The bread shop

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Bertolt Brecht's drama fragment The Bread Shop is one of the preparatory work for Brecht's drama Saint Joan of the Slaughterhouses and deals essentially with the Salvation Army . The piece already contains essential motifs from Johanna. So it says in the "bread shop" of the Salvation Army:

Higgins, Edward J .: General of the Salvation Army, 1932 in Germany
Homeless asylum in Berlin 1932
“Show the uselessness of religion. Not attack on the Salvation Army! The Salvation Army is only interested in itself to improve, it is not about people. Want financiers, rich winners, not unemployed. Girl kicked out for caring too much about people. (...) The power of religion. "
“Salvation Army: its function: it brings everyone into the swamp. With their idealism. "

Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann had been interested in the practices of the Salvation Army since 1926 and visited their night shelters and kitchens, especially in the winter of 1929/30. They examined financial practices, sectarian character and internal organization. A thematic motif of the piece is a program of the Salvation Army for the distribution of wood. The unemployed should earn firewood by chopping wood.

Brecht's criticism of the Salvation Army and its concepts is also aimed at the policies of the SPD in the Weimar Republic . Both the party and the welfare organization would do everything to defend capitalism and thus prevent effective aid for the unemployed. In the draft, Brecht contrasts the KPD with the Salvation Army as a counter-concept:

The communist party The Salvation Army
Nobody helps at first Helps the individual
Leads the individual to the mass Separates him from the crowd
Has violence as an aid Fight the violence
Thinking materially Thinking ideally
Succeeds from the bad situation Despite the bad location
Is interested Is for ideal reasons

uninterested in the change in situation

According to Brecht's draft, the Salvation Army shows "perhaps most blatantly the fate of all 'idealistic' religious corporations and actions in high capitalism". An altruistic organization becomes a “profit-making” organization, a “poor” one becomes a “rich” one, and an “anti-capitalist one becomes a capitalist” organization. Brecht considers the “image of early Christianity in high capitalism” to be a “grotesque abnormality”.

Scenes

Soup Kitchen in Washington DC 1936
Migrant worker, California 1936

Many of the fragments are incomplete, contain comments on the concept or text variants. Some of the more complete fragments reveal the framework of the drama. In the first drafts, the work, like Elisabeth Hauptmann's piece “Happy End”, was to be set in Chicago around 1923 . In the second arrangement, Brecht moved the plot to Berlin in the time of the Great Depression and tied in with the real case of Niobe Queck, who "lived" on the stairs after losing her apartment. The main character of the play is Mrs. Queck, a widow whose desire to "always and for ever to satisfy her husband completely and completely on the spot" has brought her seven children and who threatens to lose her apartment through rent debts. Another important figure is the rebel Washington Meyer, whose unprepared revolt fails.

The unemployed, the “als”, appear as a split group, divided into victims with and without government support. They are always ready to compete with one another for the smallest chance, whatever means they can.

Jan Knopf pointed out the echoes of the Greek legends in the play, through which the "turbulent events among lots of 'little' people ... take place verbally in the dimensions of the great tragedy". Widow Niobe Queck reminds us of the mythological Niobe , who, as punishment for the offended Titan Leto, her 7 daughters and 7 sons were shot. The newspaper dealer Ulysses Schmitt, who believes in fate, bears the name of the ancient legendary hero Odysseus and the thug Ajax Januschek the name of another Greek hero. The fatefulness of antiquity has now turned into the fate of the economy, to which everyone is helpless.

"The extinction of individuality, its survival takes place formally within the framework of ancient tragedy, which, because it is survived, turns into comedy (...) the fabric of illusions and idealism collapses in the battle of the rolls and bee stings . "

B 9

The draft scenes show the unemployed fighting for the few jobs, their ruthless competition among themselves. As a newsboy, Washington Meyer learns to recognize social differences in order to successfully address potential customers and to cunningly defend himself against thieves.

B10

The widow Judith Queck lives with her 7 children at the master baker Meiniger from small errands. She orders wood from the timber merchant Reuter on behalf of the baker. Due to the economic crisis, the master baker comes under pressure to pay his mortgage, which the real estate agent Flamm is trying to collect from him. Therefore he denies that he ordered the wood and throws the widow Queck and her children out of the apartment. The wood dealer tries to seize the furniture as payment for the wood. The unemployed chorus warns anyone who wants to help about the dangers of compassion.

“Put wax in your ears
Otherwise you too are lost!
Do not ask! The unfortunate answer
Just get caught up in misery
You who are too weak to help "

At the suggestion of the poor nurse Miss Hippler, widow Queck tries to have the unemployed chop the wood and sell it on her own account.

B16

Fragment B16 shows attempts by the Salvation Army and others to intervene. The Salvation Army tries to mediate (“One can quite easily have a Christian word with Herr Meininger”), but he throws the furniture out of the window as it is being carried back into the house. At the end of the scene, Heinrich Januschek who ran up knocked Meininger down.

B17, B18 and B19

Two unemployed people call the police, Heilsarmistin Heep / Hiep appeals to Meininger's conscience, but falls on deaf ears (B18). In the next scene (B 19) Heep formulates her hope for the conscience of rich people.

