An uncertain business which is nowhere taught.
Why should he fear the new rather than the old? And even if
Your audience, the workers, hesitated you should still
Not lag behind it but show it the way
Swiftly show it the way with long strides, its final power inspiring you
With unbounded confidence.
[Written between August and October 1935. First published in Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1, Malik-Verlag, London, 1938.]
Editorial Notes
Maxim Gorky wrote his novel Mother (called Comrades in its first English edition) under the impact of the 1905 Revolution; his friend Lunacharsky, who was Commissar for Enlightenment (i.e. education and the arts) for twelve years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, termed it a ‘Lehrbuch’ for the European working class. It was filmed by Pudovkin in 1926 for Mezhrabpom-Russ, and shown successfully in Germany. Around 1930 it was dramatised by Günther Stark of the Berlin Volksbühne in collaboration with the playwright Günther Weisenborn, but seemingly without the support of that theatre’s Socialist management, whose younger subscribers were even then splitting away to form a more radical ‘Junge Volksbühne’ in the wake of Piscator. Stark, who staged Friedrich Wolf’s The Sailors of Cattaro at the Volksbühne’s main house in November, was reluctant to give the Gorky project further time, but Weisenborn was intrigued by the idea of an ‘epic theatre’ and decided to bring in a new collaborator in the shape of Brecht. Eisler agreed to write the music, and work began in the summer of 1931.
Gorky’s book had been written in 1906, and the Stark/Weisenborn adaptation stuck fairly closely to the original. Thus scene 1 is inside the Vlassovs’ hut and shows the Mother agreeing to distribute leaflets in the factory. Scene 2 is the factory yard. Scene 3, a barn in the country, where the comrades plan the May Day demonstration. In scene 4 they demonstrate and are arrested. Scene 5 is the Mother visiting Pavel in prison to get the names of rural sympathisers. In scene 6 she distributes leaflets in the village of Nikolskoye. In scene 7 she is involved in an attempt to free the comrades from prison. Scene 8, the last, is the courtroom where they are tried; the set revolves to show the crowd outside. The Mother announces the verdict from within: penal servitude for life, in Siberia. But ‘An idea cannot be suppressed by force. Siberia for life . . . what does it matter? Cheer up, my dear friends.’ She weeps, all start singing and in the background the windows of the court building light up. The songs in the adaptation are traditional ones of the Socialist movement.
It is not clear how far Weisenborn contributed from that point on, but the play was radically rewritten, and the surviving accounts of its thirty-odd performances at different Berlin venues during 1932 attribute this entirely to Brecht, who certainly regarded it as his play. In the 1933 Versuche edition the collaborators are given as ‘Brecht Eisler Weisenborn’; in the 1938 Malik-Verlag edition Weisenborn was not mentioned – he had remained in Germany as one of the ‘Red Orchestra’ network – but the Bulgarian Slatan Dudow was mentioned instead; he had been directing the Brecht/Eisler/Ottwalt film Kuhle Wampe during the rewriting of the play. Then the name Weisenborn was again added in the Gesammelte Werke of 1967. If Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht’s aide and editor, did not mention herself (as she did in the case of all the Lehrstück collaborations apart from The Decision) it could be because she remained in Germany as a member of the Communist underground till the end of 1933.
Structure and characters
The first five of the eight scenes outlined above served as a basis for Brecht’s version as far as the end of the prison scene. From that point on he altered and extended the story, which Gorky had confined to the events of 1905, so as to take it up to the eve of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. There was thus no court scene; Pavel escapes from exile and is shot after his appearance as a fugitive in scene 9; in scene II we hear that the First World War has broken out, and the play ends with the Mother leading an anti-war demonstration in scene 14. Her evolution from an unpolitical sceptic into a self-confessed Bolshevik is therefore at the centre of the play, while Pavel (who in Gorky developed from a sullen young drunkard into an exiled hero) is a secondary and, in the last quarter of the play, liquidated figure. Not surprisingly, Russian and Soviet critics have shown little enthusiasm for this approach, and even if it is true that Brecht was hoping to counter the increasing anti-Soviet propaganda in Germany – whether in 1931 or after 1945 – it is widely agreed that the characters are more German than Russian, while the problems finally tackled are those of the KPD on the collapse of the Weimar Republic rather than of the Russians after 1905.
