Abstract
Bertolt Brecht’s practical approach to Japanese theatre, which necessitates the refunctioning of it by displacing it from its historical, cultural as well as aesthetic contexts was consistent with his general approach to classical traditions. Brecht treated classical traditions as raw material, and what interested him was the usability and adaptability (displaceability) of the traditions concerned, not their essential differences and differentiations. In determining the transportability and usability of Japanese theatre, a foreign dramatic art, Brecht consciously chose to disregard its historical, cultural, and ethnic peculiarities. The Brechtian art of refunctioning prescribes and legitimizes the copyist’s right and freedom of using (or abusing) the material to the benefit of the copyist’s work (practical and theoretical). The act of abuse or sacrilege against the material, however, does not sanctify the afterlife of the material with its true identity, but displaces it and thereby deprives it of its true identity. The material may live on, but is forced to live the life, and to mirror the identity, of the copyist’s work.
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Notes
- 1.
Arthur Waley: “Nō is written with a Chinese character meaning ‘to be able.’ It signifies ‘talent’; hence ‘an exhibition of talent,’ or ‘performance’” (Waley 1921, 15).
- 2.
It is also worth noting that Brecht also misidentified the use of hanamichi by Max Reinhardt as a Chinese theatre practice as he wrote in 1939: “Reinhardt used the flower path [Blumensteg] of the Chinese theatre” (Brecht 1993, pt. 1, 541).
- 3.
This passage is not included in Hauptmann 1977.
- 4.
A French translation reads: “Il est difficile de traiter par écrit de toutes les formes de la mimique. Néanmoins, comme il s’agit de l’élément essentiel de notre voie, il convient de s’appliquer avec le plus grand soin à l’étude de ces diverses formes. L’objectif fondamental est la recherche d’une bonne ressemblance en quelque matière que ce soit” (Zeami 1960, 70).
- 5.
A French translation reads: “D’abord bien s’identifier à son personnage, ensuite bien mimer ses actes. Quand je dis: ‘Bien s’identifier à son personnage,’ j’entends par là les divers types de la mimique du sarugaku … Pour tous les autres personnages types de la mimique, il vous faut d’abord étudier la façon de vous identifier à votre personnage. Alors, vous pourrez interpreter ses actes” (Zeami 1960, 117).
- 6.
This passage was not in the original 1921 edition.
- 7.
For more on Brecht’s interpretation of Chinese theatre, see Tian 1997.
- 8.
Zeami’s text: “The following might be said concerning making judgments: forget the specifics of a performance and examine the whole. Then forget the performance and examine the actor. Then forget the actor and examine his inner spirit. Then forget that spirit, and you will grasp the nature of the nō” (Zeami 1984, 102).
- 9.
Years later when working on his The Good Person of Szechwan, Brecht noted that “some attention must be paid to countering the risk of chinoiserie” (Brecht 1985, v).
- 10.
Elsewhere, he wrote in 1939: “Vakhtangov and Meyerhold took from Asian theatre certain dance forms and created a whole choreography for drama” (Brecht 1993, pt, 1, 540).
- 11.
There is a handwritten note under the text: “This attempt has as a subject the transport of a foreign technology” (Brecht 1992, 751, n. 391).
- 12.
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Tian, M. (2018). “The ‘Asiatic’ Model”: The Brechtian Art of Refunctioning of Japanese (Asian) Theatre. In: The Use of Asian Theatre for Modern Western Theatre. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97178-0_10
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