Brecht in
L.A.
by Rick Mitchell
Intellect Books, Bristol, UK and Portland
Oregon, 2003
100 pp. Paper, $29.95
ISBN: 1-84150-105-0.
Reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg
9 Belvedere Road, London, UK, SE1 8YW
andrea.dahlberg@bakernet.com
In 1999 Rick Mitchell moved to Los Angeles
to teach playwriting and dramatic literature.
As an experimental playwright he was aware
of the irony of moving to the home of
Hollywood realism. This tension between
his personal position and the larger environment
he found himself in led him to think about
Bertolt Brechts six years in LA,
from 1941 to 1947, when Brecht fled the
Nazis and entered the US via Finland.
The result is Mitchells award winning
play, Brecht in LA, which draws
upon Brechts own theories of theatre
to depict his experiences in trying to
get his work produced while being surreptitiously
investigated by the FBI for the House
of Un-American Activities Committee.
Mitchell introduces the play with an essay
on its first reading in LA, describing
the basic tenets of Brechts epic
theatre and the challenges he faced in
trying to persuade actors trained in realism
and emotional engagement with the characters
they had to play to act in a Brechtian
style. The essay includes an account of
Mitchells own understanding of Brecht,
and the ideas he expresses here are embodied
in the play itself. The book also includes
notes on the historical context of the
play and the real characters it depicts
and a review of its first production.
These additions will obviously make the
book attractive to anyone engaged in teaching
Brechtian drama to literature, drama,
or film studies students.
In the play Brecht is depicted as pre-occupied
with his writing and willing to force
any sacrifices he considers necessary
on his mistress and collaborator, Ruth
Berlau, and on his wife and family. His
daily life bears little resemblance to
his political ideals. Yet he is a sympathetic
character who emerges as vulnerable and
human. In his introductory essay Mitchell
argues that Brechts plays engage
the spectator far more than is traditionally
represented.
The gap between Brechts awareness
of what should be done and what he can
and does do is huge and often amusingly
portrayed. Knowledge and action are frequently
in conflict in the play. Brechts
epic theatre was intended to enhance the
spectators capacity for action and,
hence, to be a catalyst for social change.
Mitchell critiques these ideas by showing
how social and historical circumstances
limit an individuals capacity to
understand his position and to act on
any knowledge he may acquire. The play,
therefore, uses Brechts own theories
to examine Brechts life at a particular
time and shows something of the extent
and limit of those ideas.
But beyond all the theorising, the play
is a delight to read. Mitchell exhorts
all those who would work with the play
to bear in mind Brechts advice to
the players of the Berliner Ensemble:
"Keep it quick, light and strong,"
and in Brecht in LA he has done
exactly that.