Fear and Misery of the Third Reich ( German: Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches), also known as The Private Life of the Master Race, is one of Bertolt Brecht's most famous plays and the first of his openly anti- Nazi works. It premiered on 21 May 1938 in Paris. This production was directed by Slatan Dudow and starred Helene Weigel. [1] The production employed Brecht's epic theatre techniques to defamiliarize the behaviour of the characters and to make explicit the play's underlying message.
The play consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".
It was followed by many more plays that were openly anti-Nazi ( Arturo Ui, etc.) and attempted a Marxist analysis. They were written while Brecht was in exile in Denmark and were inspired by a visit to Moscow, where he experienced the growing significance of the anti-Nazi movement there.
In 1974, the postmodern East German dramatist Heiner Müller wrote an 'answer' to Brecht's play, titled The Battle: Scenes from Germany (revised from a text first written in the early 1950s; first theatrical production opened on 10 October 1975 at the Volksbühne). [2] Tony Kushner's 1985 play A Bright Room Called Day was also based on this play.
There are six other scenes, which Brecht eventually cut out:
We'll watch them follow the band till
The whole lot come to a standstill –
Beaten, bogged-down elite.
We'd laugh till we were crying
If it weren't for our brothers dying
To bring about his defeat.
(Brecht, 1957, Methuen Drama)
The play was the basis of a 1942 Soviet film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin entitled The Murderers are Coming.
A BBC Radio production in 1965 starred Maurice Denham, Celia Johnson and Timothy West. The production featured some of the earliest radio work of TV and film composer Carl Davis; one of the songs in the production – " The German Song" – was sung by Dominic Behan, the Irish folk singer/songwriter and playwright, accompanied by the BBC Radio orchestra, arranged and conducted by Carl Davis.
In his 2007 work Ravenhill for Breakfast and its 2008 published edition Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, British playwright Mark Ravenhill reworks the themes of fear, suspicion, and the effect terror has on the mind from Brecht's play – especially from the vignette "The Spy" – into the fourth play of his own cycle, Fear and Misery. Ravenhill's play briefly tells the story of Harry's confrontation with his wife Olivia, over dinner, about moving to a safer, gated community for the psychological good of their son Alex, who has been having dreams about a headless soldier. The play, however, is a deeper discussion of the entrenchment of fear and insecurity in both Harry's and Olivia's lives, and in modern society as a whole.
In 2020, Jeremy O. Harris remixed this play into Fear and Misery of the Master Race (of the Brecht) which was performed in the Red Bull Theater's Short New Play Festival.[ citation needed]
In September 2, 2022 - the troupe "Theater of the Transitional Period", directed by Vsevolod Lisovsky, gave a street performance in Moscow, which was interrupted by the police. The director, the participants of the performance and the audience were arrested.
Notes
Bibliography
Fear and Misery of the Third Reich ( German: Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches), also known as The Private Life of the Master Race, is one of Bertolt Brecht's most famous plays and the first of his openly anti- Nazi works. It premiered on 21 May 1938 in Paris. This production was directed by Slatan Dudow and starred Helene Weigel. [1] The production employed Brecht's epic theatre techniques to defamiliarize the behaviour of the characters and to make explicit the play's underlying message.
The play consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".
It was followed by many more plays that were openly anti-Nazi ( Arturo Ui, etc.) and attempted a Marxist analysis. They were written while Brecht was in exile in Denmark and were inspired by a visit to Moscow, where he experienced the growing significance of the anti-Nazi movement there.
In 1974, the postmodern East German dramatist Heiner Müller wrote an 'answer' to Brecht's play, titled The Battle: Scenes from Germany (revised from a text first written in the early 1950s; first theatrical production opened on 10 October 1975 at the Volksbühne). [2] Tony Kushner's 1985 play A Bright Room Called Day was also based on this play.
There are six other scenes, which Brecht eventually cut out:
We'll watch them follow the band till
The whole lot come to a standstill –
Beaten, bogged-down elite.
We'd laugh till we were crying
If it weren't for our brothers dying
To bring about his defeat.
(Brecht, 1957, Methuen Drama)
The play was the basis of a 1942 Soviet film directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin entitled The Murderers are Coming.
A BBC Radio production in 1965 starred Maurice Denham, Celia Johnson and Timothy West. The production featured some of the earliest radio work of TV and film composer Carl Davis; one of the songs in the production – " The German Song" – was sung by Dominic Behan, the Irish folk singer/songwriter and playwright, accompanied by the BBC Radio orchestra, arranged and conducted by Carl Davis.
In his 2007 work Ravenhill for Breakfast and its 2008 published edition Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, British playwright Mark Ravenhill reworks the themes of fear, suspicion, and the effect terror has on the mind from Brecht's play – especially from the vignette "The Spy" – into the fourth play of his own cycle, Fear and Misery. Ravenhill's play briefly tells the story of Harry's confrontation with his wife Olivia, over dinner, about moving to a safer, gated community for the psychological good of their son Alex, who has been having dreams about a headless soldier. The play, however, is a deeper discussion of the entrenchment of fear and insecurity in both Harry's and Olivia's lives, and in modern society as a whole.
In 2020, Jeremy O. Harris remixed this play into Fear and Misery of the Master Race (of the Brecht) which was performed in the Red Bull Theater's Short New Play Festival.[ citation needed]
In September 2, 2022 - the troupe "Theater of the Transitional Period", directed by Vsevolod Lisovsky, gave a street performance in Moscow, which was interrupted by the police. The director, the participants of the performance and the audience were arrested.
Notes
Bibliography