Word: brecht
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...Brecht is unclear about a solution, but recognizes the difficulty in making any change. As I turned to the lady sitting next to me and asked her opinion of the play, I too realized the problem. She looked surprised, then smiled and said. "Well, it was all very well done but I really don't understand what it means." I nodded politely and headed for the exit. Hadn't she ever seen a wrestling match before...
THROUGH these internal and external ambiguities. Criss's production places the audience in a uniquely Brechtian position. The audience is not to identify, is not to personalize, is not to become individually involved with the characters on the stage. In Brecht's words, a member of the audience must be a "spectator"-a spectator who "takes up the attitude of one who smokes at case and watches." In this play, the characters' points of view are changed often. The spectator must be content simply to watch all of the events and to become involved as a viewer...
...find that the magnetic bond of combat which has continually drawn Schlink and Garga together is a product of the loneliness which each human being feels in the midst of a faceless jungle like Chicago. They must fight because they cannot communicate as people on any other terms. Brecht is showing us that we have developed a social system which-like Chicagoseparates, rather than unites, every man. "Human skin grows thicker and thicker." Schlink says, because of this system. This skin keeps people from knowing each other. The only force that pierces this, outer layer is one which lies outside...
...each member of the audience who is aware that he is surrounded by other men to whom he will not talk, this observation is electric. If Garga and Schlink cannot find a means of relating as individuals, can we do more? At this final moment, Brecht has brought together his audience and his play. Together we realize that we must define a new (??) of values; the old motivations no longer apply. Our lives must be crazy, irrational; we must find new ways of getting together within the jungle...
...change? Must we die, like Schlink? Brecht calls death "the coldest answer." Do we keep on wrestling, like Garga? He is going to New York, but will probably fail and return soon. Shall we make love, like Garga's sister, Maria? She will never find real love...