Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 2
Page 30
KAKE: polly when you look out of the back it isn’t decent
URIAH: the front and back legs must be coordinated somehow or it’ll look bad
Meanwhile Hiobja is showing Blody’s pictures to the troops. There is a poker game with Leokadja, Hiobja and Blody, who announces:
better for them to be tied with a triple rope and dumped in an anthill than to be drunk this a.m. when we move off not even a sergeant could expect mercy in such an eventuality
GALY GAY: that’s order for you no matter whether it’s a sergeant or an ordinary man he gets shoved in the hole
Among various disconnected snatches of dialogue here there is a Schweik-like reminiscence for Galy Gay:
i had a friend a porter who in turn had a big red beard he could carry a hundredweight on his bare chest drank a pond dry daily and bashed the empire middleweight champion’s eye flat for him this fellow had his beard removed one night because he’d seen a photo of the prince of wales and from then on he would run away from a chicken and couldn’t lift more than 60 lb he was so scared of ghosts at night that he married a widow fancy that
Meantime Leokadja attacks Blody and tells him he would look better in civilian clothes. Then the artificial elephant is ready.
At this stage there appears to be no formal subdivision of the scene into separate ‘numbers’, nor is there an interspersed song. Galy Gay flings himself into the deal with ‘One more swig’ as in our text, while Uriah introduces Billy Humph as now. Galy Gay is by no means shocked at the latter’s appearance:
right billy you and i are going to get on splendidly as long as you’re with me you can behave just like at home
Inside Billy, Bak (i.e. Polly) exclaims ‘himmel arsch und wolken-bruch’, prompting Galy Gay to ask ‘did you say something billy’. Since Billy is ‘a little souvenir of my grandfather’ Galy Gay much regrets having to auction him:
for instance i ride billy humph myself round the fortifications whenever i feel like it i may add i nurtured him at my bosom he was breastfed like you and me so everybody sing when he comes up for auction since this is a moment i shall always remember for after it’s over my heart may well break all sing ‘it’s a long way to tipperary’ including billy
The auction follows, much as in our sub-scene II, though with some additions, for instance:
SOLDIERS: billy what do you think of women?
BILLY shits
URIAH: that isn’t nice of you billy you have a dirty mind
Galy Gay calls for bids, but is arrested. Blody Five enters in civilian garb and Galy Gay chases the elephant out, shouting ‘stop thief, stop thief!’.
The next instalment, marked by Brecht ‘blody’s k.o.’, corresponds to our sub-scene IVa. Blody invites Hiobja to ‘a few cocktails’ and reads the newspaper, making a hole in it to spy on the soldiers, who are drinking cocktails too. Uriah pops the bowler hat on him and asks ‘where did you get this personality from, mister?’. But Leokadja sings his praises:
eleven days after the battle of lake tchad river (mind how you dismantle the bamboos up there) 50 blokes from the 42nd who’d seen the devil face to face sneaked into a bungalow drank paraffin and shot crazily at everyone who passed by then a man arrived riding an elephant and addressed them for five minutes on his own and decided they ought to be shot after which 50 men came out and let themselves be mown down in a heap like young sick lamas the name of this man was blody five the batik man
They invite him to show his skill with a revolver, as on p. 55, but using a cigar instead of an egg; then after he misses it the text goes on (as also in 1926) with Blody cursing them as ‘piss containers’ and telling them how he won the name Blody Five by shooting five ‘Shiks’ at the battle of ‘Dschadseefluss’, literally Lake Chad River. In both versions the soldiers then comment on his military virtues: ‘and at the same time you’re such a nice person. Kindly too, come to think of it’. In the 1924/5 text they then have a sack race with him, after which he takes Hiobja on his knee, is photographed by flashlight, and has to pay up.
The next sub-scene, marked by Brecht ‘hongkon’, has the three soldiers entering with Galy Gay and telling him that ‘four hundred shiks, an entire battalion, are looking for you’. So they take the billiard table and use it as a boat in which to escape to Hongkong. They sing ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’, as on the doomed Titanic, while Uriah cites a line from Brecht’s early poem ‘Tahiti’ (which was also to be incorporated in a similar episode in Mahagonny scene 16). What looks like another version has Heep (i.e. Uriah) saying:
raise your eyes jerome jip d’you see the widows on the shores of bombay see them waving their petticoats they’re crying their eyes out and on sumatra your orphans will soon be oppressed by usurers
KAKE: it’s just grey fields on the coastline and the wind whipping them set the topsail there’s going to be a storm tonight
BAK: hold tight jenny this gunboat is rocking dreadfully
KAKE: it’s the atlantic rollers continually heaving up and down
GALGEI: hey you must go faster
HEEP: can you see a sail on the horizon behind us?
