On my Theatre course at the University of York, we have an optional module called Independent Group Project, where we can assemble a team to produce a ninety-minute play - I wish to direct Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht.
A series of twenty-four interconnected playlets that describe events which took place in ordinary German households in the 1930s. They dramatise with clinical precision the suspicion and anxiety experienced by ordinary people, particularly Jewish citizens, as the power of Hitler grew. Written in exile in Denmark and first staged in 1938 it was inspired in part by his recent trip to Moscow where he had been researching tasks for the anti-Nazi effort.
The play begins on 30th January 1933 – Adolf Hitler has just been made Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg. The play ends in 1938 with the occupation of Austria.
You can read the play here. (Membership to DramaOnline required.)
When I saw Fear and Misery of the Third Reich on the list of plays, I was curious: it is an era of history that I am greatly fascinated by; a practitioner that suits my style, interests, and view of theatre. I am fascinated by politics and political figures, and how movements can be sustained, why they burn, and the power structures between the minority (the political party) and the majority (the people.) It is fear that keeps this structure in place. The illusion of powerlessness. Individualism.
We live in an age of surveillance. Whether you believe that your Alexa system is listening in on your conversations, or whether Facebook is stealing your data so that an AI replica of you can be created – this is an age where our lives are tracked, watched, and subject to censorship more than ever before. This censorship is packaged in such a way that we are oblivious to it – and that’s what makes it worse. Social media allows one to block whomever one disagrees with. Freedom of Speech is constantly brought up in the media and political debate. Fascism is on the rise in Europe – the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Germany itself. There is war in Europe. There is a Cost of Living Crisis. Just as in 1932, there is a constant call for change. And where people are “fed-up” comes the rise of the extremists. History repeats itself.
So, not only did the play appeal to my theatrical style, but it is also very relevant to today.
I desire to present a production inspired by EPIC Theatre, TOTAL Theatre, and German expressionism - particularly the film Metropolis. I can picture a cold, wet world constructed almost entirely of steel. This is the world of the Nazis. Using German expressionism elements will undermine the Nazi regime, which banned such filmmaking and drove directors like Fritz Lang from Germany. Total Theatre was also coined by Richard Wagner (Gesamtkunstwerk), someone whom Adolf Hitler and the Nazis promoted as the pinnacle of Art.
If the project goes ahead, we will investigate how fear and paranoia affect people and their communities. 'The ultimate purpose [of Fear and Misery of the Third Reich] is to enable us to see through what on the surface may appear overwhelming and irresistible, namely triumphant Fascism, and to recognise its talk of heroes in fact as a strange outgrowth of bourgeois ideology and its economics as a pervasive extension of class politics, all very definitely vulnerable to resistance and overthrow.' (Bertolt Brecht, trans. John Willett, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, 10th ed. (London: Methuen Drama, 2009) p.xxxiii)
Check back here for updates on the project!
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