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Brecht en Espanol

BRECHT EN ESPANOL: From Chile, Via East Berlin,
to New York--with Love!

Although East Berlin first saw Brecht's definitive
production of _Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar_ in 1952, at the
Berliner Ensemble, the drama was initially shown in Paris, 16
October 1937, sponsored by the German Writers' Protective
Association, with Helene Weigel as Senora Carrar, whom she also
later played in Prague. It was "dedicated to the heroic fight
for freedom of the Spanish people," according to the Paris poster
announcing the event. Brecht had come to Paris that summer with
Ruth Berlau to attend an International Writers' Congress
concerned with attitudes of intellectuals toward the Spanish
Civil War. She went to Madrid for a continuation of the Congress,
but Brecht sent a poem in his place, considering the trip too
dangerous. (So much for Galileo's lack of courage!)
Considering the continuing American historical interest in
Spain's Civil War, it is surprising that _Senora Carrar's Rifles_
has not had much of a stage-life in the United States, especially
given the serious theatre community's fascination with Brecht,
both as poet and polemicist. True, he was later to regard this
play as "opportunistic," but it is, nonetheless, an important
dramatic document of a time when Spain's fate hung in the
balance, before the long decades of Franco's fascist rule.
Now, at last, New York has had a vital staging of the drama-
-two stagings, in fact, since English and Spanish versions played
on alternate evenings. Added interest aaccrued from the fact
that the play was directed by Alejandro Quintana, himself a
fugitive from a fascist regime, that of Pinochet's Chile. But he
brought to the task even more authority than that of one who
knows whereof he speaks in regard to oppressivve governments:
Quintana now is also one of the six directors at the Berliner
Ensemble.
Born in Santiago in 1951, Quintana was in 1970 engaged in
theatre studies and working in a commercial theatre ensemble as
well. This was the time of Pinochet's "Putsch," as he calls it.
Known as an opponent to the new regime, he was at least not
imprisoned, for which he says he's thankful. Given a choice of
two possible lands of exile, Quintana had to make a decision
without knowing much about either. He could have gone to
Britian, but he chose instead to live and work in 1974 in the
German Democratic Republic, better known in America as East
Germany. At the time, he didn't know either German or English.
Even now, his English is nil, though he's learning.
"My choice was simple. I admired Brecht and his plays so
much, I thought I should go where he had worked, and where his
theatre now is," Quintana explains. The importance of the
Berliner Ensemble itself, in terms of its distinguished company
and its experiments was also a powerful attraction. But Quintana
didn't fly direct from Santiago to Brecht's _Theater am
Schiffbauerdamm_. By no means. He was first employed in Rostock,
in an emigrant ensemble, the _Teatro Lautauro_. He began to study
stage direction with a debut in Eisenach as director of Dario
Fo's _We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!_ Later, he won his diploma in
Berlin from the Institute for Stage Direction with a production
of Gala's _The Holy Whore_. He was engaged in Berlin at the
Theatre of Friendship where he staged such dramas as _The Sailors
of Cattaro_, _It's Still Quiet at Dawn_, _Love and Intrigue_, and
_Picnic on the Battlefield_.
In 1984, he joined the Berliner Ensemble as both director
and actor. And, because the Berliner Ensemble is trying to avoid
becoming a Brecht Mausoleum, he was encouraged to stage Federico
Garcia Lorca's unknown play, _Comedy Without a Title_. This is
an unfinished script, which had come to light in 1976, among
Lorca's papers controlled by his heirs. Manfred Weckwirth,
Intendant of the Ensemble, collaborated with him on the
production. He has also staged Dario Fo's _Accidentally a Woman:
Elizabeth_. With his new-found note as a director, Quintana has
been invited to mount plays abroad as well.
Actually, it was on the occasion of the Berliner Ensemble's
visit to the Edinburgh Festival that Quintana first learned about
New York's Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre and its dynamic
director, Miriam Colon. An actor he met there told him about the
adventurous Hispanic theatre group. Colon did not in fact meet or
see him in Edinburgh. Even now, Quintana marvels at her courage
in diciding to invite him to work with the company, sigh unseen.
But why choose _Senora Carrar's Rifles_ for New York
audiences? Because it has a Spanish setting? A Spanish theme?
Obviously, the Spanish background is attractive for an
ensemble dedicated to preserving and advancing Hispanic culture
and playing often in Spanish. But even considering the
continuing interest in the Spanish Civil War among American
intellectuals, Quintana does not see the play's value as merely
historical or even as an admonition to Hispanics in other lands
suffering under, or threatened by, political oppression. Though
it clearly does have such powers, he admits.
For Alejandro Quintana, _Senora Carrar's Rifles_ is "a very
topical piece, a play dealing with problems that can be seen now
all over the world!" Senora Carrar thinks she can save her sons,
remain neutral, and survive, no matter what kinds of political