KAKE: no not yet
GALGIE: is it dangerous here where have we got to?
KAKE: seven degrees east of ssw
BAK: if night doesn’t fall too soon we can still make gibraltar
HEEP: the best thing would be to sing stormy the night to keep up our spirits have you any biscuits left?
KAKE: stormy the night is a fine thing when your spirits are getting low
GALY GAY [sic]: anyway let’s just sing through it
they sing the seemannslos [asleep on the deep]
HEEP: now pipe down and best pray by yourselves for i think that’s the island of tahiti the most charming island of them all where as many ships have gone aground as there are fish in the arctic sea
BAK: take off your hat you lout
HEEP: hear the wind whistling in the rigging?
GALY GAY: go quicker and go carefully for i tell you the wind’s rising hour by hour
KAKE: yes and now we must strike the foresail who knows what will become of us if the storm goes on getting so much worse?
A ‘flight to hongkong’ sub-scene follows, starting with a soldier asking the four ‘Who are you?’
BAK: oh just tourists
SOLDIER: we know them and where’s your luggage?
BAK: yes galgay where’s the luggage?
URIAH: bak’s got a straw hat
SOLDIER: which of you is galgay?
URIAH: oh nobody
SOLDIER: someone just mentioned the name galgay
URIAH: really did you hear that name?
SOLDIER: you know perfectly well it’s the name of a notorious criminal
URIAH: anyhow my name isn’t galgay and i wouldn’t wish it to be
SOLDIER: is your name galgay?
GALGAY: me? certainly not
BAK: ah?
SOLDIER: did you say something?
BAK: not a word sir
SOLDIER: what’s your name supposed to be sir?
GALGAY: jip jerome jip
SOLDIER: what are you?
GALGAY: porter sir
SOLDIER: what?
GALGAY: soldier i mean a thousand apologies
SOLDIER: no nonsense from you now that stolen elephant is written all over your face
KAKE: sir i object to your way of addressing our friend jerome jip i can answer for him personally
GALGAY: there you are
KAKE: indeed yes let us through this is our jip and these are my fists
SOLDIER: all right so long as you answer for him very well
BAK: that went off all right d’you want to look round hong-kong galgei?
GALGAY: kindly don’t call me galgei they seem to know everything in this place and i don’t want to look at hongkong but to hide
BAK: all right then wait on the pier a moment till we’ve gone
GALGAY: no no don’t leave now it’s terribly risky
GALGAY: i’ll have to come along
BAK: out of the question it’d look as if you were scared just wait here a moment and keep an eye on my straw hat
GALGAY: where is it?
BAK: if you hold out you’ll be allowed to see it goodbye
SOLDIER: got your paybook on you?
GALGAY: yes here sir
an elephant appears at the back galgay sees him
GALGAY: would you come over here sir i’ve got my paybook
SOLDIER: where are you off to stay where you are
GALGAY: you can see my paybook very well over here sir
SOLDIER: you what’s that?
GALGAY: for god’s sake what do you mean sir?
SOLDIER: don’t tell me there’s anything wrong with your eye-sight just look where i’m pointing
GALGAY: an elephant
SOLDIER: emphatically an elephant very quick of you to spot it and who would you say that elephant belonged to eh?
Galy Gay wakes up and asks ‘is this hongkong?’, to be told by a soldier that it certainly isn’t: it is Saipong. Then Blody Five appears and the episode ends with Galy Gay’s protests as the soldiers threaten that he will be shot ‘under the three ash trees of saipong’. ‘oh uriah, ka, bak’, he cries, ‘help me I’
The ‘trial’ sub-scene [numbered 5 by Brecht] corresponds to our III and is close to it as far as ‘Yes, at Kankerdan I was with you’ on p. 50, after which it goes on as in the 1926 version to where Galy Gay appeals to Uriah. Uriah then ‘turns away’, and as Galy Gay is marched off to be shot he sees Bak (ie. Polly) dressed as himself and exclaims ‘there he is.’
