On Thursday,
djm4 and
shadowdaddy accompanied me to firstly an inedible curry (avoid the curry house near the Southwark end of The Cut) and then part 2 of The Big Brecht Fest at the the Young Vic. This included two of Brecht’s early plays:
first, Senora Carrar’s Rifles - written and set during the Spanish Civil War, Senora Carrar wants her family to stay out of the war, to protect her sons. However, it becomes clear that Franco’s army aren’t fulfilling their promises to protect non-combatants, and eventually Carrar agrees she will have to fight. A propaganda piece, but very well done - the theatre was like a breeze-block sports hall with raked seats and a wooden house interior built at one end. The play is in real time: at the start, Senora Carrar puts a loaf of bread in the oven. Near the end of the play, we smelt the aroma of freshly baked bread as the tension mounted. Rarely is there a case for Smellivision, but this really worked.
The second play was in an even smaller space downstairs, with three rows of seats in each corner, and the play acted in the space in front, with only a door at the back for another exit. A huge rusty pipe spanned the room just above our heads. Prop or feature of the space, we wondered. How Much is Your Iron? is a satirical allegory aimed at Sweden for selling iron ore to the Nazis, claiming ‘If we didn’t, someone else would’ - so rather similar to the arms industry today.
Herr Austria enters Svensson’s iron shop, rather distressed - a chap has accosted him, claiming they are related, and insisting on looking after him. Frau Czech also encounters this unnerving chap who suggests he should look after her, for a small consideration. Herr Austria buys three bars and Frau Czech scrapes up cash for one iron bar. Later, the Customer first buys a record four iron bars from Svensson. After Herr Austria’s unfortunate early demise, the Customer insists on exchanging fine Austrian cigars for iron. Mr Britt and Madame de Gaulle express their concerns about Whatsizname to Svensson, who insists he needs to earn a living. Then Frau Czech is found dead...
All very, very simple, and very, very disturbing. The sound of machine-gun fire built up throughout, ending in a loud rush of war-type sounds - in fact water echoing in the giant metal pipe.
Both plays were a reminder that theatre is about creating belief rather than showing every last detail. Certain giant West End productions (yes you, Spamalot) would do well to learn from them.
This review brought to you partly by Brecht evangelism but mainly the need to use my shiny new usericon!