3 p.m. Groups
1. Ryan, Travis, Alexis, Rikki
2. Kati, Kassam, Kolton, Yuwei
3. Kristen, Ralitsa, Brandon
4. Aksel, Ernesto, Leslie, An
5. Esme, Gabriela, Raymond
4:30 p.m. Groups
1. Yulissa, Dexter, William
2. Mindy, Sarah, Thanawat, Julie
3. Jason, John, Carmen, Samantha
4. Maria, Matt, Keith, Shirley
5. Natalie, Jessica, Siddharth, Meiling
Today’s Goals…
 Lecture Review and Film Discussion
 “Made ness” of The Theater of War (genre of essay film/epic
theater, intertextuality, witnessing and “staging” war)
 Review of Epic Theater vs Dramatic Theater
 Video Clip from Brecht’s “The Three Penny Opera”
 Small Group Discussion and Presentation – M.C.
• The dramatic theater's spectator says: Yes, I have felt like that too-Just like me--It's only natural-- It'll never change--The sufferings of this
man appall me, because they are inescapable--That's great art; it all
seems the most obvious thing in the world--I weep when they weep, I
laugh when they laugh. (Bertolt Brecht)
• The epic theater's spectator says: I'd never have thought it -- That's
not the way -- That's extraordinary, hardly believable -- It's got to stop
-- The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are unnecessary
-- That's great art; nothing obvious in it -- I laugh when they weep, I
weep when they laugh. (Bertolt Brecht)
• Let’s watch a scene from “The Three Penny Opera”
• Which elements of Epic Theater do you recognize?
Warm Up Discussion
1.
2.
3.
Marx’s Political/Philosophical Theory of Alienation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz3eOb6Yl1s
How is agency (political agency) in Brecht’s text different from
the kind of agency operating in The Iliad or in Simplicimus
Simplicissimus?
1. What role does “agency” play for the individual, the collective,
the audience, the “cultural worker”?
What does the Military Industrial Complex refer to, and how does
it contribute to a claim that “war feeds itself” in Mother Courage?
According to Cantor and Kushner(Pay
Attention to the talking heads)…On Marx
 We are made by others. I am reminded each day by my work that
my personality doesn’t matter. As you produce objects, you
produce yourself. How you work and for whom you work informs
who you are. I am made and remade by my work for the interests
and profits of others. (Cantor)
 When asked if Brecht makes sense outside of Marx, Kushner initially
answered no. He claimed that people are malleable enough to be
made into soldiers. We suffer our making, but if we participate in
our making, it would be our greatest joy. (Kushner)
Multiple Perspectives Open Dialogue
 Later, Kushner amends his earlier claim. Brecht’s main
message is that without some large cooperative action,
we’re doomed. We’ll all die unless we act together.
 The reason Brecht has the notion of a fatal virtue is to show
us that he doesn’t blame the characters. It isn’t their fault.
It’s not the characters that have to change. It’s the society
they’re in. That’s what we have to look at to change. We
have to change the context in which these people make their
decisions. (Oscar Eustis)
Warm-Up Discussion
1. What does it mean that war has become naturalized and
Brecht seeks to denaturalize war with his text?
2. Explain how the double meaning created by the title “Theater of
War” shapes meaning for the audience. (How does it get us
thinking?)
3. How would you characterize and apply these terms in the
context of our current unit?
Alienation
Irony
Didactic
Witnessing War
Representing War
Intertextuality
Montage
Cultural Worker
Manifesto
Warm-Up Discussion
1. Let’s watch the opening scene and apply…
1. https://uci.kanopystreaming.com/video/theater-war
 How does Brecht himself
“perform” his “political” theater in
the HUAC Hearings and in East
Berlin? To what end?
 “He was a very slippery man, who
lived in times when a certain
degree of slipperiness was
necessary to survive” (Kushner)
 “That old fake!...If you answer
badly you can’t be asked that
much” (Barbara Brecht)
 How do specific filmic techniques
“mediate,” teach and “witness”?
 (color, doubling, temporal
juxtaposition, editing, montage,
narration, intertexts,)
 Where is (political) agency located
in the Essay Film? In epic theater?
 How do the “witnesses” in the
film teach and perform political
theater?
Five Acts about War…
Children Art Politics Brecht
Theater Death Courage
 Blog 4: Choose a scene from M.C.: How does this scene use the
conventions of epic theatre to make an argument about war?

 Irony - to denaturalize war, to instruct, to provoke
 Focus on how individual agency is utilized, problematized…
 Consider how individuals made or unmade through their labor
 To what extent do individuals in the scene have power to
perform their labor, power over how they sell labor/to whom
 Examine to what extent an individual rendered alienated from
his/her humanity through relationship to labor
 think about names, fatal virtues, role of irony, etc.
Brecht Scene Analysis (Group 1 – Scene 1, etc.)
1.
Identify & explain references to economic conditions in a time of war? What kinds of
economic exchanges do you see in the passage?
2. Individual identity determined, formed, constructed by the labor s/he does
1. Human Agency in this context allows for characters to retain their humanity only
in so far as they have power over how they sell their labor and to whom they sell
it. How does a scene reflect how characters sell their labor (self-interest, costs of
war, ironized)?
2. How does self-interest operate in the context of the business of war or in the
context of transactions or interactions between individuals in the scene? Does
anyone act with “agency” under this definition?
3. How does Brecht “stage” or “perform” this? To what didactic end?
3. Is this scene a representation of a particular virtue (compassion, empathy, courage)?
1. As Brecht’s characters are undoubtedly aware of the truth of war they are,
ironically, “ensnared, even crushed by it all the same” (Newman) How does irony
or other Brechtian features operate in the scene to challenge us, as audience, to
think and react? Identify specifics from the text(read a line of text, point to stage
direction, etc.) and then explain HOW that “evidence” shows your claims?
According to Streep…(in the opening/ending scenes)
 An act of bravery is a thing that continues the carnage.
What’s the final result…bones in the landscape.
 I’m the voice of dead people. I’m the interpreter between
the audience who will hear it (in the language they will
understand) and the author who wrote it years ago.
 How do these thoughts inform Streep’s understanding of her
character Mother Courage? Her role as actor?
 Is she performing Brechtian Epic Theater? Does it matter?
 How is she (as human/as woman/as actor) “witnessing” war?
Mother Courage’s Choice in Scene 4
 Explain the following claim: In scene 4 Mother
Courage is faced with a morally impossible choice.
 What are her two choices?
 What choice does she make?
 Why is this a morally impossible choice?
 What message about the “costs of war” does this send to
the audience?