GALY GAY: he was standing there all the time and i didn’t see him
In the ‘execution’ sub-scene they march Galy Gay off and on again to the sound of a drum, much as in the 1926 IV, which this resembles down to where Galy Gay is blindfolded. ‘this galy gay in him has got to be shot’, says Uriah. Bak bursts out laughing, but they shoot and he falls. Then Leokadja: ‘what a noise you are making really you’re pushing him too far now he really believes he is dead he’s just lying there but finish dismantling my walls first it’s two a.m.’ In a fragmentary passage she goes on:
without generals my sweet child you can make a war but without the widow begbick my dear boy you would just burst into tears as soon as things got hot and where there’s a bar there’ll be a urinal too that’ll probably apply as long as the world lasts
SOLDIERS: widow begbick you can count on our acting accordingly
BEGBICK: ah yes it’s a pleasant life i shan’t be coming back here there are all kinds of places for widow begbick and as long as the army eats and drinks widow begbick won’t grow old today was a fine day so tomorrow we’ll be travelling north in those rumbling trains i’ve always been fond of cigars and words like afghanistan
The last sub-scene in the 1924/5 version is marked ‘6. breaking camp’. As in the 1926 version it starts with the soldiers carrying in the box – Begbick’s piano apparently in this case – and singing Chopin’s Funeral March to the words ‘Never again will the whisky pass his lips’ (twice). After Galy Gay has been told that he is to deliver the funeral oration (p. 59) there are snatches of our present text, followed by the greater part of the oration (’Therefore raise up Widow Begbick’s crate’ etc. p. 63), then some dialogue where, as in the 1926 version, the soldiers fit him out with equipment, finishing up with the Anglo-German cry ‘drei cheers für unsere cäpten’. Elements of Galy Gay’s verse speech (p. 60) are appended.
In 1926 all this scene 9 material was pulled pretty well into its present shape. The scene was divided into six music-hall ‘numbers’, most of them followed by a verse of the Man equals Man song and formally introduced by Uriah who blows a whistle and announces the titles. Only IVa [5], the episode with Blody Five, is termed a ‘subsidiary number’. The introductory section differs both from the 1924/5 version and from our present text, but includes parts of the latter, notably the concept of ‘the man whose name must not be mentioned’. Blody is not on till [2], the auction episode, though his voice off is audible in [1] saying ‘Johnny, pack your kit’; the display of dirty photographs, much shortened, takes place in [5]. In [1], which is close to our version, Galy Gay is disturbed by the elephant’s ramshackle appearance, only cheering up in [2] when it becomes clear that Begbick will none the less buy it (‘Elephant equals elephant, particularly when he is being bought’). After Galy Gay has been put in chains (p. 46) [2] continues with a dialogue between Leokadja and Blody, who desires her daughters but is at this point told to present himself in a dinner jacket and bowler hat. After that Blody’s ‘subsidiary number’, deprived of the flashlight photo episode and all the passages of the 1924/5 version already cited, was shifted to follow the trial and execution, while the two Hongkong sub-scenes were cut.
[3], the Trial, is close to our text as far as ‘at Kankerdan I was with you’ (p. 50), but continues with Uriah’s announcement of the verdict which is now in our IV (p. 51) as far as ‘when a man is being slaughtered?’ (p. 52), followed by a verse of the song. [4], the Execution, then follows on from there, starting with Begbick’s next speech, and is virtually the same as our IV till Uriah’s ‘so that he can hear he’s dead’ on p. 54. This is where Blody enters in a dinner jacket and has his bowler hat rammed down by Uriah with the cry ‘Stop your gob, civvy!’; verse 4 of the song follows. [5] then corresponds to our IVa, and starts with the dirty photographs, continuing with Uriah’s ‘Come on, Fairchild old boy!’ (p. 55) and the shooting demonstration, done this time with eggs. The story about the five Shiks (or Hindus) follows (cf. p. 56) leading straight into the Soldier’s entrance as at the end of our version (p. 57). After this Blody wants to dance and calls for Hiobja, then makes do with her mother, saying ‘Dame equals dame’.
