Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8

by Bertolt Brecht

  In Zurich Brecht worked closely with Caspar Neher, who designed the set and did individual scene sketches, and with Berlau, who gathered historical accounts and documentation from the Zurich Central Library. His main sources (as well as Grieg’s play) appear to have been:

  Prosper Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (Brussels, 1876; and the German edition of 1877);

  Hermann Duncker (ed.), Pariser Kommune 1871. Berichte and Dokumente von Zeitgenossen (Berlin, 1931);

  Les 31 Scéances-Officielles de la Commune (Paris, 1871);

  Karl Marx, Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich. Adresse des Generalrates der internationalen Arbeiterassoziation (1871);

  Vladimir Iljitsch Lenin, über die Pariser Kommune (Vienna/Berlin, 1931);

  Journal Officiel (Réimpression du Journal officiel de la Commune, Paris, 1871);

  Sergei Akhrem, Das war die Diktatur des Proletariats: die Pariser Kommune (Moscow, 1932).

  These are works which Brecht himself lists, or which feature in his library. Altogether, there is a considerable amount of quotation from them, especially in the scenes of the sessions of the Commune itself; and there are odd sentences from other sources strewn throughout (including a fragment of Baudelaire’s ‘Crépuscule du Matin’ at the end of scene 6). In this procedure of documentary montage and quotation Brecht’s play much resembles Büchner’s Danton’s Death which, interestingly, was the other play he was considering for the new Berliner Ensemble (see Introduction). In addition, his papers include maps of Paris and environs in 1870/71.

  There is music too. Rather than harnessing Beethoven’s Ninth to his cause, Brecht’s first inclination was to go back to French sources. However, his plan to incorporate ballads by Eugene Pottier in translations by Erich Weinert was eventually rejected. Instead, the play features two of Brecht’s own songs of the 1930s (‘None or All’ and ‘Resolution’), documents of a quite different conflict aptly transposed to this new setting, as well as several new songs, for which Hanns Eisler was once more prevailed upon to provide settings.

  In April 1949 Brecht wrote to Helene Weigel that the new version was already finished, but it is clear that he was still uncertain about it. He even suggested that the title page might offer a fictitious attribution as cover: ‘after the French of Jacques Malorne’. After he returned to Berlin he continued to seek the advice of historians (Duncker and Schreiner), and he kept postponing a production: at first because the subject matter was too controversial, then because it was unsuitable for a middle-class audience and, very possibly, because of opposition from the Party authorities. In 1952 in the documentation volume of the Berliner Ensemble Theaterarbeit (Theatre-Work) the play was announced as a project for the forthcoming season, and a sketch of one scene was published alongside designs for the stage set; in 1954 a further series of extracted scenes appeared in the journal Neue Deutsche Literatur (as well as in an unauthorised Italian translation); and in 1956 further scenes were published in Theater der Zeit and Neues Deutschland.

  Early in 1956 Brecht at last commissioned Manfred Wekwerth and Benno Besson (two young colleagues at the Berliner Ensemble, the latter recruited from Zurich) to direct the première of The Days of the Commune in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz). He first checked with Henschel whether there was a copyright problem with respect to Grieg’s original play and its German translation, but they assured him there was a minimal overlap and suggested he offer the Grieg heirs a share of two per cent. According to Wekwerth, Brecht then proposed another thorough re-working of the play, in order to develop the political turning points more clearly. But Brecht died (in August 1956) before any more work was undertaken; and the play was published in the Versuche (Experiments) series before the end of the year. There it carried a prefatory note:

  The play The Days of the Commune was written in 1948/49 in Zurich, after reading Nordahl Grieg’s Defeat. Some features and characters were borrowed from Defeat, but in general The Days of the Commune is a kind of riposte. It is the twenty-ninth Experiment. Collaborator: R. Berlau.

