The mother (Brecht)

The mother. Life of the revolutionary Pelagea Wlassowa from Tver is a play written by Bertolt Brecht based on the novel of the same name by Maxim Gorki (1906/1907, German 1907) using a dramatization by Günther Stark and Günther Weisenborn .

First performed on January 31, 1932 in the Komödienhaus am Schiffbauerdamm with Helene Weigel in the lead role, this didactic play is about a woman “between unemployment, wage cuts, political agitation and 'practical constraints'”.

The plot of Gorky's novel was shifted by Brecht to the period between 1905 and 1917. In 14 scenes, the dissatisfied working-class woman's transformation into a determined communist is shown, who is increasingly on the side of her revolutionary son.

The play was recorded in 1958 under the direction of Manfred Wekwerth in the Berliner Ensemble by the DEFA studio for newsreels and documentaries with the camera.

literature

Laura JR Bradley: Brecht and Political Theater: The Mother on Stage . Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2006. ISBN 0-19-928658-2

Remarks

↑ The Komödienhaus on Schiffbauerdamm (also known as the New Operetta Theater) was founded in 1908 and was just west of what was then Hermann-Matern-Str. (today's Luisenstrasse) at Schiffbauerdamm 25 (coordinates approx. 52.5197 ° N, 13.3795 ° E). It was completely destroyed in the Second World War and should not be confused with the nearby Theater on Schiffbauerdamm (Sources: Neuer Theater-Almanach / Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch 1908, 1909 1913, 1915, 1920, 1922, 1948, theater directory in the Berlin address book 1943 , FIS broker of the city of Berlin : scan of the map "Berlin around 1910" from the publication: "Urban development of Berlin since 1650 in maps").

[1] The Komödienhaus on Schiffbauerdamm (also known as the New Operetta Theater) was founded in 1908 and was just west of what was then Hermann-Matern-Str. (today's Luisenstrasse) at Schiffbauerdamm 25 (coordinates approx. 52.5197 ° N, 13.3795 ° E). It was completely destroyed in the Second World War and should not be confused with the nearby Theater on Schiffbauerdamm (Sources: Neuer Theater-Almanach / Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch 1908, 1909 1913, 1915, 1920, 1922, 1948, theater directory in the Berlin address book 1943 , FIS broker of the city of Berlin : scan of the map "Berlin around 1910" from the publication: "Urban development of Berlin since 1650 in maps").