Chetana Nagavajara 
 
 
faithful Brechtians could not help feeling that the style of acting could

have been more verfremdend. In all fairness, could one expect that kind 
of impact from a cantata, for after all, this Mutter Courage und ihre 
Kinder was a cantata & la Carmina Burana with text by Bertolt Brecht?

Artistically speaking, this latest Brecht production has probably 
advanced beyond Brecht. The German master was intent on moving 
from the "dramatic" to the "epic". His Thai interpreters
have turned the 
Brechtian "Epic Theater" into a "th6Atre lyrique". 
     In conclusion, we may have to admit that our rather limited 
experience with the staging of Brecht has shown up a disturbing 
phenomenon, namely that relevance and real understanding may be two 
different things. Brecht has proved to be useful and even usable in 
some ways, the linking of Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder with the 
International Year of Peace being a good example. When all is said and 
done, the august beginning heralded by Die Ausnahme und die Regel 
has not been matched by subsequent attempts, perhaps with the 
soothing and sober exception of Leben des Galilei. One cannot resist 
the temptation to indulge in a kind of generalization that, in Thailand at

least, Brecht can be effective only when the social and political 
environment proves to be favorable. In other words, Brecht works best 
as re-enforcement of a highly liberal social and political order that 
already exists. If we were to revive Die Ausnahme und die Regel now, it 
would probably turn out to be a Lehrst*ck in the sense of a dry 
academic exercise. Put in more simple terms, this has so far proved to 
be a theater of the faithful, by the faithful and for the faithful. The 
youthful audience that comes to a Brecht performance in 1986 most 
probably takes him as an antidote against the existing political 
doldrums, and it cannot be denied that some of the Brecht productions 
have either confused or misled them. We shall need a great deal more 
time and energy, especially intellectual energy, to make this a theater of

the future, a work of art that can lead the way to a new social and 
political awakening. 
     It may now be worth examining some major constraints besetting 
our Brecht reception, which may be summarized as follows: 
     First, in spite of whatever Brecht may say about the virtue of 
 amateur theater in his early theoretical writings, his later works require

 "professional" treatment. As mentioned earlier, Thai professional
actors 
 have emigrated to television studios and they will need thorough 
 recycling before they can seriously tackle Brecht, for the subject- 
 matter as well as the style of acting prevalent in our television dramas

 are totally alien to Brechtian theater. The involvement of academics in

 the world of television has so far not brought about significant change.

 On the contrary, there have been regular invasions of T.V. histrionics 
 into academia, and some of the Brecht productions presented by Drama 
 Departments have suffered thereby. In the name of relevance Brecht 
 may have been used to attract progressive young audiences, but it is 
 doubtful to what extent the faith in Brecht is anchored in real knowledge

 of, and sympathy with his work and his dramaturgy. 
     Secondly, the contemporary Thai theater has not been able to 
 benefit from a strong critical tradition, theater criticism being probably

 
 
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