  Despite all the discussion, it was still virtually the same as the fair copy of 1949 (on which our text is based). After the première, Wekwerth and Joachim Tenschert undertook a thoroughgoing revision, and justified their massive changes with reference to Brecht’s alleged intention to revise the play himself. It is their ‘Berliner Ensemble rehearsal script’ which has previously appeared in English (as The Days of the Commune, translated by Clive Barker and Arno Reinfrank, Methuen, 1978). Even a fleeting comparison will make clear quite how much they changed. Hence the decision of the present editors to revert to Brecht’s own text.

  From the Last Scene of Nordahl Grieg’s Defeat

  [A group of communards, women and children have taken refuge in a churchyard. There they hear the advancing government soldiers, represented by march music, and await their execution.]

  DELESCLUZE stands up: Now they are coming.

  The deep, rhythmical music comes nearer. Through it can be heard the motif from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

  ROSE: They’ll kill us now.

  […]

  Driven by the music, they go back step by step towards the wall.

  DELESCLUZE: At last! No more fear, no more defeat, no more imprisonment. Now I’m protected by death, I can stand, looking at the sky, remembering, hoping … There is nothing more to be done.

  LUCIEN: Thank you, Pauline.

  PAULINE takes his hand: Thank you, too.

  GABRIELLE: Delescluze, there’s still something we can say.

  DELESCLUZE: To whom?

  GABRIELLE: To those who kill us. Come, children: we’ll tell them of the future, of our irreconcilable hope.

  MAURICE: How shall we do that?

  GABRIELLE: They’ll see it in our smile.

  MAURICE: What shall we smile at?

  We feel, now, that the advancing soldiers have come to a halt.

  LUCIEN: Now we’ve just got to stand quietly, and not worry. Now they’ve come on a bit. Good. Now it’s all right.

  The shadow of the firing party’s rifles falls on the wall. A roll of drums. Darkness. At the same instant, the Beethoven motif frees itself from the drums, and rings out in clear, magnificent harmony. Curtain.

  [This is the final page of the play (Act Four, scene 3) in the English translation by Eleanor Arkwright, London: Gollancz, 1944, p.87.]

  Chronology of the Paris Commune

  Brecht’s play is set in the period from 19 January to the street battles between 21 and 28 May 1871.

  1870

  19 July: France declares war on Prussia. In August French defeats follow in quick succession.

  2 September: Surrender of Napoleon III to the Prussian army, after the Battle of Sedan.

  4 September: Insurrectionary demonstrations in Paris. Proclamation of the Republic. Formation of the provisional Government of National Defence.

  18 September: Prussian armies complete the encirclement of Paris.

  31 October: Demonstrations against an armistice. Battalions of the National Guard (a citizens’ army dating back to the Revolution, now augmented by part of the army which rejected the Government of National Defence) occupy the Hôtel de Ville. Demands for a Commune.

  27 December: Prussian artillery begins to bombard Paris.

  1871

  18 January: Wilhelm I proclaimed Kaiser in a ceremony at Versailles.

  19 January: French sortie, failure and heavy losses around Buzenval.

  22 January: Violent demonstrations against the armistice.

  28 January: Paris capitulates to the Prussians.

  8 February: Elections to a new National Assembly. Overwhelmingly monarchist and conservative, it convenes in Bordeaux, with Adolphe Thiers as Chief Executive.

  15 February: Formation of the Central Committee of the National Guard, for the defence of the Republic. The National Guard seize cannon that would have gone to the Prussians.

  26 February: In Versailles, Thiers and his Foreign Minister Jules Favre, as representa
tives of the Government of National Defence, sign the ceasefire which the Germans have imposed.

  1-3 March: Token occupation of Paris by the Prussians.

  10 March: National Assembly transfers its seat to Versailles, ends the remission of rents, stops paying the National Guard.

  18 March: Abortive attempt to seize the cannon from the National Guard. Revolt. Central Committee of the National Guard takes charge in Paris. Generals Thomas and Lecomte are shot. Exodus of Government troops and functionaries to Versailles.

