Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (45 page)

We can now summarise what happened when Brecht decided to make a new German version of the play after his return to Berlin. Two principal texts are involved: that published in his
Versuche 14
in 1955, and the final revised text of the collected
Stécke
(1957), which incorporates minor changes made in the course of Brecht’s rehearsals and as a result of the Cologne production in the former year. This version follows the general structure of the American version, giving more or less the same account of characters, incidents, motivations and social substructure. However, it brings back important stretches of dialogue (from the first version, eliminating many of the crudities of the American text and giving more elbow-room to the arguments) at the cost, of course, of making a considerably longer play.

The characters remain the same as in the American version, apart from the bringing back of Mucius at the beginning of scene 9, and the renaming of Vanni, who no longer figures in scene 2. So do their social roles. The plague scene is restored in a new form by running together 5a and 5b; this, presumably, being something that Brecht had wished to have ‘in the book’ even though, like Laughton, he was excluding it from the acting version. Scene 4 is restored to its full length, scene 15 put back into its old form. The original German text of the ballad in
scene 10 has not been restored; instead it has been (freely) retranslated from the English, so as to fit Eisler’s setting, though with the addition of the singer’s remarks to the crowd. The same applies to the between-scene verses, which were not done in time for the
Versucbe
edition. The Lorenzo de’ Medici madrigal in scene 7 (which appears to derive from the sixtieth and last stanzas of his Eclogue ‘La Ritrozia’) now makes its appearance for the first time.

The play again begins as in the first version, though Galileo’s speech on the ‘new age’ has been slightly expanded; the second demonstration with Andrea and the full conversation with the procurator are restored. In scene 3 the episode with Mrs Sarti is brought back, leading to the (shortened) conclusion, ‘They grab at it’ (p. 28), while immediately before her entry Galileo’s speech is given a new last sentence: ‘Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race’ (p. 27). Virginia is now made to leave before the reading of the letter to the grand duke. In scene 4 some of the fatuous remarks of the court ladies (e.g. ‘Perfect poise!’ and ‘What diction!’) are eliminated; the professors’ proposal for a formal disputation is new, as is Federzoni’s call for new textbooks.

In the plague scene the second half (b) is virtually as in the (revised) first version, but the first half has been revised, notably cutting Galileo’s last remarks, with their reference to the uncertainty of remaining alive ‘in times like these’. In the ball scene (7) a new poem for Galileo, which could be a quasi-Horatian variant on Herrick’s ‘Delight in Disorder’, replaces the English one which we give, and Bellarmin’s remarks about the Campagna peasants and the (social) need to attribute all the world’s horrors to a ‘great plan’ are restored. In the sunspot scene (9) the episode with Mucius now comes near the start of the scene, which has been correspondingly rewritten; Mrs Sarti’s speech (p. 72) has also been restored, as has Galileo’s call for ‘people who work with their hands’ (p. 74), in lieu of the American version’s too simple view that scientific work is not worth doing ‘for less than the population at large’. The end of this scene (’I’ve got to know’) is quite new.

In the carnival scene (10) the procession is now described briefly in a single stage direction at the end. In scene 11 the episode with Vanni is extended to emphasise Galileo’s sense of security (and of his own comforts). Scene 12 restores the inquisitor’s comments on papal politics and introduces the graffito about the Barberinis’ love of art, as well as the exchange about condemning the doctrine and keeping its practical applications. For the slight changes in scenes 13 and 14 see pp. 267–268 above. There is in the Brecht Archive a sketch for the
notion of a Hippocratic oath for scientists which was evidently noted down in America (in Brecht’s homemade English) but for some reason not then worked into the play. (See Introduction, p. xv.) It goes thus:

ingenious dwarfs

Hypocratic

hypocrades Oath

Had I resisted, the natural sciences might have

something like the                     of the physicians.

develloped their own Hypocratic oath

mankind

Now, the most we can hope for will be a race of ingenious dwarfs who can be hired for any purpose who will, as on islands, produce whatever their masters demand.

means

what’s the use of progress, if it is a

leaving behind of mankind? There even

a state of things could develop, when our

inventions

[Spelling and spacing as on Brecht’s typescript, but not showing his corrections and deletions. From BBA 609/91, reproduced in Schumacher:
Drama und Gescbicbte
, 1965, p. 208.]

The effect of the premiere of
Mother Courage and Her Children
, given in Zurich during the Second World War with the exceptional Therese Giehse in the title part, was to allow the bourgeois press to talk about a Niobe-like tragedy and the heart-rending vitality of all maternal creatures. This despite the pacifist and anti-fascist convictions of the Zurich Schauspielhaus and its predominantly émigré German actors. Thus forewarned, the playwright made certain changes for the Berlin production. What follows is the original text.

MOTHER COURAGE
: … Look out for yourselves, you’ll need to. And now up we get and on we go.

THE SERGEANT
: I don’t feel very well.

THE RECRUITER
: Perhaps you caught a chill taking your helmet off in that wind.

The sergeant snatches back his helmet
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Hey, gimme my papers, you. Someone else might ask to see them, and there’d I be with no papers.

She puts them all in her pewter box
.

THE RECRUITER
to Eilif:
Have a look at them boots anyway. And then we men’ll have one together. And come round behind the cart.

I’ll show you I got the bounty money on me.

THE SERGEANT
: I don’t get it, I’m always at the rear. Sergeant’s safest job there is. You can send the others up front, cover themselves with glory. Me dinner hour’s properly spoiled. Shan’t be able to hold nowt down, I know.

MOTHER COURAGE
addressing him:
Mustn’t let it prey on you so’s you can’t eat. Just stay at the rear. Here, take a swig of brandy, man.

Gives him a drink from the cart
.

