Word: brecht
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Imagine a somewhat insecure Bertolt Brecht writing a kind of Man of La Mancha about Maxim Gorky, the Russian Revolution and its after math. Add to this some of the folk flavor of Fiddler on the Roof and you get a rough approximation of what a strange and ambitious amalgam is represented by this musical now at Manhattan's American Place Theater...
...Tutor. A mediocre production of a mediocre play by Bertoldt Brecht, based on an 18th century work by Jacob Lenz. The hapless tutor, who has to castrate himself to keep his job, is supposed to represent intellectuals in Nazi Germany who kowtowed to Hitler. The play has the benefit of professional direction by Jurgen Flimm of the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, Germany, but even he can't depetrify characters and dialogue as wooden as these. If you go, drink lots of coffee first. Recommended only for those who have friends in the cast. At the Loeb, October 29-November...
...CLAUSTROPHOBIC nature of Brecht's vision is matched only by the dreariness of the vehicle he uses to convey it. The Tutor is, on the whole, remarkably innocent of such dramatic niceties as plot interest, character development and convincing dialogue. Granted, allegory is hardly the most subtle of theatrical form; still, the minimum requirement for any drama is that it keep its audience awake, and if The Tutor succeeds at all in this regard, the credit belongs mainly to the blaring, percussive music which intervenes between scenes. A relatively short play, The Tutor succeeds at all in this regard...
...FREEDOM IS TO man as water is to fish," declares one of the characters in Bertolt Brecht's The Tutor. In the play, freedom is metaphorically equal to sexual license, so when the lecherous tutor castrates himself, Brecht's message is clear; this misguided soul, in his anxiousness to retain his livelihood, has performed an unnatural act, just like the German intellectuals who kowtowed to Hitler. Lest we construe Brecht's meaning too narrowly, however, he reminds us, in a line emblazoned on the set, that his aim is "to illumine all our sorry state, not only that of Germany...
...Brecht's vision is a bleak one. Man, it seems, must plough a course between the Scylla of nature and the Charybdis of conformity to the powers that be. Allegorically speaking, the hapless tutor must renounce his sexual desires for good if he is to continue tutoring young ladies. But while his self-mutilation debars him permanently from natural enjoyment, it earns him only the temporary approbation of the authorities, leaving him ultimately at their mercy. At the end of the play, the tutor doffs his persona and steps forward to explain, for those who might have missed...