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The Bertolt Brecht-Archiv in Berlin announces that it has just purchased the
Brecht collection of Victor N. Cohen (father of long-standing IBS member, Robert
Cohen, New York University). The contents are even richer than the “Renata
Mertens Bertozzi” collection acquired in 2004. The new collection includes
unpublished manuscripts, notes, passports, checkbooks, contracts, invoices,
photographs, and numerous documents related to Brecht’s biography and
works. Of notable importance are the 140 unpublished letters of Brecht and 220
letters to Brecht, as well as many letters to and from Helene Weigel. Among
those who wrote letters are Elisabeth Bergner, Stefan Brecht, Paul Dessau, William
Dieterle, Alfred Döblin, Hanns Eisler, Lion Feuchtwanger, Christopher Isherwood,
Kurt Kläber, Fritz Kortner, Wolfgang Langhoff, Heinrich Mann, Charles Laughton,
Erwin Piscator, Peter Suhrkamp, Paul Tillich, Berthold Viertel, und Carl Zuckmayer.
The material, which had been in the possession of graphic artist and union functionary
Victor N. Cohen, relates to the exile years in the United States and Switzerland.
Thirtysix handwritten letters and 3 telegrams that Brecht sent from New York
City to Helene Weigel in Santa Monica between the years 1944 and 1947 are especially
interesting. More details will be forthcoming as the Archive catalogues the
material.
“Bertolt Brecht und die Musik”
A new German-Japanese research project has been funded by the Japanese Cultural
Ministry and Japanese Research Foundation under the direction of German studies
and theater scholar Akira Ichikawa at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies
and Misako Ohta at Kobe University. Working closely with German partners Joachim
Lucchesi and Jan Knopf at the Brecht-Arbeitsstelle in Karlsruhe, the project
will run for three years from April 2005 until March 2008 and include two interdisciplinary
symposia in Kobe (2006) and Osaka (2007). There are also plans to establish
a Brecht Research Center at Osaka University.
The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music offers research and performance grants
to scholars and artists working on Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. Contact the Foundation
for information and grant applications. The Weill Foundation also has complete
information on publications, performances, and events in celebration of the
Kurt Weill centenary (2000).
7 East 20th Street
New York, NY 10003-1106
Tel. 212 / 505 5240
Fax 212 / 353 9663
email: wlrc@kwf.org
homepage: http://www.kwf.org
Charles Marowitz’s play, Silent Partners, a play based on Eric Bentley’s The Brecht Memoir, is now available from Dramatists Play Service, including production rights. Click here for more details.
Stuart McDowell, Chair of the Theatre Department at Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio), was awarded the Amy & Eric Burger Prize for “Verfremdung Be Damned! Putting an End to the Myth of Brechtian Acting.” The still unpublished article is a preview of his book-in-progress called Acting Brecht.
The proceedings of a 2004 conference on Brecht and Philosophy have been published
by the University of Tel Aviv:
Gad Kaynar & Linda Ben-Zvi (eds.), Bertolt Brecht: Performance and Philosophy
(Tel Aviv University: Assaph Book Series, 2005).
Contact Prof. Gad Kaynar for ordering
information.
Eric Bentley's "Brecht Study Guide"
Eric Bentley's "Bertolt Brecht: A Study Guide" has sold out at Grove
Press,
but it is now available online at the Press's website: http://www.groveatlantic.com
Search 'bentley' and click overleaf 'Teacher's Guide' to see full-text.
Eric Bentley's "The Brecht/Eisler Song Book", which contains 42 songs, has just been reprinted by Music Sales Corporation in New York. There are 19 more Eisler Songs in a slim volume entitled "Eisler and the Poets," privately printed by Ilse Schreiber-Noll (ilsenoll@msn.com); contact at 56 Grove Street, Tarrytown, NY 10591. Texts appear in both volumes in both German and English; all English lyrics are by Eric Bentley.
