apart from one another; they were both a product of their environment on a search for reality. However, in Brecht’s Mother Courage we are inclined to believe that man can make a political change for good, while because of its desperate nature, Beckett’s Endgame, seems to clearly reflect contemporary society’s feelings of devastation in a post-war context.
Article written by Drama Llama | Educator | Writer | Academic | Consultant
