Přelož Brechta!

Brecht poems on the theatre: a creative&collaborative workshop

Brecht was, among other things, an extremely productive lyric poet. In this three-hour workshop, I would like to focus on select poems, written at various times of Brecht’s life, which have the theatre as their topic. As will become quickly obvious, not only do these ‘theatre poems’ lead deeply into important theoretical aspects, but they also do so in ways which are accessible, succinct and compelling. Brecht’s ‘lyric mode’ of theatre theory—a mode which, to my knowledge, no one else before or after him has used—turns out to be extremely effective in communicating his reflections on the theatre which have an (undeserved) reputation for being difficult and inaccessible.

The workshop will have three parts. After an introductory lecture, participants will be invited to work in small groups on translating on their own several select ‘theatre poems,’ which will be provided to them in the German original and in my English translation, into their native tongues (Czech or Slovak). In the final hour, the individual groups will present their translations and comment on them (both the translation product but also the process). Ideas on staging or (somehow) performing these poems are also encouraged.

As a result, participants should gain intellectual and creative stimulus by engaging in this ‘lyric mode’ of theatre theory and in the collaborative act of translation.