The IBS at the Modern Language Convention 2008
San Francisco, 27-30 December 2008
Session #30. Brecht and/on Censorship
Saturday, 27 December
3:30–4:45 p.m., Foothill G2, San Francisco Marriott
Presiding: Gudrun Tabbert-Jones, Santa Clara Univ.
1. Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Texas State Univ., “Censorship, Self-Censorship,
and Betrayal: Brecht and the Hollywood Ten”
2. Orsolya Kiss, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, “Between Canonization and
Censorship: Peymann’s Brecht Performances”
3. Margaret Setje-Eilers, Vanderbilt Univ., “‘Wochenend und Sonnenschein’:
In the Blind Spots of Censorship at the Culture Ministry and the Berliner Ensemble”
Respondent: Marc Silberman, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
Session #293. Brecht and Kafka: Clashing Modernisms?
Sunday, 28 December
1:45–3:00 p.m., Pacific Suite F, San Francisco Marriott
Presiding: Margaret Setje-Eilers, Vanderbilt Univ.
1. Paul Peters, McGill Univ., “The Body of the Dragon: Brecht, Kafka,
and the Myth of the State”
2. Elena Pnevmonidou, Univ. of Victoria, “Physical Exposure: The Body
on Display in Brecht and Kafka”
3. David Pan, Univ. of California, Irvine, “Law and Sacrifice in Brecht’s
Massnahme and Kafka’s Prozess”
NB: There will be an IBS business meeting as well (time/place to be announced).
Theater an der Parkaue, Berlin
Der gute Mensch von Sezuan
Parabelstück von Bertolt Brecht
Regie: Sascha Bunge
Premiere am 4. November 2008
(weitere Aufführungen am 5. und 6.11.; 1.9. und 12.; und "Brecht-Tag"
am 10.2.)
Auskunft und Karten:
hier klicken.
John Walters, Theater of War (2008, documentary)
The film is a behind-the-scenes look at the 2006 production of "Mother
Courage and Her Children" with Meryl Streep playing Courage, directed by
George Woolf, produced by Oscar Eustis, and in a new translation by Tony Kushner.
For info: www.imdb.com/title/tt1134673/
For film clips: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKK37mSRFV4
Hampstead Theatre, London presents:
Turandot by Bertolt Brecht
Translated by Edward Kemp
September 4 - October 4, 2008
Never previously performed in the United Kingdom, Brecht's last play is a large-scale production with a cast of 11 actors; the production features a new set design by Garance Marneur (Winner of the 2007 Linbury Biennial Prize for Turandot).
For information and online ticket orders: www.hampsteadtheatre.com
The Good Woman of Setzuan
(trans. Eric Bentley)
Constellation Theatre Company
March 27 - April 20, 2008
Performances: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 pm
Clark Street Playhouse
601 South Clark Street
Arlington, VA 22202
For info.: http://www.constellationtheatre.org
British actor Peter Thomson goes on the road with his new performance piece
"The Snowstorms Have Hats On."
For information, click here.
10 BRECHT POEMS is a devised theatre performance structured around 10 poems by Bertolt Brecht and it runs 45 minutes, followed by a 15 minute post show discussion. Tannis Kowalchuk and Leese Walker of Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, based in New York City, sing, recite, dance, use hand-painted slides and shadow puppets to create striking physical and transformative images. This poor theatre "with only suitcases, placards, music, empty space, excellent costumes, and the magic of theatre" presents a condensed, vaudevillian anti-war epic.
Since 2003, 10 BRECHT POEMS has toured to: Goethe Institute in Washington DC, Brecht Forum (New York City), Public School 122, Judson Memorial Church, Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, the 2003 KO Festival (Amherst College), and the Catskill Festival of New Theatre. College appearances include: Penn State, SUNY Sullivan, New York University, University of Albany, Frederick College, Hood College, Trinity College, Austin Arts Center, Muhlenberg College, and the national Socialist Scholars Conference at Cooper Union, New York City.