Brecht’s The Mother has been essentially the same play since it was first written, but its text and production are marked by three phases of intense interest: 1932, Berlin’s last year of Left theatre and active agitprop; 1935, when it was staged in New York during the ‘New Deal’; and 1951, when Brecht staged it in Max Reinhardt’s old theatre with his new Berliner Ensemble. These correspond roughly to the three main book editions: the Versuche of 1933, the émigré Malik Gesammelte Werke 2 of 1938 and the Suhrkamp Gesammelte Werke 2 of 1967 – though the last was a final text in accordance with Brecht’s and Hauptmann’s wishes rather than the acting script of 1951. Each time the nature of the exercise was different, starting with the terse, agitational nature of the first, with its echoes of He Said Yes in the opening scene, its thinly orchestrated Eisler settings and its easily dismantled and transportable Neher sets. It seems seldom to have played more than two or three nights in any of its provisional venues, and in one famous production for the IAH (or International Workers’ Aid) in a community hall the police forced it to dispense with costumes, sets and even acting; it became a reading.
In New York the Theatre Union embarked on Brecht’s text under a misapprehension; clearly they would sooner have used their own, more naturalistic version of it, as being closer to Gorky. Here again there were some thirty-five performances, all in their conventional proscenium house, the Civic Repertory Theatre; instead of the original piano, trumpet, trombone and percussion the band there consisted of two pianos; for Brecht’s and Eisler’s frustrated interventions see pp. 366–369 above. The agitprop element seems to have been preserved – this was the theatre where Odets’s Waiting for Lefty was performed the same year – but Brecht’s ideas of ‘epic theatre’ were not seen as acceptable.
Finally in 1951, just nine years after its Berlin premiere, Brecht directed a long-running production in the old-established Deutsches Theater, with his wife Helene Weigel in her original part as the Mother, music once again by Eisler and sets by Neher, but with richer orchestration, a new naturalism in costumes and decor and a greater concern with the Russian background. This was not so surprising in a State where Soviet Russia was regarded as a model, not least in the theatre. The main textual changes were due to the new prominence given to Smilgin, along with a shuffling of characters to fit the Ensemble’s actors; not all of this was transferred to the 1967 edition.
In the stage directions and projections, dates were amended to accord with history. Thus scene 5 (1 May 1900 in the original dialogue, 1908 in 1938) was changed to 1905; scene 8 (1909–1913) to summer 1905; scene 9 (1913) to 1912; scene 11 (undated) to 1914; scene 13 (undated) to 1916. The names of the characters also varied. In the 1951 production the Vessovchikov brothers were called Lapkin, but this was changed back in the 1967 edition. The unemployed worker Sostakovitch became Sigorski, and new names were given to some of the minor figures, then likewise dropped in 1967.
In 1933 the central figure is called ‘The Mother’ throughout. The 1938 edition always prints her names – Pelagea Vlassova – and this was followed in 1967.
Details of changes and cuts since 1933
Scene 2: The song ‘The Answer’ (also ‘Lied von Ausweg’ or ‘Lied von der Suppe’) was added in 1935/37.
Scene 3: Smilgin, who in 1933 did not appear until his entrance carrying the red flag in scene 5, is introduced as ‘an old worker’ in 1967, answering the Fi
rst Worker’s ‘So what?’ with: ‘I’m against handing out leaflets like that while negotiations are going on’. In the stage direction he is named as one of the works committee. One or two lines are then shuffled.
The ‘Song of the Patches and the Coat’ (or ‘The Whole Loaf’) was added in 1935. Following that song all Karpov’s lines except the exclamation ‘A strike, then!’ became given to Smilgin in 1967; before 1951 it was Karpov that was arrested. In the 1951 production Smilgin was played by Friedrich Gnass.
Scene 4: The Mother’s initial allusion to Smilgin was originally to Karpov; and Ivan said nothing about his being released.
Scene 5: The spoken chorus in 1933 ended ‘With our sides’s conclusive triumph/In every town and every country/Where workers are found’.
Scene 6: The subdivisions of this long scene into (a), (b), (c) and (d) are not marked by letters before 1967. In the New York production ‘Praise of Communism’ was called ‘Praise of Socialism’. In 1933 the Teacher’s flat was not situated.
