Breadshop by Bertolt Brecht: a theatre project for young people

Artistic director
Phoebe von Held

Translation
The Bread Store, trans. by Marc Silberman and Victoria Hill, in Brecht and the Writer’s Workshop (London, Bloomsbury, 2019)

Dramaturgy lab organisation and facilitation
Phoebe von Held, Dr. Lizzie Stewart (King’s College London), Henrik Adler (Dramaturg, Berlin)

Dramaturgy lab guest contributors
Otis Ramsey-Zoe (Dramaturg, USA), Henrik Adler (Dramaturg, Germany), Lizzie Stewart (German & Theatre Studies, KCL, UK), Marc Silberman (German & Theatre Studies, USA), Christopher Dillons (History, KCL, UK), Giammario Impullitti (Economics, Italy/UK), Jordana Matlon (Sociology, USA), Laura Schwartz (History of Feminism, Warwick University, UK), Michael Shane Boyle (Theatre Studies, QMUL, UK / USA), Sophie Jump (Scenography, UAL, UK), Paula Stanic (Playwright, UK), Tom Kuhn (Translator, Editor, German Studies, Oxford University, UK), Fani Arampatzidou (Theatremaker / activist, MayDay Rooms, UK/Greece).

BREADSHOP Production workshop July 2021 & Brecht R&D 2022
Phoebe von Held (Director/Performance Version), Fani Arampatzidou (Associate), Karl Chaundy (Props), Uri Agnon (Music) Stephanie Burrell (Movement Director), Henrik Adler (Dramaturgy), Lizzie Stewart (Dramaturgy), Irene East (Casting)

Supported by
Consultancy on young people’s theatre: Rachel Horowitz, Hackney Empire. Publicity and Recruitment: National Youth Theatre; Hackney Empire Creative Futures. Workshop planning, fund-raising, literary consultancy: Tom Kuhn, Oxford University; Lizzie Stewart, King’s College London. Research support: Iliane Thiemann, Bertolt Brecht Archive, Berlin.

Sponsorship
The script readings were funded by a Covid Emergency Grant, Arts Council England. The BREADSHOP dramaturgy lab was funded by an Arts Council England Lottery Grant, and by a Writing Brecht Grant from Oxford University. The production workshop in 2021 and the Brecht R&D Workshop 2022 were co-funded by The Oxford University Public Engagement with Research (PER) Seed Fund, and by Raven Row. Rehearsal and performance venues in both years were sponsored-in-kind by E5 bakehouse, London and by Raven Row.

BREADSHOP is a theatre project for young people (age 18-25), exploring a highly relevant yet little-known play by Brecht about the effects of the Great Crash on the streets of Berlin in the winter of 1930. The project evolved over 2 years (July 2020 - July 2022) in a series of events and workshops for young theatre-engaged people who are interested in Brecht and theatre as a tool for political interrogation.

Synopsis of the play:

Breadshop [Brotladen] is one of Bertolt Brecht’s early experimental plays. Written in direct response to the 1929 stock-market crash, it depicts how during financial crisis economic pressures cascade down the ranks of society, with those at the bottom hit hardest. Focussing on a single mother with five children and on young unemployed people, it shows the impossibly difficult struggle for daily bread and a roof over one’s head for those who are without property or capital. Looking straight into the face of capitalism as an injust and dysfunctional economic system, Breadshop surprises by its slapstick humour, culminating in the final scene in a riotous battle of stale buns.

Project Developement / Activities:

STAGE 1: SCRIPT READINGS. The project started its life with two script-readings via zoom in July 2020. The readings, which involved 40 young theatre-engaged people, were followed by discussion, exploring the resonances of the play with the pandemic situation of economic uncertainty, crisis, and social unrest.

STAGE 2: BREADSHOP DRAMATURGY LAB. Due to the enthusiastic response to the readings, I set up BREADSHOP dramaturgy lab, a zoom-based, intensive dramaturgy workshop for a diverse group of 30 young theatre-makers and performers based in London and across the UK. The free-of-charge workshop consisted of 13 three-hour zoom sessions, plus additional seminars. Featuring a wide range of talks by an international team of dramaturgs, theatre artists and academic speakers from literature and the social sciences, BREADSHOP dramaturgy lab created a regular space for inter-disciplinary discussion, practice-based experimentation and connection with like-minded people, to explore an updated approach to the play and combat the isolation and deprivation that, during the lockdown, affected especially young people. Session topics included, amongst others: ‘What is dramaturgy?’, ‘Black Marxist critique’, ‘Site-specific performance conceptualisation’, and ‘Women and Gender in Breadshop’. For the full programme see HERE.

STAGE 3: PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP, July 2021. In July 2022, I organised a 10-day intensive production workshop, rehearsing with a group of 12 participants from the dramaturgy lab one of the core scenes of BREADSHOP (‘The Eviction of Mrs Queck’). The rehearsals culminated in two performances in a site-specific setting at a local bakery yard in East London (E5 bakehouse).

STAGE 4: BRECHT R&D WORKSHOP, July 2022. This final workshop opportunity for young Brecht-interested theatre-makers merged the ongoing exploration of BREADSHOP with an R&D testing the possibilities for a larger site-specific Brecht collage of several Brecht fragments for a performance/exhibition project planned at Raven Row, London, in 2024.

LEGACY: In December 2021, the project was invited for a roundtable discussion at Literatur-Forum im Brecht Haus, Berlin. The discussion was moderated by Marc Silberman and included myself, Henrik Adler and Lizzie Stewart. Video-documentaton of the event can be viewed HERE.

The project has fostered a collective spirit which has inspired core participants to return to all of the different workshop iteratons offered. The group of highly talented young creatives that have become attached to the project also collaborate with each other on their own work in film and the performing arts.