The team generally comes to a school or theatre, shows the performance, and
then runs a workshop with students and artists. Kowalchuk's background is in
devised and ensemble theatre (longtime teacher was an Odin Teatret actor from
Denmark), and Walker's background is improvisation. Sometimes faculties join
forces (Poetry/German/Theatre) to present the show. If interested in bringing
the show to your university or theatre, there is a video and full information
package available from the company: North American Cultural Laboratory.
www.nacl.org
Tel. 845-557-0694 (Catskills)
Tel. 718-398-4589 (Brooklyn)
Mahagonny film (1980)
Click here for the New York Times review (September 13, 2002)
Georg Wilhelm Pabst. The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper / L’Opéra
de Quat’Sous).
Based on the original musical play by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. German
and French versions of 1931 with English subtitles. London: British Film Institute.
BFIVD 661 [2 DVDs, Region 2 only].
A new film by Peter Voigt just released called "Bertolt Brecht: Bild und
Modell"
Click here
for more information.
Philippe Vincent (director). Fatzer: Ein Film nach dem Fragment von Bertolt
Brecht und nach der Montage von Heiner Müller. Aus dem Deutschen von
François Rey. Lyon: Compagnie Scènes, 2003. [DVD 100 min., b/w,
in French
with German subtitles]
Order from:
Compagnie Scenes
Les Subsistances
8 bis quai St. Vincent
69001 Lyon
France
Email: vinscenes@wanadoo.fr
Bertolt Brecht Practice Pieces
1964; 28 mins.
Facets VHS-S30994 (www.facets.org)
Lotte Lenya, Roscoe Lee Browne, Micki Grant, and Oliver Clark are shown rehearsing
two of Bertolt Brecht's largely unknown and seldom performed "Übungstücke
für Schauspieler" (Practice Pieces for Actors). Brecht wrote these
scenes to train actors in his own method for doing classical drama. Contains
scenes from Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and a brief discussion of the theater
of Brecht with Lenya and translator Michael Lebeck.
The Jewish Wife
New York: Phoenix Films [1978], 29 min.
A dramatization of Brecht's scene from “Fear and Misery of the Third Reich”.
Director, Jeff Young; produced by Daniel Wigutow, Clark Worswick. Viveca Lindfors,
Harris Yulin. Originally released by Play/Data Bureau, Inc., Strolling Players,
Inc., 1971.
Bertolt Brecht
Princeton, NJ : Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1998. 53 min.
A Clark Television production for BBC Worldwide Television. Producer:
Bob Portway; camera: Steve Cripps; music: Ed Kielb. Voice of Brecht: Philip
Hurdwood. Originally produced in 1996.
"The German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer who developed the
drama as a social and ideological forum is the subject of this program, in which
those who knew him discuss his life and many works. Excerpts from plays such
as Mother Courage and Her Children, The Life of Galileo, The Good Woman
of Setzuan, and Antigone highlight the development of Brecht's austere
form of irregular verse. A later work, “The Short Organum for the Theater”,
is the embodiment of Brecht's idea of true Marxist drama."
Brecht on Stage
Cicero, IL: Roland Collection of Films on Art, 1989. 25 min. A production for
the Open University, BBC.
Director, writer: Richard Bessel; producer: Amanda Willett. Contemporaries and
scholars of Bertolt Brecht discuss his work and its impact on modern theater.
Syberberg filmt bei Brecht 1953 (Puntila, Urfaust, Die Mutter)
Mit eingesprochenem Kommentar von Hans Mayer
Alexander Verlag, 90 min. ISBN 3-923854-80-3 By Hans Jürgen Syberberg.
(www.alexander-verlag.com/Neuer/audis3.htm)
The documentary images of scenes filmed at the Berliner Ensemble are silent
and often blurred, but they are valuable as the only available cinematic documentation
of Brecht rehearsing scenes at this own theater.
See additional links to lists of videos and television documentations.
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Site created: January 15, 1997.