  26 March: Elections in Paris.

  28 March: Inauguration of the Paris Commune.

  29 March: Opening session of the Commune. First decrees: Abolition of the standing army, remission of rents. Later decrees include: separation of church and state; destruction of the Vendóme Column; abolition of night work for bakers; restitution of pawned possessions; confiscation of abandoned factories and their transformation into worker co-operatives; abolition of the rank of general; fixing of government and civil service salaries at a rate no higher than that of a skilled worker.

  2 April: Start of military operations between Paris and Versailles, Commune does badly. Paris again besieged and bombarded.

  3 April: Many captured communards are shot by Versailles forces.

  5 April: In retaliation the Commune decrees that hostages may be taken. Archbishop of Paris arrested.

  6 April: Burning of the guillotine in the Place Voltaire.

  30 April: Municipal elections in the rest of France, big gains by moderate republicans.

  10 May: Treaty of Frankfurt: France to pay war costs and cede Alsace-Lorraine.

  21 May: Versailles troops enter Paris.

  21-28 May: Bloody Week. The Commune executes 63 hostages. In the street fighting, 873 Government soldiers and about 3,000 communards are killed. After the fighting, Thiers’ troops kill another 20,000.

  Only in 1873 do the last German troops leave French territory. Despite various monarchist movements and plans for a restoration, by 1879 the French Republic is secure.

  TURANDOT

  Texts by Brecht

  JOURNAL ENTRIES

  12 May 1942

  At Horkheimer’s with Eisler for lunch. Afterwards Eisler suggests a plot for the Tui-Novel: the story of the Frankfurt Sociological Institute. A rich old man (Weil, the speculator in wheat) dies, disturbed at the poverty in the world. In his will he leaves a large sum to set up an institute which will do research on the source of this poverty. Which is, of course, himself. The activities of the institute take place at a time when the Emperor too would like to see a name given to the source of the evil, since popular indignation is rising. The institute participates in the deliberations.

  20 August 1953

  Buckow. Turandot. Also the Buckow Elegies. 17 June has alienated the whole of existence. Despite their pathetic helplessness and lack of direction, the workers’ demonstrations have shown that this is the rising class. It is not the petty bourgeois who are taking action, but the workers. Their slogans are confused and powerless, foisted on them by the class enemy, and there is no strength in their organisation, no councils have been set up, no plan has been formed. And yet here we had the class in front of us, in its most depraved condition, but nevertheless the class. The important thing would have been to use this first encounter to full advantage. This was the point of contact. It came not as an embrace but as a slap in the face, but it was contact nonetheless. - The Party had reason to be alarmed, but it didn’t need to despair. After the whole historical development it could not in any case expect the spontaneous agreement of the working class. There were tasks it had anyway, in the circumstances, to carry out without that agreement, indeed even against the workers’ resistance. But here, however ill-timed, was the big chance to win over the workers. For this reason I did not find the terrible 17 June simply negative. The moment I saw the proletariat - nothing would lead me to make ingenious excuses or allowances here - exposed to the class enemy again, to the capitalism of the Fascist era in renewed strength, I saw the only force that is capable of coping with it.

  13 September 1953

  When I look at Turandot now – she stands right outside German literature and seems, as single persons often do, shaky on her pins. If I were wholly a comedy writer, which I almost am, but only almost, then such a work would have relatives grouped around it, and the clan would be able to assert itself.

  As for the ‘message’ of the work, there’s nothing simple about it. Like Molière’s L’Avare in this respect. He is ridiculing the avarice of an age in which the bourgeoisie has recently discovered how to put money to productive use. Avarice has become quite impractical, stands in the way of making money and is thus ridiculous (and also earns the laughter of the feudal class which is generous and does not stint with the product of the labour of the oppressed classes). And yet avarice is of long standing. Basically, as the compulsion to save, as the aim of productivity, as the bad side of capitalism, throughout its career. (And is, if captured at the right time, a really deeply rooted bad quality.) – In Turandot the will to formulate, to think unproductively is captured at a time when the (capitalist) mode of production does not permit productive forces to develop any further; it presents itself as impractical, therefore ridiculous. And it will carry on like this for a while, until the intellectuals are no longer outside and in opposition to the rest of the population, and the whole population, on the contrary, has been intellectualised.

