Bertolt Brecht and the David Fragments (1919–1921): An Interdisciplinary Study

Description

This volume offers an examination of Brecht’s largely forgotten theatrical fragments of a life of David, written just after the Great War but prior to Brecht winning the Kleist Prize in 1922 and the acclaim that would launch his extraordinary career. David J. Shepherd and Nicholas E. Johnson take as their starting point Brecht’s own diaries from the time, which offer a vivid picture of the young Brecht shuttling between Munich and the family home in Augsburg, surrounded by friends, torn between women, desperate for success, and all the while with ‘David on the brain’. The analysis of Brecht’s David, along with his notebooks and diaries, reveals significant connections between the reception of the Biblical David and one of Germany’s most tumultuous cultural periods. Drawing on theatrical experiments conducted with an ensemble from Trinity College Dublin, this volume includes the first ever translation of the David fragments in English, an extensive discussion of the theatrical afterlife of David in the early twentieth century as well as new interdisciplinary insights into the early Brecht: a writer entranced by the biblical David and utterly committed to translating the biblical tradition into his own evolving theatrical idiom. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Content List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements A Note on the Text List of Abbreviations Introduction: Brecht’s David Fragments Brecht and the Bible Brecht’s David in Fragments Left for Dead: Forgetting Brecht’s David Fragments The Bible and Its Survival/Afterlife The Survival of Samuel and the After/Laterlife of Brecht’s David Bringing Brecht’s David to Life: Translation, Performance and Survival Chapter 1 The David Fragments in Translation Preface to the Translation The David Fragments: A1–A8 The David Fragments: B1–B11 Previously Uncollected David Fragments Chapter 2 Brecht’s David and the Biblical David: Uriah, Bathsheba, Absalom and Jesse Brecht and David: A Question of Character Uriah (and Bathsheba) Absalom Jesse Chapter 3 Brecht’s David and the Biblical David: Jonathan, Saul and David Jonathan Saul David Chapter 4 Brecht’s David and Other Adaptations: Feuchtwanger, Zarek and Gide David and Saul on Stage Lion Feuchtwanger’s König Saul Otto Zarek’s David André Gide’s Saül Chapter 5 The David Fragments in Practice and Performance Clearing the Stage: David in Germany (1995) Setting the Stage: David and Practice-as-Research in Ireland Preparing the Stage: The David Fragments Workshops (2015–2017) On Stage: The David Fragments (2017) Beyond the Stage: Impacts and Absences Concluding Reflections: After David Entangled Lives: The David Fragments,the Biblical David and the Young Brecht Entangled Methods: Theatre/Brecht Studies and Biblical Reception Studies Entangled Afterlives: Goliath and the Survival of Brecht’s David Bibliography Bertolt Brecht’s works Other Works Cited Index of References Index of Authors Index of Subjects