All Topics  
Drums in the Night

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Drums in the Night
 
 
  Topics Drums in the Night Topic Home

Drums in the Night (Trommeln in der Nacht) is a play by the German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 modernist
Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century....
 playwright
Playwright

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works may be written specifically to be performed by actors or they may be closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance....
 Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht

was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
. Brecht wrote it between 1918 and 1920, and it received its first theatrical production in 1922. It is in the expressionist style of Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller

Ernst Toller was a Germany Communism playwright, best known for his expressionist plays....
 and Georg Kaiser
Georg Kaiser

Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, was a German dramatist. Although he was highly prolific and wrote in a number of different styles, he made his mark as the most successful expressionist dramatist and, along with Gerhart Hauptmann, the most frequently performed playwright in the Weimar Republic....
. The play—along with Baal
Baal (play)

Baal was the first full-length Play written by the Germany Modernism playwright Bertolt Brecht. Set in Berlin, Germany's underworld, it concerns a wastrel youth who becomes involved in several sexual affairs and at least one murder....
 and In the Jungle
In The Jungle of Cities

In The Jungle of Cities is a play by the Germany Modernism playwright Bertolt Brecht. Written between 1921 and 1924, it received its first theatrical production under the title In the Jungle at the Residenz Theatre in Munich, opening on the 9th May, 1923....
—won the prestigious German drama award the Kleist Prize
Kleist Prize

The Kleist Prize is an annual German literature prize. The prize was first awarded in 1912, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Heinrich von Kleist....
 for 1922 (although it was widely assumed, perhaps because Drums was the only play of the three to have been produced at that point, that the prize had been awarded to Drums alone); the play was performed all over Germany as a result.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Drums in the Night'
Start a new discussion about 'Drums in the Night'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Drums in the Night (Trommeln in der Nacht) is a play by the German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 modernist
Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century....
 playwright
Playwright

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works may be written specifically to be performed by actors or they may be closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance....
 Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht

was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
. Brecht wrote it between 1918 and 1920, and it received its first theatrical production in 1922. It is in the expressionist style of Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller

Ernst Toller was a Germany Communism playwright, best known for his expressionist plays....
 and Georg Kaiser
Georg Kaiser

Friedrich Carl Georg Kaiser, called Georg Kaiser, was a German dramatist. Although he was highly prolific and wrote in a number of different styles, he made his mark as the most successful expressionist dramatist and, along with Gerhart Hauptmann, the most frequently performed playwright in the Weimar Republic....
. The play—along with Baal
Baal (play)

Baal was the first full-length Play written by the Germany Modernism playwright Bertolt Brecht. Set in Berlin, Germany's underworld, it concerns a wastrel youth who becomes involved in several sexual affairs and at least one murder....
 and In the Jungle
In The Jungle of Cities

In The Jungle of Cities is a play by the Germany Modernism playwright Bertolt Brecht. Written between 1921 and 1924, it received its first theatrical production under the title In the Jungle at the Residenz Theatre in Munich, opening on the 9th May, 1923....
—won the prestigious German drama award the Kleist Prize
Kleist Prize

The Kleist Prize is an annual German literature prize. The prize was first awarded in 1912, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Heinrich von Kleist....
 for 1922 (although it was widely assumed, perhaps because Drums was the only play of the three to have been produced at that point, that the prize had been awarded to Drums alone); the play was performed all over Germany as a result. Brecht later claimed that he had only written it as a source of income.