  [Journals, pp.230-1 and 454-6. These notes, from two quite different stages of Brecht’s life – in 1942 he was in California, in 1952/3 in Berlin – give some impression of the various impulses behind the Turandot adaptation, and the constructions which might be placed on it. For the reference to 17 June, see Introduction.]

  ADDITIONAL SCENES FROM THE ‘TURANDOT’ COMPLEX

  THE TUI AND THE WASHERWOMEN AT THE RIVER

  Amongst the women washing clothes by the river a Tui sits, cautiously washing his toes.

  TUI: A pretty sight, ladies, a splendid subject for a painter. The colour contrast, the laundry and the bare arms, the charming movement, the light. Ah; I love these fleshly sights!

  WASHERWOMAN: Yes, we like them too. But we don’t often get to see them, you know.

  TUI: Ah. That’s not quite what I meant. Is the water cold?

  SECOND WASHERWOMAN: You can see for yourself, look at our hands. You see how red they are, and how calloused the skin is? But you can dip your toes in all right.

  The Tui sits down so that they cannot see his feet.

  TUI: I wasn’t asking on account of my feet, but to know if it is cold for you.

  WASHERWOMAN: Uhuh. But you can dip them in, no worries.

  TUI: There’s no hurry. How does Xi-Fu put it? ‘Hurry is the wind that brings the scaffolding crashing down.’

  ANOTHER WASHERWOMAN: What’s going to come crashing down if you just wash your feet?

  The washerwomen laugh. A supervisor approaches.

  SUPERVISOR: What’s so funny? You don’t get paid for jokes. The other day some linen got torn again. I’ll have it deducted from your pay, just so as you know. You there, come to my hut after you knock off, I want a word with you.

  A WASHERWOMAN: Yes sir.

  The supervisor exits.

  ANOTHER WASHERWOMAN: See that, he thought it a pretty sight as well.

  TUI: What do you mean?

  WASHERWOMAN: You heard, he told her to come and see him in the hut.

  ANOTHER: He ripped my ‘linen’ too the other day, but you don’t get paid any more for it.

  TUI: But ladies, you don’t have to put up with that. That’s a clear transgression, ‘Transgressions are harmful,’ that’s what Mi-di expressly says.

  SECOND WASHERWOMAN: And he should know. To the woman who was addressed by the supervisor: You’re a bit eager, I’d say.

  WASHERWOMAN answering: And I suppose you’re not?

  SECOND WASHERWOMAN: The other day you smiled at him, I saw it quite clearly. He promise
d me the place by the basket.

  WASHERWOMAN: Well, he didn’t promise me anything, but he’s cut my pay three times in a row.

  TUI has his toes in the water, triumphantly: The water isn’t cold at all! Ladies, I must make a confession: I’m a poet by profession. I should like, if you have nothing against it, to try to sweeten your labours a little by reciting a poem, that is to say, if you can contribute a couple of yen to the costs of having it printed. The poem is called: ‘The Ballad of the Triumph of Woman’.

  WASHERWOMEN: I heard a really nice ballad recently. I could spare a yen, if it’s any good. Last spring there was someone collecting money in advance out on the bleachery, but then his poem turned out to have only one verse. Let’s do it like this: we’ll pay one yen after each verse, until there’s no more money left.

  TUI: Agreed, but the refrain counts as a verse.

  WASHERWOMEN: Oh no. We’re not having any of that. Either we do it our way, or not at all. And it’s got to have rhythm, so we can do the washing to it, otherwise we’re not paying.

  TUI sighing: All right. You drive a hard bargain. He sings the ballad. When he’s done: So that’s it, nothing more? Many thanks, ladies, and good evening. Exits.