Fleischhacker by Bertolt Brecht, with Elisabeth Hauptmann
R&D showings, May 2019
Director & editor of performance version Phoebe von Held
Translation by
Phoebe von Held and Matthias Rothe. Published in Brecht and the Writer's Workshop, edited by Tom Kuhn and Charlotte Ryland, Bloomsbury 2019
In collaboration with
Laura Killeen, Jane Robinson, Naomi Segal, Robert Stock, Sam Williams
Design
Sophie Jump
Sound design, multi-media director
Jamie Hamilton
LIghting
Joshua Gadsby
Film
Dror Shohet
Dramaturgy
Matthias Rothe
Cast
Joe Bence, Angelina Chudi, Ery Nzaramba, Bruno Roubicek, Ori Wallach
Savannah song
Sasha Ilyukevich
Casting
Irene East
R&D producer
Ellie Keel
Venue
Guest Projects, London, E8, 2 & 3 May 2019
Funded by
Arts Council England. The Talle Fund University of Minnesota. The Writing Brecht Project, Oxford
Supported by
A GUEST PROJECT’s RESIDENCY
FLEISCHHACKER [1924-9] was Brecht's first project to explore the devastating effects of global capitalism, prompting his interest in Marxism and the development of epic theatre. Although incomplete, this prescient text, written in a broken kind of iambic verse, offers illuminating insight into the 21st-century crisis of finance-led capitalism: its global economic risks and harrowing effects on social cohesion, the urban poor and migrants. Scenes combine the story of a cut-throat futures trader, Jae Fleischhacker, who attempts to corner the wheat market, with the story of an impoverished farming family who come to Chicago to try their luck; both stories end in ruin.
GUEST PROJECTS FLEISCHHACKER R&D, 7 April - 3 May 2019. In this 1-month residency, we developed a new performance script of Brecht’s Fleischhacker fragments, published by Bloomsbury in 2019. Emphasis was on ‘work-in-progressness’ and the tension between narrativity and fragmentation. Brecht’s fractured snapshots aesthetics were captured in an exciting multi-media concept, linking the textual material written during the economic instabilities of the 1920s to our own experience of the political crises following the 2008 financial crash. The R&D outcome was presented in 3 showings followed by two after-show discussions, the first one chaired by Tim Bano, Joint Lead Critic of The Stage, the second by Tom Kuhn, Professor of German Literature, University of Oxford, as well as Translator and Editor of Brecht’s Works in English [Bloomsbury/Methuen]. FLEISCHHACKER is now ready for production.
Tim Bano: Brecht's Fleischhacker has become more and more relevant in the 90 years since it was written, and having the privilege of watching Phoebe von Held's ingenious multimedia production - the very first performance in the UK - was a complete thrill.
Our residency was preceeded by two community workshops: a 1-day Brecht Theatre Workshop for participants attached to Outside Edge Theatre Company, and a 2.5-day cross-disciplinary workshop for young aspiring theatre-makers (age 19-27), on Brecht and political theatre. Facilitated by members of the creative team in collaboration with Fani Arampatzidou.