Drums in the Night is one of Brecht's earliest plays, written before he became a convinced Marxist, but already the importance of class struggle
Class struggle

Class struggle is the active expression of class conflict looked at from any kind of socialism perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, leading ideologists of communism, wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
 in Brecht's thinking is apparent. According to Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger

Lion Feuchtwanger was a Germany-Jewish novelist and playwright....
, the play was originally entitled Spartakus. Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht

was a German socialist and a co-founder of the Spartakusbund and the Communist Party of Germany....
 and Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg was a Poland Germany Marxist theory, Socialism philosopher, and revolutionary for the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the German Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Communist Party of Germany....
 of the Spartacist League
Spartacist League

The Spartacist League was a left-wing Marxism revolutionary movement organized in Germany during and just after the politically volatile years of World War I....
—who were instrumental in the 'Spartacist uprising
Spartacist uprising

The Spartacist uprising, also known as the January uprising, was a general strike in Germany from January 5 to January 12, 1919. Its suppression is considered to mark the end of the German Revolution....
' in Berlin in January 1919—had only recently been abducted, tortured and killed by Freikorps
Freikorps

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 119-1983-0012, Kapp-Putsch, Marienbrigade Erhardt in Berlin.jpgThe designation of Freikorps was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of 18th century onwards....
 soldiers (Rosa was battered to death with rifle butts and thrown into a nearby river while Karl was shot in the back of the head then deposited as an unknown body in a nearby mortuary), in that same month of 1919.

Plot summary


Brecht's play revolves around Anna Balicke, whose lover (Andreas) has left to fight in World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
. Anna's parents try to convince her that he is dead and that she should forget him and marry a wealthy war-materials manufacturer, Murk. Anna agrees to this arrangement eventually, just as Andreas returns. Believing that the poor proletarian Andreas cannot provide the kind of life for Anna that the bourgeois Murk can, Anna's parents encourage her to stick to her agreement. Eventually Anna leaves Murk and her parents and, against the backdrop of the Spartacist uprising, searches for Andreas. In the final scene they are re-united; to the sound of "a white wild screaming" from the newspaper buildings above, they walk away together.

The play dramatizes many of the grievances of the Sparticists in their uprising. The soldiers returning from the front felt that they had been fighting for nothing and that what they had before they left had been stolen. Murk, the war-profiteer
War profiteering

A war profiteer is any person or organization that improperly profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term has strong negative connotations....
 who did not fight and who instead made a fortune from the fighting, and who attempts to steal the soldier's fiancé, symbolizes that feeling by the working class of having been cheated.

Production history

Drums in the Night, a "Comedy in Five Acts by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht

was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
," was given its premiere at the Munich Kammerspiele
Munich Kammerspiele

The Munich Kammerspiele is a successful German language theatre in Munich. The Schauspielhaus in the Maximilianstrasse is the major stage....
, opening on the 29th September, 1922. Otto Falckenberg - head of the Kammerspiele and renowned champion of new, controversial dramas in Weimar Germany - directed, set-design
Scenic design

File:Robert Edmond Jones.jpgScenic design is the creation of Theatre, as well as film or television theatrical scenery. Scenic designers have traditionally come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but nowadays, generally speaking, they are trained professionals, often with Master of Fine Arts degrees in theatre arts....
 was by Otto Reigbert, and the cast included Erwin Faber
Erwin Faber

Erwin Faber was a leading actor in Munich and later throughout Germany, beginning after World War I, and through the late-1970's, when he was still performing at the Residenz Theatre ....
 (as a Guest from the National Theatre of Munich, the Residenztheater) in the main role of Andreas Kragler, Max Schreck
Max Schreck

Maximilian "Max" Schreck was a Germany actor. He is most often remembered today for his lead role in the film Nosferatu....
 (as Glubb), Hans Leibelt, Kurt Horwitz and Maria Koppenhöfer.

The play received another production at the Deutsches Theater
Deutsches Theater

The Deutsches Theater in Berlin is a well-known Germany theatre. It was built in 1850 as Friedrich-Wilhelm-St?dtisches Theater, after Frederick William IV of Prussia....
 in Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
, also directed by Falckenberg, which opened on the 20th December, 1922, with a cast of leading actors then in Berlin, including Alexander Granach
Alexander Granach

Alexander Granach was a popular Germany actor in the 1920s and 1930s....
 as the soldier Andreas Kragler.

