''The Life of Edward II of England'' (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
: ), also known as ''Edward II'', is an
adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
by the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
of the 16th-century historical
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
by
Marlowe Marlowe may refer to:
Name
* Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), English dramatist, poet and translator
* Philip Marlowe, fictional hardboiled detective created by author Raymond Chandler
* Marlowe (name), including list of people and characters w ...
, ''
The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer'' (c.1592). The play is set in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
between 1307 and 1326. A prefatory note to the play reads:
Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
wrote his adaptation in
collaboration
Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...
with
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Feuchtwanger's Ju ...
. It is written mostly in irregular
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French ''vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Definit ...
, with two songs (one of which is from Marlowe's original), over twenty-one scenes.
[Willett (1967, 25–26).] Looking back at the play-text near the end of his life, Brecht offered the following assessment of their intentions: "We wanted to make possible a production which would break with the
Shakespearean tradition common to German theatres: that lumpy monumental style beloved of
middle-class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Comm ...
philistine
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, when ...
s."
[Brecht, "On Looking Back Through My First Plays" (1954). In Willett and Manheim (1970, 454).]
Influence on the development of epic theatre
The production of ''Edward II'' generated a moment in rehearsal that has become one of the emblematic anecdotes in the
history of theatre
The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as an art form and entertainment and ''the ...
, which marks a genuine event; a new organizing force had suddenly arrived on the theatrical scene and the shape of
20th-century theatre
Twentieth-century theatre describes a period of great change within the theatrical culture of the 20th century, mainly in Europe and North America. There was a widespread challenge to long-established rules surrounding theatrical representation; ...
would come to be determined by the passage of the 'epic' through the
dramatic,
theatrical
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...
and
performative
In the philosophy of language and speech acts theory, performative utterances are sentences which not only describe a given reality, but also change the social reality they are describing.
In a 1955 lecture series, later published as ''How to D ...
fields.
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist.
An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...
records Brecht's recollection in 1938 of the pivotal incident:
In this simple idea of applying chalk to the faces of Brecht's actors to indicate the "truth" of the situation of soldiers in battle, Brecht located the germ of his conception of '
epic theatre
Epic theatre (german: episches Theater) is a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creati ...
'. As Tony Meech suggests, the material that Brecht was re-working to a certain extent lent itself to this treatment, but it was the combination of several factors that enabled this production to become so significant:
Production history
Munich, 1924
The play opened at the
Munich Kammerspiele
The Munich Kammerspiele (German: Münchner Kammerspiele) is a state-funded German-language theater company based at the ''Schauspielhaus'' on Maximilianstrasse in the Bavarian capital. The company currently has three venues: the main stage of ...
on March 19, 1924, in a production that constituted Brecht's solo
directorial début.
[Up until that point, Brecht had co-directed a production of ''Paster Ephraim Magnus'' by ]Hans Henny Jahnn
Hans Henny Jahnn (born Hans Henny August Jahn'';'' 17 December 1894 – 29 November 1959) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder.
Personal life
Hans Henny Jahn was born in 1894 in Stellingen, one of Hamburg's suburbs, and was the s ...
with Arnolt Bronnen
Arnolt Bronnen (19 August 1895 – 12 October 1959) was an Austrian playwright and director.
Life and career
Bronnen was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of the Austrian-Jewish writer Ferdinand Bronner and his Christian wife Martha Bronner. B ...
in 1923, been involved with rehearsals during the productions of his plays ''Baal
Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during Ancient Near East, antiquity. From its use among people, it cam ...
'' (1923), '' In the Jungle'' (1923), and ''Drums in the Night
''Drums in the Night'' (''Trommeln in der Nacht'') is a play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wrote it between 1919 and 1920, and it received its first theatrical production in 1922. It is in the Expressionist style of Ernst Toll ...
'' (1922, both productions), and had withdrawn from directing a production of Bronnen's ''Vatermord'' (1922) at the experimental Junge Bühne after the actors had walked out and he had been taken to hospital suffering from malnourishment; see Sacks (1994, xvii–xviii) and Willett and Manheim (1970, viii). Caspar Neher Caspar Neher (born Rudolf Ludwig Caspar Neher; 11 April 1897 – 30 June 1962) was an Austrian-German scenographer and librettist, known principally for his career-long working relationship with Bertolt Brecht.
Neher was born in Augsburg. He ...
designed the sets, as he had for the production of Brecht's ''
In the Jungle'' the year before.
[According to Willett (1967, 26), four drawings from Neher's design for ''Edward II'' were published in Brecht's ''Stücke II'' in 1924 (Berlin: Kiepenheuer). An additional (fifth) drawing by Neher appeared on the cover of the first edition (1924) of ''Leben Eduards...'' depicting three figures, presumably Queen Anne, King Edward, and Gaveston, facing forward, with a banner before them which reads "Das Leben König Edward II von England". Brecht, ''Leben Eduards...'' Cover and p. 1] Oskar Homolka
Oskar Homolka (August 12, 1898 – January 27, 1978) was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for w ...
played
Mortimer
Mortimer () is an English surname, and occasionally a given name.
Norman origins
The surname Mortimer has a Norman origin, deriving from the village of Mortemer, Seine-Maritime, Normandy. A Norman castle existed at Mortemer from an early point; ...
and
Erwin Faber
Erwin Faber (21 July 1891 – 4 May 1989) was a leading actor in Munich and later throughout Germany, beginning after World War I, and through the late-1970s, when he was still performing at the Residenz Theatre (The National Theatre of Bava ...
played
Edward
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...
