Epic Theatre... and Hitler Dancing

The thing about Brecht is that he was a man on a mission. Two missions, at least - as far as I can tell.

His primary mission was, originally, to shake up theatre. He wanted to take it out of it's fusty, late 19th/early 20th century 3-Act-Drawing-Room structure and make it magical. No longer would a play be penned in by some antiquated "form"! No longer would a playwright be required to use such antediluvian concepts as "beginning", "middle" and "end"! No longer would it be some academic exercise for the elite, but it would become fun - like sport! Throw open the doors and let anything be possible!

Quite admirable, really, and modern theatre owes so much to Brecht and his contemporaries that it's impossible to measure is influence.

His second mission came later but became equally as important, to him, as his first: to use theatre to "show the way". That "way" was, of course, Marxism. Brecht was one of the Bourgeoisie converts to Marxism who thought it was their duty to be the "voice" of the Proletariats until they could rise up and speak for themselves. Not that he really tried to speak for the Proletariat, but rather he wanted to be a beacon for the cause.

No longer was it enough for a play to be "free" from the constraints of the theatre of the past - it had to be a clarion call to the audience, teaching them how dire the world is, so that they would feel the need to change it.

"The word we know is deeply flawed - what are you going to do about it?" That was the drive of his plays in a world faced with the double threat of capitalism and fascism...

... which brings me to Hitler dancing.

I've been researching Brecht for an assignment (the first real literature assignment I've done for many long years), and I borrowed a book compiling his journals for the years between 1934 and 1950.

As I was looking for his comments on Der Gute Mensch von Setzuan, I stumbled across some pictures of what I first thought was a man dressed as Hitler on a film set.

Turns out these were actually stills from a newsreel featuring the man himself - dancing.

Hitler had just been given the news that France had capitulated, and he was so happy he danced a little jig.

Brecht had obviously clipped these pictures and some associated text out of a newspaper or magazine that had printed them, so they were included in his diary and therefore reprinted in this book.

I have to admit that I don't really watch any of the 350,567 documentaries on Hitler that seem to fill the viewing schedule on SBS of a Friday night, but I wonder how many of them show Hitler dancing. Most of the footage I have seen just seems to focus on him pointing a lot and spitting as he talks.

It should probably be noted that Brecht didn't particularly like Hitler. Nor did he like what Hitler was talking the German people into doing. He was so keen on Communism saving Germany from Fascism that he never quite noticed it tipped into Totalitarianism.

Or, at least, he tried not to. His diaries showed that he was reasonably aware that the new order of things wasn't quite right, but he had faith that it could be fixed if everyone just stuck at it.

I wonder what he would make of this new world, where most people remember Communism as a failed experiment that caused more harm than good? The Socialism he (and others like him) advocated was not the same Socialism that caused so much damage to Eastern Europe. The philosophy they dreamed of was hijacked and converted into something else. Would he still be trying to change the world? Would he still be using theatre to do it?