I have mentioned Bertolt
Brecht (1898-1956) in numerous earlier posts. It suddenly occurred to me that I
needed to look at his earliest plays in order to see if I missed one relating
to World War One. Drums in the Night
(Trommeln in der Nacht), his second play, was written in 1918-19 while
Brecht was serving in the military as a medical orderly. The drama tells the
story of a German soldier who returns home from the war after he was reported
missing in action.
This five-act play is set
in Berlin during a single night in November, 1918. Act One begins at twilight
and Act Five ends at dawn. Drums in the
Night takes place when the Spartacist League—a communist faction group, led
by Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) and Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), was in conflict
with the Social-Democratic Party.
Each act of this play has
a title. The reader has to be aware of
the title to understand how it relates to the action of the act. Act
One is named “Africa.” It is set in Anna Balicke’s parents’ modest Berlin home.
The time is a November evening. Anna’s soldier boyfriend, Andrew Kragler, had
four years earlier been reported missing in action. She continues to hope he
will return from Africa, but her father pushes her to become engaged to
Frederick Murk, a man who stayed home during the war and became wealthy. Since
Anna is pregnant with Murk’s child, she consents to the engagement. After
everyone in the house leaves to go to the Piccadilly Bar to celebrate the
engagement, Kragler arrives from Africa looking emaciated and dirty in his
tattered uniform as well as acting nearly catatonic. His appearance reflects
the mutilating effects of war.
Act Two titled “Pepper.”
The action takes place in the Piccadilly Bar. There is a red moon shining in
the window. The engagement party is underway when Kragler arrives. Anna is
shocked to see him. The people in the bar are hostile towards Kragler, who
fought to save them during the war. Kragler is forced to leave the bar.
Act Three is titled “Ride
of the Valkyries.” It takes place on a road leading to the suburbs. It is a windy night. Kragler is being pursued
by Marie, a prostitute who had come to the engagement party with Murk. Eventually
Anna appears as she is searching for Kragler along this road.
Act Four is titled “The
Booze Dance.” It is set in a small gin
mill. Kragler recounts how he survived in Africa. He has been drinking for
hours and suddenly he realizes that he agreed to be an active member of the Spartacist
revolution.
Act Five titled “The
Bed.” It takes place on a wooden bridge while the big red moon continues to
shine on the activities of the night. Eventually Kragler turns his back on the
Spartacist League’s revolution. He and Anna are reunited and they walk away
together. The red moon that has shown throughout this night signifies that this
story is over, but a new one for this couple begins at dawn.
The Frank Jones
translation of Drums in the Night
that I read follows the text published by Propylaen Verlag, Berlin, 1922. This
version of the play appears in the 1966 Grove Press publication titled Bertolt Brecht-Jungle of Cities and Other
Plays.
Brecht dedicated Drums in the Night to “Bie Bahnholzer
1918.” Bie Banholzer’s last name appears
to have been misspelled in the dedication.
She was one of Brecht’s female friends and the mother of Frank, his first
son.
Although this is an early
play by Brecht, it has elements of his emerging “alienation” style. For Drums in the Night, Brecht wanted
signboards hung in the auditorium bearing pronouncements such as EVERY MAN FOR
HIMSELF and NO ROMANTIC GAPING. Brecht also wanted the moon to give off a more
intense red glow a few seconds before each of Kragler’s entrances. The title of
each act requires the reader/viewer to remain aware of it and discover how it
fits into the storyline. These are just a sample of the elements Brecht used to
keep the audience from becoming lost in the emotional tug of the storyline. Instead he wanted audiences to maintain
logical reasoning about the unfolding events.
Drums
in the Night was first performed in Munich on
September 30, 1922 at the Munich Kammerspiele. This production was directed by
Otto Falckenberg (1873-1947) a supporter of new German, controversial drama. The
play received its second production in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater. The Berlin production opened on December 20,
1922 with a cast of leading actors. Falckenberg also directed this production.
I have read that at least forty more productions of Drums in the Night were staged throughout Germany.
Brecht received the 1922
Kleist Prize as the most promising playwright of that year. Herbert Ihering*
(1888-1977), the leading theatre critic in Germany at this time, was an
advocate for both Brecht and Drums in the
Night. He was the individual who was mandated by the Kleist Foundation in
1922 to nominate a recipient for the Kleist Prize.
Brecht’s reputation was
established mainly in Europe until he met Eric Bentley, British-born American
critic who was born in 1916 and is currently over one hundred one years old. They met in the 1940’s at the University of
California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Eventually, Bentley became an expert on
Brecht and introduced his plays to North Americans. Bentley translated some of
the plays himself and for others he selected various scholars.
Once the English version
of Drums in the Night was published
in 1966, productions of this play began to appear in the United States. The
world premiere of this play presented in English took place August 4-13, 1966
at UCLA. It was directed by Carl M.
Weber formerly of the Berliner Ensemble, the German theatre company established
in 1949 by Brecht and his second wife, Helene Weigel (1900-1971).
The Barnard College
Theatre Company presented the New York City premiere of Drums in the Night on March 6, 1967. The first professional theatre
in the United States to present Drums in
the Night was Circle in the Square located in New York City. This
production opened April 27, 1967 and it ran for sixty-nine performances.
Since the late 1960s, Drums in the Night has been produced periodically
over the decades. The most notable
production was staged July, 1992 at the Shaw Festival located in
Niagara-On-The- Lake, Ontario, Canada.
There were also
productions of this play presented in Great Britain. Drums in the Night premiered on September 2, 1969 at the Victoria
Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent. This production ran until the end of October. The
story in the Birmingham Daily Post on
August 19, 1969 announcing this production of the play also mentioned that Drums in the Night had previously been
broadcast in Great Britain on the BBC Third Programme. This would have provided
the opportunity for many persons to have listened to the play on the national
radio service.
There were numerous
productions of this play during the 1970’s in major British cities other than
London. These productions used a translation of Drums in the Night made by Cecil P. Taylor (1929-1981). Taylor was a prolific Scottish playwright as
well as a noted translator.
This is an interesting
play to read particularly if one is interested in Germany immediately following
the end of the World War One.
*sometimes spelled
Jhering.
PHOTOS: The photo of Brecht taken in 1934. Schumacher, Ernest. Bertolt Brechts, Leben
PHOTOS: The photo of Brecht taken in 1934. Schumacher, Ernest. Bertolt Brechts, Leben
des Galilei" Berlin: Henscheverlag, 1965.
Drums in the Night. Munich production 1922. Garten, H. F.
Modern German Drama. London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1964.
Drums in the Night directed by Jon Kellem, was presented by The Actors' Gang a Theater Company based in Los Angeles, Artistic Director Tim Robbins, in 2006
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