In the song ‘Praise of the Revolutionary’ lines 4–6 were not included in 1933, then substituted for lines 1–3 in 1938. However all six were in Eisler’s Neun Balladen version of 1932, and this is followed in the 1967 text.
The lines in square brackets from the Teacher’s ‘they’ll make a revolution’ to ‘Ivan laughs’ were added in 1938.
Scene 8: Again, the letters marking the sub-division were added in 1967. For the second half of (a) we have followed the two earlier versions. The 1967 dialogue has been slightly altered.
Scene 9: Vassil Yefimovitch, the Butcher from the previous scene, did not appear again in 1933. By 1938 he had taken over and expanded the lines of the Second Worker in this scene, and would also appear in the demonstration of scene 14.
The Small Store or The Paper Overcoat: This was scene 10 in the 1933 version, but appears to have been omitted from the 1932 production, and is not known ever to have been played. Appended on pp. 384–386 below.
Scene in a Railway Carriage: by Paul Peters. Appended on pp. 386–394 below. This was included as an additional scene in Peters’s 1935 translation. Brecht liked it, made his own draft version in German and suggested that it should be the opening scene of Act 3, preceding scene 10 (and the announcement of Pavel’s death). It was unpublished till 1988, and is not known to have been played.
Scene 10: Of the three commiserating women only the Landlady was named in 1933. In 1938 the others became the Peasant Woman and the Poor Woman, of which the former was described by the Landlady as ‘My relative is visiting here’. Then in 1967 she was named as the Niece Up From the Country.
For Pelagea’s final remark (which she ‘Calls after them’) we follow the two earlier versions. The bracketed sentence is cut in 1967.
Scene 11: In 1933 this came after scene 12, so that the attack on Pelagea, rather than the news of Pavel’s death, was the reason for her taking to her bed. The opening exchange between doctor and teacher was accordingly shorter, the former saying ‘She has been badly beaten up, and is no longer young’. Nor is the word ‘war’ mentioned.
Scene 12 (originally scene 11): In the Mother’s recitation the last line about the ‘class enemy’ was added in 1935/37.
Scene 13: Is virtually the same in all versions apart from the initial specification of the date.
Scene 14: In 1933, beside the Mother and the Maidservant from the previous scene, Ivan Vessovchikov and the butcher Vassil Yefimovitch are marching. The (projected) heading to the scene says that they were ‘in the ranks of the striking workers and mutinous sailors’. Photographs show how this was suggested in the 1951 production.
Appended scenes
(a) THE SMALL STORE OR THE PAPER OVERCOAT
Even in small everyday matters the Mother battles with the indifference of the exploited towards their sufferings. The paper overcoat.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN with a child: How much does that come to?
THE STOREKEEPER: 5 for the sausage, flour 12, jam 10, tea 20,2 kopecks for the matches. That’s 49 kopecks altogether.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN to the child: There you are, Ilyitch, 49 kopecks, and I’ve still got to get you a coat. To the other women in the shop: He’s always freezing.
THE WOMEN: He’s much too thinly dressed. It’s not surprising he’s cold. How can you let him go around like that when it’s snowing so hard?
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: I’ve only 20 kopecks left. Do you have any coats?
The Storekeeper shows her a rack with six children’s coats on it.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: That’s quite a few. She feels the material. The right size too. That one’s not all that expensive. Not so warm of course. But it’s not bad. The one with the lining would be better.
THE STOREKEEPER: It’s also dearer.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: So how much is the thin one?
THE STOREKEEPER: Five and a half rubles.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: Right, then I can’t buy it. I’ve not got that much money.
THE STOREKEEPER: Death’s free. To another woman: What can I get you?
THE WOMAN: Half a pound of semolina.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: They cut wages again last week in the Muratov works.
THE MOTHER: I heard that too: and the workers agreed.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: Only because Mr Muratov would have closed his works down if they hadn’t. If you ask me to choose between low wages and shutting down the factory I’d take the low wages.
