Bertolt Brecht is never really out of fashion as a playwright, it’s just that the times have to start becoming bleak and dangerous before his powerful works are remembered fully and the warnings he spells out are heeded. On the back of the 2011 magnificent performance of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at The Playhouse which starred Ian Bartholomew and Leanne Best and now Dingle Community Theatre and Tom McLennan have adapted one of his most famous plays Fear and Misery of the Third Reich which is being performed at The Lantern Theatre in May. The play, noted for being Brecht’s first openly anti-Nazi work was first performed in 1938 and still has the power to inform and shock audiences.
Dingle Community Theatre is a registered Charity which specialises in drama and performances. Tom McLennan was born in Glasgow but has lived in Liverpool most of his life. Tom trained as a secondary school teacher and helped found Dingle Community Theatre while doing an adult education drama class. He has written Theatre in Education plays and adapted work for the stage including the Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists and Of Mice and Men. A very busy man, currently working as a tutor for W.E.A. and doing a documentary making film class, Tom spared me a few minutes of his time to talk about the upcoming play.
What was the decision in introducing Brecht back to Liverpool?
“I suppose it was like the ‘Golden Dawn’ movement in Greece and I think it was also partly this recession and echoes of what happened in Germany because when things become economically difficult, people start looking for scapegoats and things like that. It just seemed to be a good play to do at this time. Apart from just liking the piece anyway and thinking it was more for our group to do because as you know there are a selection of themes that enabled us to get all the group involved and quite a few people who hadn’t been involved with the group before. So it was kind of a mixture of things that really prompted us to do it.”
The piece has 24 small vignettes all together, are you doing all of them?
“No, about fourteen but we’re not sure of doing that many each night either as we wanted to get a good mixture of long, middle and short ones so each night we’d have a variety of material. With the long ones, 25 minutes each, you soon build up a lengthy programme that you don’t want to go overboard with them. What we’ll probably do is about ten or eleven different scenes, possibly different ones with a different running order each night, which would be nice.”
The Lantern Theatre is almost perfectly suited to the play because of the close confinement of the audience, it’s almost as if they’re being let in on some terrible secret, unlike for example, Arturo Ui which was up at The Playhouse, which had this great expanse of a stage, The Lantern is more perfect for this play I feel.
“It’s quite claustrophobic, isn’t it? It’s almost like going into a funeral, sitting in the well of the play. I had an idea of getting some of the characters to usher the audience in, which would keep people on their guard.”
Where you always a fan of Brecht?
“No not really, only over the past ten years, I’ve read a few of his works a while back but it’s over the past decade that I’ve started to study him. I used to do a socialist theatre course and he featured quite large in that obviously, so I started to look at his techniques a little bit more and he’s one of these people, you might not end up agreeing with but he sparks off a lot of ideas, you might disagree with him, the political ideas, the subject matter, what the world should be about.”
I do enjoy Brecht I must admit but I do know a few people who find rightly or wrongly the overall thing can overawe them too much. Do you have a personal favourite within the structure of these small vignettes?
“I think I do, we’re doing one called the Chalk Cross, which is set in the kitchen of a middle class home and involves a servant girl and a member of the S.A. When she comes into the kitchen, he traps the family, he hears that they are unhappy with the Third Reich and then they get sent to voluntary work schemes. It’s an interesting piece because the S.A. guy is quite a sad character really, he’s such a pathetic character, it’s an interesting study as you’re looking at someone who’s attracted to that type of person in that world.”
It’s scary how it can descend. Are you doing The Spy, which to my mind, strikes more of a chord. The play in which is the child witnesses an argument but who goes out to buy sweets and leaves the parents panicking?
“Yes we are!”
That’s quite a stirring one to do that piece.
“The thing about Brecht is that how funny he is, that Spy one is almost farcical, it’s like Monty Python, the fact that it really happened though makes it more frightening but comical as well.”
It’s been used very well in parodies as well, for example, the 80s science fiction series ‘V’, Why do you think Brecht is still so popular and so much in demand?
“I think with recent history, if you go back to Greece, contemporary political issues, people do want to go to the theatre for a bit of escapism but at the same time as well, people do like strong theatre, which tackles certain issues in a certain way and I think that’s one reason and I think the other reason is that Brecht is such a good writer, that’s the main thing. He’s not insulting your intelligence but he is challenging it all the time. I think that’s a good thing isn’t it? You can’t just sit back, you’ve got to get out there and use it.”
It’s heartening to see an amateur theatre company, although I hate using the word amateur, tackle something like Brecht, rather than leaving it to the established theatre companies. Has that gone down well within the company itself?
“Yeah, I think it’s been more difficult than a continuous play but I think having different scenes has enabled people to do something without committing themselves too much to a ridiculous amount of material. I’m sure the subject matter will be interesting – the political and human nature of it, researching the history of what went on, that’s been good.”
Ian D. Hall