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A Brechtian mixed bag
A RESPECTABLE WEDDING &
THE JEWISH WIFE
The Young Vic
BERTOLT BRECHT wrote in a range of styles just as varied as Rory Bremner’s funny voices.
It’s easy to forget he wrote poems, short stories, novels, operas, farces and one-act plays as well as his acknowledged masterpieces. But this double-bill brings to light a couple of Brecht’s lesser known one-act plays and gives Bremner the chance to stretch his own talents. As well as his TV political satire, Bremner has translated operas by Kurt Weill and Bizet.
The trouble is that Bremner’s translation owes a little too much to his comedy sketch-writing than Brecht’s satire of the German bourgeoisie.
A Respectable Wedding, written by Brecht in 1919 and set in the house of a solidly bourgeois German family, has been moved to poky flat in modern Britain.
But the translation loses Brecht’s political thread and essentially collapses.
Bremner’s modern-day characters aren’t bourgeois in the way Brecht intended. We laugh at their vulgarity but it’s not the poignant political satire of Brecht.
And Bremner’s characters certainly are vulgar. The language isn’t just blue – it’s misogynistic.
Do we really need a drunk (James Corden) declaring a woman who enjoys sex to be a “slapper who can’t get enough”; the groom’s violent use of the C-word, the F-word and, “let’s see your lovely white tits”?
On the other hand, The Jewish Wife, translated by Martin Crimp, sticks closely to the 1930s’ original. Set in the bedroom of a Jewish woman preparing to flee Germany and her Aryan husband, it’s perfectly staged in the very intimate Clare Studio. Anastasia Hille brings out the wife’s barely suppressed desperation as she decides what to take and makes her final telephone calls.
As she rehearses her goodbyes we get the picture: Her husband, ably played by Sean Jackson, has abandoned her, dressing up his betrayal with hollow reassurances that the Nazis won’t last. But she knows better and when he passes her winter coat – despite the spring weather and his protestations she’ll soon be back in Germany – the truth is out. Here at least Brecht’s implications are clear: women were the first Nazi victims, careerist men their first collaborators.
For Bremner there are other lessons to draw – the partnership of Bremner and Brecht needs a little more work if it’s to hit the heights of Bremner, Bird and Fortune.
Until May 5
020 7922 2922
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