, with
Maria Koppenhöfer
Maria Koppenhöfer (11 December 1901 – 29 November 1948) was a German film actress.
Selected filmography
* ''The Opera Ball'' (1931)
* '' 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman'' (1931)
* '' Unheimliche Geschichten'' (1932)
* '' The First Right of th ...
and
Hans Schweikart
Hans Schweikart (1 October 1895 – 1 December 1975) was a German film director, actor and screenwriter. He directed 28 films between 1938 and 1968. He wrote for the film ''The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi'', which was entered into the 11th ...
also in the cast.
[Willett (1967, 25–26) and Sacks (1994 xvii–xviii).] According to Faber, Brecht's entire production, from the script to the staging of the scenes, was "
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
esque".
New York City, 1982
The
Riverside Shakespeare Company
The Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City was founded in 1977 as a professional ( AEA) theatre company on the Upper West Side of New York City, by W. Stuart McDowell and Gloria Skurski. Focusing on Shakespeare plays and other classical ...
staged the play's
Off Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
premiere at the newly renovated
The Shakespeare Center
The Shakespeare Center was the home of the Riverside Shakespeare Company, an Equity professional theatre company in New York City, established in 1980 and dedicated in 1982, when the company established its center of theatre production and advance ...
on West 86th and Amsterdam,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The production opened on April 23, 1982. W. Stuart McDowell
directed
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''Di ...
, with assistance from Jeannie H. Woods. It featured Dan Southern as Gaveston and Tim Oman as Edward. The cast also included Andrew Achsen, Larry Attille, Christopher Cull, Michael Franks, Margo Gruber, Dan Johnson, Will Lampe, Joe Meek, Jason Moehring, Gay Reed, Count Stovall, Patrick Sullivan, and Jeffery V. Thompson. Dorian Vernacchio
designed
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
the
set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
and
lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...
, David Robinson was the
costume designer
A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costume ...
, and Valerie Kuehn was responsible for the
props
A prop, formally known as (theatrical) property, is an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinc ...
. Michael Canick
composed an original
musical score for
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
, which was played by Noel Counsil.
["Brecht; Another Production", ''The New York Times'', February 6, 2000.] Bertha Case (the literary representative for the Brecht estate in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
) and
Stefan Brecht
Stefan Sebastian Brecht (November 3, 1924 – April 13, 2009) was a German-born American poet, critic and scholar of theatre.
Life and career
The son of playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and actress Helene Weigel, Stefan Brecht was born in Berl ...
(Bertolt Brecht's son) authorized the production in August 1981, to take place the following year.
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a y ...
and the
New York Shakespeare Festival
Shakespeare in the Park (or Free Shakespeare in the Park) is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at the Delacorte Theater, an open-air theater in New York City's Central Park. The theater and the productions are ...
sponsored the production, with additional support from the
Goethe House
The Goethe House is a writer's house museum located in the Innenstadt district of Frankfurt, Germany. It is the birthplace and childhood home of German poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is also the place where Goethe wrote hi ...
and Marta Feuchtwanger (widow of
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Feuchtwanger's Ju ...
, the play's co-author).
As part of the director's
dramaturgical preparation, McDowell travelled to
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
to interview
Erwin Faber
Erwin Faber (21 July 1891 – 4 May 1989) was a leading actor in Munich and later throughout Germany, beginning after World War I, and through the late-1970s, when he was still performing at the Residenz Theatre (The National Theatre of Bava ...
and Hans Schweikart, two of the actors in Brecht's original production of 1924.
[See the interviews with Faber and Schweikhardt in McDowell (2000).]
Notes
Works cited
*
Brecht, Bertolt. 1924. ''The Life of Edward II of England''. Trans.
Jean Benedetti
Jean Benedetti (1930–2012) was an actor and playwright best known for his studies of Konstantin Stanislavski.
Selected works
Books
* Gilles de Rais biography (1972)
* ''Stanislavski: An Introduction'' (1982)
* ''Stanislavski: A Biography'' ...
. In ''Collected Plays: One''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen, 1970. 179–268. . Trans. of ''Leben Eduards des Zweiten von England''. Potdsam: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag.
* ---. 1964. ''Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic''. Ed. and trans. John Willett. British edition. London: Methuen. . USA edition. New York: Hill and Wang. .
* McDowell, W. Stuart. 1999. "Actors on Brecht: The Early Years." In ''Brecht Sourcebook''. Ed. Carol Martin and Henry Bial. Worlds of Performance ser. London and New York: Routledge. 71–83. .
* Meech, Tony. 1994. "Brecht's Early Plays." In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 43–55).
* Sacks, Glendyr. 1994. "A Brecht Calendar." In Thomson and Sacks (1994, xvii-xxvii).
* Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks, eds. 1994. ''The Cambridge Companion to Brecht''. Cambridge Companions to Literature Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
*
Willett, John. 1967. ''The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects.'' Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. .
*
Willett, John and
Ralph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th cent ...
. 1970. ''Collected Plays: One'' by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Life Of Edward II Of England
Plays by Bertolt Brecht
1924 plays
Plays about English royalty
Cultural depictions of Edward II of England
Adaptations of works by Christopher Marlowe
Plays based on other plays