When it came to translating The Arsonists, I would often find Max Frisch fussing around in the kitchen, tidying everything up and explaining in calm and reasoned tones (as he folded away the tea towels) why we have a moral duty to oppose evil. I agreed with almost everything he said, and I liked how he said it, but he did occasionally irritate me. I think it was probably something to do with the certainty and the precision of his moral clarity. He in turn accused me, of course, of merely being prejudiced against the Swiss.
Another play, another house guest. For the last few months, I've had Bertolt Brecht <http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/bertolt-brecht> to stay. I feel my home isn't my own any more. It hasn't so much been those cigars of his, or the too carefully chosen glasses, or even that ridiculous leather jacket intended to tell everyone that he's a man of the people. No, what's been overwhelming is the sheer size of the man. He seems to occupy every room in the house. And he talks a lot. Not about easy stuff. You won't hear him expressing a view on the weather, or the terrible delays on the Northern line, or whether Nick Clegg is worth taking seriously. With Brecht, it's all the big themes: war, peace, wealth, poverty, justice, class, exploitation. Oh, and sex. Listening to him can be a bit overwhelming on occasion, but by God, he makes you square up to what's important in the world.
Some of my theatregoing friends have been staying away, saying they don't want to be lectured at. "But he doesn't lecture, he confronts," I tell them. "And he analyses." They look sceptical. I try to tell them that Brecht offers his audiences a mean of interpreting the world, of empowering them to understand not just that terrible things happen, but why they happen. They nod and look away. I think it's their problem. Like most people now, they don't have much faith in ideology. But without ideology, it's very hard to understand the world.
The truth is, since Brecht came to stay, I've been reminded of just how much he has to offer. His theories about epic theatre have transformed modern drama, I tell my friends. They yawn and mumble about alienation. I tell them to stop worrying about theories of theatre, and just think about Brecht's belief that drama can arouse and enhance an audience's capacity for action. Given the state of the planet, I'd have thought this is something we need. That doesn't mean there's no entertainment along the way. I'm not sure whether Brecht himself is to blame, or whether there have been too many keepers of the flame, too many overly reverential productions, but there is nothing inherently dull about Brecht. He understands spectacle. He understands how to use music. (I'm telling my friends to think of The Caucasian Chalk Circle as a musical.) And, yes, he understands how to make people laugh.
This is the point about Brecht, I think. His plays are no arid assertions of political theory. They are full of a vigorous and bawdy humanity. In the end, the artist Brecht is bigger than the theoretician Brecht, and bigger than the socialist Brecht. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, we witness the story of a simple servant girl, Grusha, who saves a child's life and wishes to keep that child for herself. Yes, it's a means to examine the nature of ownership, the nature of property, the nature of justice. But it is also a moving story that refuses to be conquered by any amount of distancing.
That's the thing about Brecht. He may have been stomping around my house doing a great deal of theorising, but somehow he's also a bit of a softie. I defy anyone not to be moved by the story of Grusha and the child. Chalk Circle makes us think about war and peace and justice, and is startlingly, shockingly reminiscent of what is happening now in Afghanistan or Iraq or Somalia. But it is also a simple, human tale – and a damn good evening in the theatre.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/sep/30/translating-bertolt-brecht