Dialog International

Marx and Lenin on Broadway: The Brecht Musical That Almost Happened

The New York Times recently published a piece looking back at a fascinating chapter in the history of Broadway musicals. Three giants of music and dance - Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins - came together in 1967 to develop a new musical that would match their greatest triumph ten years earlier - West Side Story.  While Shakespeare inspired West Side Story, Jerome Robbins turned to Bertolt Brecht for this new project.  At first glance this doesn't seem strange, since Three Penny Opera had already enjoyed a long run Off-Broadway and Bernstein had been involved in that early success.  So Brecht was already well-known to the New York theater crowd.  But for this new project Robbins chose the most radical of all of Brecht's Lehrstücke ("Didactic Plays") - Die Maβnahme  ("The Measures Taken") which itself had been inspired by Lenin's pamphlet Radical "Communism" , An Infantile Disorder.  In the play, a group of revolutionary agitators in China are forced to kill one of their own - Der junge Genosse (The Young Comrade) - after his extremist behavior threatens their mission.  Later the agitators ask the Party - here Der Kontrollchor - for retroactive approval of their actions.  The play ends with a Lob der Partei ("In Praise of the Party"):

Der Einzelne kann vernichtet werden / Aber die Partei kann nicht vernichtet werden / Denn sie ist der Vortrupp der Massen / und führ ihrn Kampf / Mit den Methoden der Klassiker, welche geschöpft since / Aus der Kenntnis der Wirklichkeit. 

Actually it was The Measures Taken that caught the attention of the House of Un-American Activities in 1947, which summoned Brecht to a public hearing in 1947.  When asked directly about the "communist propaganda" in the play, Brecht cleverly deflected by insisting it had been mistranslated (you can watch the amusing interrogation of Brecht by the HUAC here. 

Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein eventually decided that The Measures Taken perhaps wasn't the best vehicle for the new musical, and instead chose the Brecht's next Lehrstück - Die Ausnahme und die Regel ("The Exception and the Rule") - a Marxist parable of capitalistic exploitation and injustice. 

“The Exception and the Rule,” is about a rapacious oil merchant (read: capitalism) who races another merchant across a desert to win a lucrative deal. Accompanying him are a guide and a porter; when the three get lost, and the porter (read: exploited labor) tries to help the merchant, the merchant misunderstands the gesture and shoots him. Naturally, being of the ruling class, he is acquitted: Self-defense, the judge decides, applies even if the threat is imaginary."

Sondheim agreed to move ahead with the lyrics for the musical, although he had some reservations concerning Brecht:

"Sondheim, eager to work with Robbins, whom he called “the only genius I had ever associated with,” thought this story might work, even though he found most of Brecht, and especially the teaching plays, “insufferably simplistic.” In his book “Look, I Made a Hat,” he wrote that there was “too much Lehr in each stück” — too much teaching in each play — “to hold my attention.”

Eventually the three geniuses - Bernstein, Sondheim, and Robbins - had a falling out and bailed on the project. What ultimately killed it was the world's worst show title - chosen by Bernstein: A Pray by Blecht. 

Review: Juli Zeh's Unterleuten

After reading Juli Zeh's terrific novel Unterleuten I will never pass by a wind farm without wondering who acquired the rights to build it and how the land was appropriated to the project.   I was interested in reading the novel - published in 2016 - since I was impressed by her later, and much shorter book Neujahr (see my review).  But I was apprehensive about committing to a 650 -page novel.  I needn't have been: Juli Zeh pulled me in with the first chapter and kept my interest until the last page.  Juli Zeh makes the rural village of Unterleuten come alive with vivid characters who at once exasperating and sympathetic - in short, human.  The village is located just 70 km from Berlin in rural Brandenburg, but it may as well be on a different planet.  Most of the residents of Unterleuten have been there for generations - everyone knows everyone's family history, everyone's business.  That is, they believe they know everything:

Ständig glaubten alle, alles zu wissen, während in Wahrheit niemand im Bilde war. Statt miteinander zu reden, erfanden die Leute Geschichten, die sich weitererzählen ließen.

These misunderstandings festered for generations - nothing really changed until Die Wende - the collapse of the DDR in 1989.  While this fundamental change was greeted with euphoria in Berlin, here in rural Brandenburg it was seen as an opportunity to settle old scores:

In Unterleuten herrschte ein fiebriger Schockzustend, der das Blut erhitzte und die Gehirne benebelte. [...] Berufliches Scheitern taugte plötzlich als Beweis für geleisteten Widerstand gegen das Unrechtssytem, so dass die größten Versager mit geschwellter Brust umherspazierten und den Erfolgreichen vorwarfen, sie hätten auf den Schößen der Bonzen gesessen.

The "shock to the system" - Schockzustand - was further amplified by the arrival of newcomers - mostly young westerners - Wessis - seeking an idyllic refuge from the big city as well as investors looking to acquire land at bargain prices. 

The novel is structured as a series of alternating short chapter -each with a narrative perspective of eight key figures in the novel.  The characters have radically different personalities and Zeh creates compelling backstories, so it was easy to keep track and avoid confusion.  There are three principal characters that drive the narrative. Rudolf Gombrowski is viewed as the wealthiest citizen.  His father owned most of the land in and around Unterleuten, but during the DDR era he was considered a Klassenfeind - an enemy of the proletariat - and his land was appropriated for a collective farm, "LPG" - Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft.  Rudolf Gombrowski was chosen by party officials to run the LPG, and after the collapse of the DDR he once again took control of the land.  His farm is the only functioning enterprise in the area, he is the largest employer and his taxes pay for the fire department, road maintenance, etc.  Because of his perceived wealth and power Gombrowski becomes the scapegoat for everything bad that happens in Unterleuten.  Gombrowski's nemesis is Kron, a die-hard communist who resists any changes in the village.  Kron has a loyal following of many of the men in Unterleuten who were disenfranchised following die Wende.  Then, among the young interlopers seeking a rural utopia, there is the energetic and cunning Linda Franzen, the "horse whisperer" who uses her animal training techniques on humans to good effect.  Ultimately, the intrusions of the outside world - from the newcomers, the investors, and the wind farm - have tragic consequences for the village:

Zugezogene begriffen nicht, dass der Weltuntergang hier bereits stattgefunden hatte. Mehrmals. Durch die Bomben des Zweiten Weltkriegs, die bei schlechtem Wetter wahllos über dem Berliner Umland abgeworfen wurden. Durch Rot-Armisten während des Vormarschs auf die Hauptstadt. Durch die Ankunft der Vertriebenen aus Ostpreußen, die sich auf Scheunen, Ställe und halb zerstörte Häuser verteilten. Durch die Errichtung der Mauer und durch das Einreißen der Mauer. Die Überlebenden sprachen eine eigene Sprache und folgten einer eigenen Moral. 

With Unterleuten Juli Zeh has written an important social novel - a modern Zeitroman - that examines the great conflicts of our time - between East vs. West, urban vs.rural, millennials vs.their elders, wealthy vs. disenfranchised, etc - but does so with deft satire and sympathy for her characters. Hopefully the novel will soon be available in English translation. 

Ständig glaubten alle, alles zu wissen, während in Wahrheit niemand im Bilde war. Statt miteinander zu reden, erfanden die Leute Geschichten, die sich weitererzählen ließen.

Quelle: https://www.dieterwunderlich.de/Zeh-unterleuten.htm (c) Dieter Wunderlich