Performing Revolution - Arts Under Communism

"A performing arts festival marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in partnership with key New York City cultural organizations and academic institutions, November 2009–March 2010." Read about it here.

Commie Brecht

Amusing little article in this Sunday’s Guardian by Nick Cohen about Brecht and how most people (theatre artists and audiences alike) overlook or ignore that he was a communist playwright. Cohen suggests that people either a) “deodorise him by pretending he was really a liberal humanist” b) “have an adult argument” or c) “shrug and walk away”. I’m guessing it’s mostly the third, with a little of the first, and almost never, if ever, the second. Does it matter that he was a communist and, if many of his themes actively embrace that philosophy, are his plays even relevant anymore? We can certainly credit him with giving us ‘alienation’, but has he cursed that fate upon himself?