Falckenberg, who was the head of the Kammerspiele along with Benno Bing, directed the play in a manner that we would not now recognize as 'Brechtian', utilizing the angular, contorted poses typical of the theatre of Expressionism
Expressionism

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, Expressionist architecture and Expressionism ....
. Similarly, Reigbert's design consisted of contorted, angular lines and foreshortened perspectives (similar to those used in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 silent film directed by Robert Wiene from a screenplay written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. It is one of the earliest, most influential and most artistically acclaimed German Expressionism films....
 in 1920). "Brecht's sense of irony was misunderstood", Meech suggests; he was "far from happy with the result."

Elements of Expressionism
Expressionism

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, Expressionist architecture and Expressionism ....
, or perhaps "realistic-Expressistic" elements (according to Erwin Faber
Erwin Faber

Erwin Faber was a leading actor in Munich and later throughout Germany, beginning after World War I, and through the late-1970's, when he was still performing at the Residenz Theatre ....
), can be found in designs for the Munich production. Reigbert's rendering for the set design for Act V of Drums in the Night, for example, contains a figure standing by the bridge that is very much like Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a Norway Symbolism Painting, printmaker, and an important forerunner of Expressionism. His best-known composition, The Scream is one of the pieces in a series titled The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, and melancholy....
's figure (also standing by a bridge) in his painting of 1893, The Scream
The Scream

The Scream is the title of expressionism paintings and prints in a series by Norway artist Edvard Munch, depicting an agonised figure against a blood red sky....
.

According to Erwin Faber
Erwin Faber

Erwin Faber was a leading actor in Munich and later throughout Germany, beginning after World War I, and through the late-1970's, when he was still performing at the Residenz Theatre ....
, whom Brecht had requested to play the principle role of Andreas Kragler, a German soldier who returns home after to the war:

The play was...expressionistic, that is, realistic-expressionistic. It was born of the times, and I played it as such...By the time Brecht arrived, the period of Expressionism
Expressionism

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, Expressionist architecture and Expressionism ....
 in Munich had already passed...The heyday of Expressionism came in the aftermath of World War I, when we were all exhausted by the war: hunger, suffering, and grief was in every family who had lost a loved one. There was a tension that could only be resolved by an outcry...[Drums in the Night} was perhaps one of the last dramas to be played expressionisitically.


Works cited

  • Brecht, Bertolt
    Bertolt Brecht

    was a Germany poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the Twentieth-century theatre, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and Theatre, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble?the post-war theatre company operated by Brec...
    . 1922. Drums in the Night. Trans. John Willett. In Collected Plays: One. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen, 1970. ISBN 041603280X. p.63-115.
  • Meech, Tony. 1994. "Brecht's Early Plays." In The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge Companions to Literature Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521414466. p.43-55.
  • Molinari, Cesare. 1975. Theatre Through the Ages. Trans. Colin Hamer. London: Cassell. ISBN 0304294489.
  • McDowell, W. Stuart. 2000. "Acting Brecht: The Munich Years," The Brecht Sourcebook, Carol Martin, Henry Bial, editors (Routledge, 2000) p. 71 - 83.
  • Sacks, Glendyr. 1994. "A Brecht Calendar." In The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Ed. Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks. Cambridge Companions to Literature Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521414466. p.xvii-xxvii.
  • Willett, John
    John Willett

    John Willett was a Translation and a scholar who is famous for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English language. He was born on 24 June 1917 and died on 20 August 2002....
    . 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 041334360X.
  • Willett, John
    John Willett

    John Willett was a Translation and a scholar who is famous for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English language. He was born on 24 June 1917 and died on 20 August 2002....
     and Ralph Manheim
    Ralph Manheim

    Ralph Manheim was an United States translator of German literature and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch language, Polish language and Hungarian language....
    . 1970. "Introduction." In Collected Plays: One by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen. ISBN 041603280X. p.vii-xvii.
  • Calabro, Tony. 1990. Bertolt Brecht's Art of Dissemblance. Longwood Academic.