Prologue

Abstract

When in the fall of 1935 Bertolt Brecht attempted to transfer his concept of political theater to the United States, he was faced with two dilemmas: his American colleagues had no idea what epic theater was, and, more importantly, they had no interest in it. Brecht’s encounter with the professional leftist stage ended in a spectacular scandal: Theatre Union, New York’s foremost proletarian theater of the time, which had agreed to a production of his epic play The Mother, kicked him and co-author Hanns Eisler out of rehearsals. With this drastic gesture weeks of mutual recriminations came to a halt, weeks during which Theatre Union had become increasingly annoyed with Brecht’s and Eisler’s insistence on principles of epic theater, while the two authors had likewise renounced all efforts to adapt the play for American audiences with colorful German invectives. Although Theatre Union proceeded unperturbed by further interventions, the final production flopped. All attempts of translating the play for American audiences, notwithstanding, the critics resisted precisely the few remaining alienation effects, dismissing the play as simply “too German in form and spirit.”¹ Not surprisingly, the general public failed to carry the production, thereby shutting down the first attempt of staging epic theater in the United States.