THE MOTHER: There you are, Ilyitch, you always have to go for the lesser evil. After all it’s the lesser evil for Mr Muratov too. He’d rather pay less than more. If Mr Muratov is to make a profit, Ilyitch, then he must cut your father’s wages. There’s no reason why your father should go on working if he doesn’t want to. But you need a coat. And not a coat for 20 kopecks but a coat. If he needed a 20-kopeck coat then this would be it. She picks a paper pattern off the counter and puts it on little Ilyitch.
THE STOREKEEPER: Just leave my paper patterns where they are.
THE WOMAN: It’s only in fun.
SECOND WOMAN: Why are you making the child ridiculous?
THE MOTHER: Who’s making Ilyitch ridiculous? Me or Mr Muratov and the man who made the coat? Ilyitch wants a coat for a few kopecks. Now he’s got one. Isn’t it warm enough? He should have asked for a warm one!
THE STOREKEEPER: That’s right: tell me it’s my fault for not giving the coat for nothing.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: That’s not what I asked for. I know you can’t do that.
FIRST WOMAN to the Mother: You weren’t saying anything of the sort, were you – that it’s the storekeeper’s fault?
THE MOTHER: No. It’s nobody’s fault but Ilyitch’s.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: Anyway I can’t buy the coat.
THE STOREKEEPER: You don’t have to buy it if the price is too much for you.
THE MOTHER: That’s right, Ilyitch, you don’t need a coat if the price is too much for you.
WORKING-CLASS WOMAN: I’ve got just 20 kopecks left, and that’s all.
SECOND WOMAN: I know her. She goes around spreading discontent.
FIRST WOMAN indicating the Storekeeper, who is now in tears: And she’s still got to pay the man who made the coat.
THE MOTHER: Of course that’s not a coat, there’s no warmth in it. And those – pointing to the six coats on the rack – are not coats either; they’re goods. If the coatmaker is to make his profit, then there can be no other coat for Ilyitch. This coat, Ilyitch, is the lesser evil, no coat at all would be the greater. Take your coat and go outdoors, Ilyitch; tell the snow to take care of you, as Mr Muratov doesn’t want to. You have got the wrong coat and the wrong parents, Ilyitch; they don’t know how to get coats for you. Go and tell the snow and the wind they should be snowing in here; it’s where the coats are.
[From Versuche 7, 1933, where it was included in the play as scene 10.]
(b) SCENE IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE (from the 1935 New York production)
ACT THREE
&nbs
p; Scene 1
A compartment in a railroad. Two wooden benches face each other, with racks for luggage overhead. In the rear is the hallway which runs the length of the train, and a window. It is a cold day, in the early winter of 1916.
The Mother enters dressed as a peasant woman with a kerchief over her head She looks around, sees nobody in the compartment, sits down and waits.
THE MOTHER: I’m early. The train’s almost empty. This is my first important (Party) assignment. It’s dangerous, but I mustn’t be afraid. Pavel wouldn’t like it if he thought I was afraid. If only I could hear once in a while from Pavel! All I know is that he’s organising in the army at the front. That’s the most dangerous work there is, but it’s got to be done. All right, it’s got to be done. You must keep your wits together now, Pelagea Vlassova.
The Worker passes in the corridor, sees the Mother, comes in, looks cautiously about, and sits down beside her. For a moment they act as if they don’t know each other. Then:
THE WORKER blurting it out: The teacher’s gone!
THE MOTHER: Gone?
THE WORKER: I look behind and all of a sudden he isn’t following me any more. Gone, just like that.
THE MOTHER: But the grip!
THE WORKER: Grip’s gone too. Oh, these intellectuals, comrade. Crammed full of learning, everything from tree to fish. But they can’t do the simplest thing right; can’t even follow a man down the street.
THE MOTHER alarmed: Maybe something happened to him. There are so many spies these days.
THE WORKER: All the more reason why he shouldn’t let anything happen to him.
THE MOTHER: But we can’t lose our literature. We better go back.
THE WORKER: Sure. Go right back and say: ‘Hoy, you spy. You can’t have that. We sat up all night printing it on our illegal presses. It’s our anti-war literature. It’s for the soldiers. What do you want with it? You’re a spy. Give it back.’
Brecht Collected Plays: 3: Lindbergh's Flight; The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent; He Said Yes/He Said No; The Decision; The Mother; The Exception & the ... St Joan of the Stockyards (World Classics) Page 39
