A script should be a quick read. A play isn't going to be more than two hours, so it should take even less than that to read from cover to cover. Yet this book took me days to finish because I just wasn't enjoying it. This surprised me, because I recall finding it rather witty and interesting the last time I read it. It doesn't help that I studied and performed this in my first year of college, so every page is filled with memories of how poorly we achieved that.

The basic plot is all right. A rich, selfish woman is fleeing revolution, and is so interested in her clothes that she leaves her baby behind. A servant is unable to leave the child to be executed, so takes the child with her, and as they journey she comes to love and care for the child, raising him as her own son even though this destroys her reputation and loses her her fiancé. Then the rich woman comes back because she needs the heir to claim her money, and takes the servant to court for abducting the child. It's an exciting adventure with some romance and a court scene thrown in.

The problem is all the Brechtian trappings - his 'epic theatre' and blunt moralising. There is a framing device/opening scene that is unbelievably boring, setting the rest of the story as a platy within a play. The story is narrated by a 'singer' who acts as a Greek chorus - a device horribly outdated for something written in the 1940s. And most of the characters talk in endless riddles and metaphors that makes their dialogue irritating at best and incomprehensible at worst. Oh, and there is a lot of lewd dialogue - I'm not sure if this is due to the translator, but it just made me feel uncomfortable having people swear in the middle of a very stagey Greek theatre type play.

I don't know how I used to enjoy this script, because it was no fun at all. This edition is aimed at students and comes with a bunch of questions at the end to stimulate discussion, but no answers, so I find that sort of thing totally useless.

When the sharks the sharks devour
Little fishes have their hour.

This might be the Master at his finest, remarkably both modern and ancient, timeless parables are bracketed in the struggle against fascists with an all too human squalor that likely made Stalin squeal.

The play within the play is apparently from an ancient Chinese tale, it proved unexpectedly surprising. Grusha is a wonderful, highly developed protagonist, unlike the Portia of Venice, her motivation isn't guile but an almost childish concept of loyalty and justice. No doubt Brecht embraced this unlikely refuge even as the world around him was collapsing into barbarism. The title refers to the Chinese story of a judge placing a child in a chalked circle and the two women claiming to be the mother are asked to remove the child, the nominal reason being that only the true parent could extricate the young one. As the reasoning goes the judge awards the child to the woman who didn't attempt to remove the child for fear of harming it. This is replicated by Brecht with certain human caveats about the stewards of justice and the greasing of palms.

An epic little fable. Of course, written to be performed on stage, and a lot of it sung I believe, so reading it quite a different experience to its intended one. Nevertheless it takes us on a journey through revolution, upheaval, motherhood, bravery, and reading allows us to enjoy some of the language and quotes more than we could otherwise. Sad, funny, dramatic - a very enjoyable tale.

Unnecessary

Verstehe ich das richtig, dass der Richter Azdek, der ja so dargestellt wird, als sei er gerecht und für die Armen, das Opfer einer Vergewaltigung zur Täterin macht, weil sie den Mann mit ihren Reizen verführt hat????
Ich hab im Internet nichts dazu gefunden. Bitte sagt mir, dass ich falsch liege!