Daring to Play by Wekwerth Manfred; Hozier Anthony;

Author:Wekwerth, Manfred; Hozier, Anthony;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

Brecht and Ionesco

The Berliner Ensemble’s first tour, in Paris in 1954, during which Mother Courage and Her Children was shown, enjoyed a success the like of which Paris had never seen before. The Parisian press was in raptures. Even the rightwing Figaro immediately demanded that the Berliner Ensemble be given the Prix du Théâtre des Nations. Brecht was troubled by such enthusiasm, even though he did value it. The greater the applause, the happier he was to withdraw. And so one evening, as the auditorium was still filled with applause, he happily withdrew into the furthest corner of the small café in front of the Sarah Bernhardt theatre where the Berliner Ensemble was making its guest appearance. And precisely here things caught up with him. Suddenly standing before him was Eugène Ionesco, the famous representative of ‘the theatre of the absurd’. After a rather overly polite greeting, Ionesco, who spoke German very well, challenged Brecht: ‘I accuse you of killing feelings on stage and of unleashing the terror of reason. You are stealing people’s right to despair.’ And after the applause of the hangers-on he had brought with him had died down, he played his trump card: ‘Don’t bother, Mr Brecht, this world is unknowable!’

Brecht, as he always did when he was uneasy, moved his head from side to side, and then said in a friendly tone: ‘If the world is unknowable, Mr Ionesco, then how do you know this?’

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