THE RECRUITER
has taken Eilif by the arm and is leading him away up
stage:
If a bullet’s got your name on there’s nowt you can do about it. You drew a cross, that’s all. Ten florins bounty money, then you’re a gallant fellow fighting for the king and women’ll be after you like flies. And you can clobber me free for insulting you.
Exeunt both
.

Dumb Kattrin, having watched this seduction, makes hoarse noises
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: All right, Kattrin, all right. Sergeant’s not feeling well, he’s superstitious, I hadn’t realised. And now let’s get moving.

Where’s Eilif gone?

SWISS CHEESE
: Must have gone off with the recruiter. They was talking together the whole time.

MOTHER COURAGE
to the other:
Can’t pay, that it? No money, no schnapps. They give us military marches, but catch them giving men their pay.

SOLDIER
: I want my schnapps. I missed the looting. That double-crossing general only allowed an hour’s looting in the town. He ain’t an inhuman monster, he said. Town must of paid him.

THE CHAPLAIN
stumbles in:
There are people still lying in that yard. The peasant’s family. Somebody give me a hand. I need linen.
The second soldier goes off with him
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I got none. All my bandages was sold to regiment. I ain’t tearing up my officers’ shirts for that lot.

CHAPLAIN
calling back:
I need linen, I tell you.

MOTHER COURAGE
rummages in her cart:
I’m giving nowt. They’ll never pay, and why, nowt to pay with.

CHAPLAIN
bending over a woman he has carried in:
Why d’you stay around during the gunfire?

PEASANT WOMAN
feebly:
Farm.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Catch them abandoning anything. My lovely shirts! Tomorrow officers’ll be around and I’ll have nowt for ‘em.
She throws down one which Kattrin gives to the peasant woman
. What’s got into me, giving stuff away? Wasn’t me started this war.

FIRST SOLDIER
: Those are Protestants. What they have to be Protestants for?

MOTHER COURAGE
: They ain’t bothering about faith. They lost their farm.

SECOND SOLDIER
: They’re no Protestants. They’re Catholics like us.

FIRST SOLDIER
: No way of sorting ‘em out in a bombardment.

A PEASANT
brought in by the chaplain:
My arm’s gone.
The painful screams of a child are heard from the house
.

THE CHAPLAIN
to the peasant woman:
Lie where you are.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Get that child out of there!
Kattrin dashes in
.

MOTHER COURAGE
tearing up shirts:
A hundred florins apiece. I’m ruined. Don’t shift her as you’re doing her bandage, it might be her back.
To Kattrin, who has rescued a baby from the ruins and is cradling it as she walks:
How nice, found another baby to cart around? Give it to its ma this instant, unless you’d have me fighting for hours to get it off you, like last time, d’you hear?
Kattrin pays no attention
. All your victories mean to me is losses. That’s enough, padre, come on, easy with my linen for Christ sake.

THE CHAPLAIN
: I need more, blood’s coming through.

MOTHER COURAGE
referring to Kattrin:
Look at her, happy as a queen in all this misery; give it back at once, its mother’s coming round.
As Kattrin reluctantly hands the baby back to its mother, Mother Courage tears up another shirt
. I can’t give nowt, catch me, got to think of meself.
To the second soldier:
Don’t stand there gawping, you go back and tell them cut out that music, we can see it’s a victory with our own eyes. Help yourself to a glass of schnapps, padre, don’t argue, I’ve enough troubles.
She has to climb down off the cart to pull her daughter away from the first soldier, who is drunk
. Thought you’d score another victory, you animal? You’re not getting away like that till you’ve paid.
To the peasant:
Your kid won’t go short.
Indicating the woman:
Help yourself to something for her.
To the first soldier:
Then leave that coat, it’s stolen any road.
The first soldier goes lurching away. Mother Courage tears up further shirts
.

THE CHAPLAIN
: There’s still someone under there.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Don’t worry, I’m tearing up the lot.

High road. The chaplain, Mother Courage and Kattrin are pulling the cart. It is filthy and neglected, but hung with new wares none the less
.

MOTHER COURAGE
sings:

Some people think to live by looting [etc. with one or two small variations not affecting the meaning] …

The refrain ‘The new year’s come’ is played by her on her mouth-organ
.

THE PEASANTS
: You must go, missis. There’s only one more regiment

behind that one. You can’t go on your own.

MOTHER COURAGE
: She’s still breathing. Maybe she’s falling asleep.

The effect of the peasant wars, the greatest disaster in German history, was to draw the teeth of the Reformation. That left business and cynicism. Along with her friends and guests and almost everyone else, Courage – and I say this as an aid to theatrical production – recognises the purely commercial nature of the war; indeed this is what attracts her to it. She believes in the war right to the end. It never even strikes her that in a war you need a big pair of scissors if you are to get your cut. Observers of catastrophes are wrong to imagine that the victims will learn from them. So long as the masses remain the passive
object
of politics they will never be able to view what happens to them as an experiment, merely as a fate; they learn no more from the catastrophe than a guinea pig learns about biology. It is not the playwright’s job to open Courage’s eyes at the end – she catches a glimpse of something around the middle of the play, at the end of scene 6, then loses sight of it once more – his concern is with the eyes of the audience.

[’Anmerkung’ from
Versuche
9, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 1949, reprinted in GW
Stücke 4.]

1

This scene emphasises that things are at the beginning. Courage’s canteen business and the new war as new undertakings of a familiar sort. (They begin and they continue; they begin by continuing.) Needed: energy, enterprise, the prospect of new times, arrival of new business, together with new dangers. She longs for war and at the same time fears it. She wants to join in, but as a peaceable business woman, not in a warlike way. She wants to maintain her family during the war and by means of it. She wants to serve the army and also to keep out of its clutches.