violence are gaing around her. Quintana suggests that the play,
especially being almost unknown in New York, is "_very_ topical."
With so many armed clashes going on around the world, Quintana
believes it is necessary "to motivate people to think further."
This is no time for apathy, he insists. People have to decide
what to do, and do it now, he says. You cannot stand aside from
reality."
Quintana does not spell out in his own words just where
viewers of Brecht's drama ought to take their stands. He leaves
that to Brecht and Senora Carrar. In fact, he notes that his
production emphasizes the conflicts Senora Carrar experiences, in
trying to maintain a kind of neutrality in the midst of civil
war, and later in making a decision about the proper course of
action to take.
This might make _Senora Carrar's Rifles_ sound like another
one of Brecht's _Lehrstuecke_, posing a politico-moral problem
and, through exercise of the dialectic, showing audiences how to
arrive at a correct decision. But the elemental drama, to
Quintana, seems much more than that. He points out that is is,
as he insists, Brecht's only play constructed on Aristotelian
principles. "It is not an Epic Drama," he explains. "There is
catharthis!" It is also a strong contrast to another Brecht
character's attitude toward war: that of Mother Courage.
In New York, Quintana had only four weeks to prepare what he
calls "two stagings." The same cast was in both, but one version
was in English, the other in Spanish. During rehearsals, some
improvements were made in the Spanish translation, which Quintana
is now particularly well fitted to do, having mastered German so
well that he can immediately spot an incorrect use of Spanish
idiom for a German one. The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre on
occasion uses some English-speaking actors who do not also appear
in the Spanish version. Because of the brevity of the rehearsal
period, Quintana found it more effective to work with outstanding
actors who are proficient in both languages.
Miriam Colon, who played Senora Carrar and who is the
Artistic Director of the troupe, has smillingly observed that
playing the same role on alternate evenings in different
languages can be disorienting. English translation of Spanish
plays, for instance, are not word-for-word equilivants, by any
means. With a German play, it can be even more difficult, since
both playing texts are translations of anunplayed original.
Sometimes, says Colon, in the excitement of a lively or highly
dramatic scene, she or other cast memberrs may forget themselves
and interpolate a phrase or two from the other language before
they catch themselves. Which makes for an even greater sense of
adventure for both actors and audiences.
Nevertheless, Quintana is pleased with the results: "We have
a good product. Or two good products!"
He is also proud of the production of Brecht's _Baal_, which
he staged for the Berliner Ensemble. "It gave me a chance to mix
the old German culture with the new from the Americas," he
explains. "There is an excess of emotion, of everything in
_Baal_," he says, noting comparisons with Latin American
emotional excitability.
Baal, as a character, is especially interesting to Quintana.
"He damages his talent by using his energy for unnecessary
things. He is a poet, but his poetry has no resonance, because
he spouts it into the air. He has no public, no audience. There
is no communication." Obviously, Quintana sees this as a
terrible waste: almost a talent in a vacuum. Worse, Baal's
whims, hungers, and passions are often selfish or self-
destructive.
"He makes a division between his life and his poetry,"
Quintana observes. This, he believes, is Baal's fatal flaw. If
Baal's poetry in the play has no real resonance, the character in
action clearly )does_ have resonance, in terms of self-
destructive behavior to be seen at work in the Americas.
Unfortunately, whole peoples and societies also suffer. If
Brecht sketched the portrait of the Rampant Romantic, a law unto
himself and a threat to everyone else, he wasn't only indicting
the dramatic heroes of _Sturm und Drang_. Dictators may also
behave like wild, wilfull, selfish children, but they seldom have
any poetry in them at all. Baal at least has that.
To North Americans who may know little of the dreams, ideas,
and tempers of Latins to the South, it can come as a shock to
learn that Brecht and his dramas speak so directly to them. As
Quintana says, "To work at the Berliner Ensemble is for me a
dream made reality. In Chile, we reading everything possible of
Brecht, which wasn't easy. Brecht, who it is well known plays a
great role in all Latin America, was our model." But, he
observes, working in East Germany, he discovered that he and his
Latin co-workers "knew only half of Brecht. In the Spanish
translations, his texts were de-politicized. But if one takes
away Brecht's political substance, one falsifies him into a
curious Absurdist."
Although Quintana is delighted that his Berliner Ensemble
colleagues are always seeking to make a "theatre of engagement,
as Brecht postulated it," he himself believes that "in his own
land, one needs to discover him anew." Quintana hopes to bring
something new to the Ensemble's style of playing, based on his
own Hispanic theatre traditions. "When Latins make theatre, the
festive element is always very important."

Glen Loney
Brooklyn College, CUNY



 
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