(Re)Building the Engaged Spectator: The Katzgraben Programmhefte of the Berliner Ensemble, 1953/1972

Summary

Lernt und verändert, lernt daraus aufs neue und ändert wieder!

Brecht (1953)

As an artist, theater practitioner, and pragmatist, Brecht was interested in engaging the public well beyond the stage towards the goal of developing and fostering an active, involved citizenry. His work sought to provoke the public into taking a stance or position (Haltung) on the realities of the world around them by thinking through and making connections to the interactions represented on stage in the epic theater. Brecht's project not only opposed checking one's critical faculties at the door, but also targeted the spectator's interest in the material both before and after the performance. To do this, the collaborators and practitioners at the Berliner Ensemble (BE) developed the image-text package Programmheft as an integral part of the overall dramaturgical and didactic component in the theater of the scientific age.

Strittmatter's Katzgraben: Szenen aus dem Bauernleben

While I cannot explicate here the complete history and intentions behind Strittmatter's 1951 play – one which Brecht enjoyed and in which he saw great potential for the stage – I would first like to offer a brief sketch of the play's plotline and some thoughts on Brecht's interest in staging it with the BE in 1953. Set around 1947 in the farm village of Katzgraben, a place similar to Strittmatter's own milieu of the “Senftenberger Braunkohlengebiet,” the play opens with the village mayor's proclamation that all townspeople and farmers are required to attend a meeting. At this gathering, they would discuss the building of a “neue Straße,” or new road, linking Katzgraben to the city. This “new road” is a central theme around which much of the action in the play revolves. The new road to be built is an overt allusion to the “Neuer Kurs” policy as it was called by the Soviet Union in 1952/3, an important time of transition in early GDR cultural history. The “Neuer Kurs” was not an attempt at a new direction for the Communist Party line but rather a tactical reduction of the speed with which many radical social changes would be implemented.