B22 and B24

For a loaf of bread, Mrs Queck gives herself to Emil Januschek in the bakery. She only gets paid if she doesn't feel anything during sex. In the next fragment (B24), a Salvation Army command picks up the pile of wood. The unemployed are now trying to storm the bread shop, deprived of their hope of finding work. An absurd fight ensues between Meininger and his tenants on the one hand and the unemployed on the other. Finally, a policeman appears who immediately takes Meininger's side and is then hit several times on the head with a stick by the newspaper boy Albert Meyer, one of the attackers. The policeman then kills Meyer with a roll.

B27 to B33

Mrs. Queck takes refuge with Januschek for the Salvation Army. As they sit there, the Salvation Army bring the wood they stole from her. Because of her criticism of the wealthy Meininger, Miss Hippler was released from the Salvation Army (B31).

B47 "The Lieutenant of the Dear God"

The fragment contains a battle song of the Salvation Army, which is slightly changed as the song of the Black Straw Hats in Saint Joan of the Slaughterhouses :

“Take care, take care!
We see you man sinking
We hear your cries for help
We see you, woman, who waves
(...)
We'll open up tanks and cannons
And planes are needed
And warships have to cross the sea
To get you, brother, a bowl of soup
Because you poor people
You are a big army (...) "

B48 to B54, B56

The fragments B 48 to B54 contain drafts for songs / rhymes of the Salvation Army and the unemployed. With the "Song Hosianna Rockefeller", B56 drafts a religious song of praise to the rich and powerful, to "Faith and Profit".

Performances

  • Berliner Ensemble , 1967, directed by Manfred Karge and Matthias Langhoff
  • Theater centrifuge in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, 1976, director: Christian Bertram
  • Berliner Ensemble , 1993, directed by Thomas Heise
  • Exhibition “Bertolt Brecht, the bread shop and the homeless” from February 21 to March 7, 2008 with texts by Bertolt Brecht and photos by Jutta Hilscher, Martin Hofmann, Jürgen Malyssek and Klaus Störch, Hattersheim
  • Thalia Theater Halle / S. 2002, directed by Sascha Bunge
  • Children's and youth theater Murkelbühne, 2009 under the title: DER BREADLADEN: a revue / a requiem / a teaching piece by Bertolt Brecht with 72 pauses
  • Stary Teatr, PIEKARNIA / DER BROTLADEN, Polish premiere, 2009, directed by Wojtek Klemm

Text output

  • Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop, in: Large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt edition, Volume 10.1, Pieces 10, p. 565 - p. 659
  • Bertolt Brecht: Der Brotladen, spoken theater with music, composer: Hans-Dieter Hosalla , premiere Berliner Ensemble 13 April 1967, play version and direction: Manfred Karge and Matthias Langhoff, book edition suhrkamp 339, 1969, Suhrkamp Theater & Medien
  • Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3

literature

  • Jan Knopf: Brecht-Handbuch, Theater, Stuttgart (Metzler) 1986, unabridged special edition, ISBN 3-476-00587-9 , Der Brotladen, p. 355ff.
  • Christian Bertram: The bread shop. In: Material Brecht - Contradictions 1968-1976, brochure on the occasion of the 4th Congress of the International Brecht Society, Austin, Texas 1976, Ed. Wolfgang Storch.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bertolt Brecht, The bread shop, large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt editions, Volume 10.1, Pieces 10, p. 591, lines 26-35
  2. ↑ Bertolt Brecht, Große commented on Berlin and Frankfurt editions, Volume 10.1, Pieces 10, p. 592, lines 13-14
  3. ↑ a b cf. Jan Knopf: Brecht-Handbuch, Theater, p. 355
  4. ↑ a b Bertolt Brecht, The bread shop, large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt edition, Volume 10.1, Pieces 10, p. 593
  5. ↑ Bertolt Brecht, The bread shop, large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt edition, Volume 10.1, Pieces 10, p. 594
  6. ↑ Bertolt Brecht, The bread shop, large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt edition, Volume 10.1, Pieces 10, p. 593
  7. ↑ a b cf. Jan Knopf: Brecht-Handbuch, Theater, p. 356
  8. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B10, p. 603
  9. ↑ cf. Jan Knopf: Brecht-Handbuch, Theater, p. 357
  10. ↑ Jan Knopf: Brecht-Handbuch, Theater, p. 357
  11. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B9, p. 596 ff.
  12. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B10, p. 603 ff.
  13. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B10, pp. 613f.
  14. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B16, pp. 618f.
  15. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , p. 619, line 23
  16. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B17, pp. 621f.
  17. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , pp. 622f.
  18. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B19, pp. 623f.
  19. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B22, p. 625ff.
  20. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B24, p. 629ff.
  21. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B47, p. 652; see. Bertolt Brecht: Large commented on Berlin and Frankfurt editions . Volume 3, Pieces 3, p. 134
  22. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B56, pp. 657f.
  23. ↑ Bertolt Brecht: The bread shop: a piece fragment; Stage version and texts from the fragment, Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1983, 4th edition, ISBN 3-518-10339-3 , fragment B56, p. 658
  24. ^ Criticism in the TAZ