[6], corresponding to our V, is announced by Uriah as on p. 57. The box this time is Begbick’s nickelodeon; the Chopin march is sung as before; then comes an approximate version of our text as far as the long verse speech, with Begbick’s speech about the move (‘This army’, p. 62) brought forward to where the trains now whistle (p. 60). The verse speech itself is shorter than now, but the rest of the sub-scene is much the same, with the addition at the end of the loading of the bundled-up Human Typhoon and the singing of the last verse of the song.
In the Arkadia script of 1930 there was no Man equals Man song, and the ‘numbers’ were announced by projections. Blody’s entry in civilian clothes, seeking Hiobja, took place at the beginning of 1, which had the soldiers singing ‘Widow Begbick’s House in Mandalay’ with the refrain ‘Quick, Blody, hey’ etc. He did not appear in 2, which ended with Galy Gay in chains and the singing of the Cannon Song. 3 was slightly shortened and 4 only began with the soldiers’ complaints about the bad light (p. 53), then continued roughly as now to its ending. Next Blody appeared and the projector started showing the time, starting with 2 o’clock. There was no ‘number’ corresponding to our IVa. At 2.00 the soldiers decide to feed Galy Gay, and Begbick tells them to take the nickelodeon case and chalk his name on it, with a cross against it. At 2.01 he eats and the soldiers bring in the case, singing the Chopin march. At 2.03 Galy Gay starts practising his military movements (p. 59) and Begbick offers him castor oil. At 2.05 the trains start whistling and Begbick makes her speech about the move. Galy Gay washes as instructed by her (p. 62) and asks how many are going to Tibet (as in scene II of the 1926 version or our scene 10, p. 70) and so on to ‘Women the same’ (p. 70).
GALY GAY: You know, Widow Begbick, one equals no one. So let me tell you there’s not all that much difference between yes and no, and so I’m going to get rid of what I didn’t like about myself, and be pleasant.
At 2.07 the waggons roll in with Begbick’s Ale-Waggon hitched up to them, and the troops entrain. A projection says ‘Funeral obsequies and graveside address for Galy Gay, last of the personalities, in the year 1928’ and lea
ds into the oration and the ensuing dialogue down to ‘three cheers’. At 2.10 Polly delivers a harangue, ending up with an NCO-like ‘one-two-three-four’ repeated four times; then
one-two-three …
GALY GAY: Four! Steps into the gap and marches radiantly behind the other three into the waggon, singing the Man equals Man song. The waggon rolls off.
A projection then announces the title of our scene 11 and goes on: ‘The shower capture it [i.e. the fortress] on behalf of Royal Shell. Private Jeraiah Jip is among them. You have seen how he can be used for any desired purpose. In our day he is used to make war.’ A brief ending to the play follows.
For the 1931 production, Begbick’s poem of the Flow of Things was included. The scene [9] began with a Voice as now; then the start followed, finishing with Galy Gay’s ‘I might have one for you’ (p. 41) which led straight into 1. This was shortened, with a new bridge into 2, which added a new ending to the Arkadia version. 3 followed this version as far as Galy Gay’s ‘I think you’re mistaking me’ (p. 49), after which new material led into the next instalment of the song. In 4 there was a cut of about a page; in 4a of about a page and a half. 5 followed the Arkadia version as far as ‘Women the same’, then came ‘Get entrained!’ (p. 62) and the funeral oration, leading to the following ending of the play (which is also that of the 1938 Malik edition):
GALY GAY: Well, why haven’t I got all my kit? (p. 63 bottom)
POLLY: A full set of uniform for our fourth man!
The soldiers bring in the things and make a ring round Galy Gay so as to hide him from the audience. Meanwhile the band plays the war march and Begbick comes to the centre of the stage and speaks.
BEGBICK: The army is on the move to the northern frontier. The fire-belching cannon of the northern battlefields are waiting for them. The army is athirst to restore order in the populous cities of the north.
The ring of soldiers opens. Galy Gay, Uriah, Jesse and Polly line up, with Galy Gay in the middle bristling with assorted weapons. They mark time to the music.
GALY GAY loudly: Who is the enemy?
URIAH loudly: Up to now we have not been told which country we are invading.