"Les Misérables" Victor Hugo

Cinquiéme Partie. livre premier. Chapitre II.

"(...) ; les génies attirent l'injurie, les grands hommes sont toujours plus ou moins aboyés."

Les Misérables 

Teaching without pupils... "Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 265)

Page 265. Hans Bunge quoting Brecht about his mood during his exile in Denmark:

He wrote at that time "Teaching without pupils/Writing without fame/Are difficult." and "There speaks the man to whom no one is listening:/ He speaks too loud / He repeats himself / He says thing that are wrong: / He goes uncorrected."




Living for Brecht


  

"Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 195)

Page 195: "Sometimes one can hear Brecht give a sudden laugh-even when the scene is being rehearsed for the first time-for he has observed that the actor is offering something new and interesting, even if nothing more that a silent walk across the stage. This laugh means too much to the actor. From then on his colleagues will say: Now for the walk, or the gesture, or the look."

"Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 195)

page 195: " (...) Brecht never ceases to make demands on them and to help them. For example, he demonstrates to them way of walking on stage-the walk of weariness, of sensuality, of vanity, of injured pride. In that way he gives the actor a basis to work on, for the manner of walking reveals the attitude. How does an overworked woman hold her shoulders, when life has already given her too much to bear? Brecht makes the poor woman's arms hang lower through too much carrying, her shoulders droop, her stomach protrude. Or he sends for cheap steel-rimmed spectacles to make the eyes look tired. The mouth may also be held a little open, to indicate difficulty in breathing."

"Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 194)

Page 194: " (...) the actor himself having at last reached the stage and wanting to make the most of the few minutes he has been given. Brecht is adamant in combating this wish. He gives his actors their chance in a different way, presenting them with one of his famous pauses. These pauses are not there to express feeling but to allow something to be shown while silence reigns, thus giving the audience a chance to reflect and to understand."

"Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 192-193)

Page 192-193: "I could say that in rehearsal Brecht begins by "alienating" his own play. He appears to be familiar with no single word of his text, and with each rereading he discovers it anew. (...) Certainly he has no wish to stick obstinately to what is written on the page; what he wants is to see and hear what actors using the text can show him. When a sentence or even a whole scene has been thoroughly examined in this way, it can come as no surprise to learn that up to the very last rehearsal. Brecht is always making changes in is plays. He conducts rehearsals in sections, initially treating each matter entirely for its own sake. Someone knowing the play as a whole might the say to him, "The third scene explains what has already been indicated in the first scene. So how can the actor throw away his line in the first scene so lightly?" Brecht will listen, then laugh and replay, "Is that so? That's good. Well, we shall see." It might really become necessary to make changes in the first scene while we are already working on the third, but now we know why. In this way, rehearsals remain constantly productive. Nothing is ever glossed over; everything is checked and rechecked again and again."

Ruth Berlau in Amazon.com

"Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 192)

Page 192: "In his theoretical works Brecht has written about alienation (Verfremdung) and alienation effects. Many believe this to be a very complicated affair, but in fact it is very simple. A statement is "alienated" by being made to appear strange, and therefore striking. Things that are so general, so everyday, so usual that they are no longer noticed-since one knows them too well-are presented as remarkable and worthy of attention. In this way facts, procedures, and conventional forms of behavior are made more transparent. Curiosity is aroused about what lies behind them: What is it exactly, and why is it so? Brecht induces the attitude of an explorer who has come on something remarkable."

"Living for Brecht" by Ruth Berlau (Page 191)

Page 91: "Brecht comes fresh to rehearsals-and usually ahead of his fellow workers. from the very moment he enters the theater he is in his element,a fish in water. He starts with a reading rehearsal, asking the actors to read out their roles, with neither expression nor accentuation but concentrating instead on the implication of the words. After that comes the positioning. Brecht sits there with a cap and a cigar in his mouth, knowing nothing. (...) Brecht is wiser. With his method he gets more out of his actors as well as out of himself. When an actor asks, "Should I stand up here?" everybody is always astounded by Brecht's typical response: "I don't know". He does not make up his mind in advance but tries out several possible solutions. The actor can make suggestions of his own. What Brecht likes most of all is to have suggestions demonstrated, not discussed. As soon as someone starts explaining his intentions at great length, Brecht breaks in and says, "Show us". For Brecht an actor's technique is not a matter fro discussion."

Generation by Matthew Cobb. Page 238

"In a strange way, therefore, a key aspect of preformation and pre-existence lives on the overstated claims of genetics determinism. This simplistic understanding of the role of genes is shared by those scientists who do not realise the complexity of living systems, or who underestimate the essential role of interactions with the environment, which affect every aspect of the activity and hrowth of organisms. Twenty first- century geneticista who suggest that there is astraight line running from a single DNA sequence to a complex humanbehavioural trait, or even something as simple as afinger, would be amazed to knowthat they are the modern equivalents of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers who advocated a rigid and literal form of preformation."

Generation by Matthew Cobb

Generation by Matthew Cobb

Page 226; "Understanding the process of generation as we know do would have impossible 350 years ago. The very concepts we use to explain inheritance and genetics - transmission, information, programme, code - are the product of the electronic age and were consistenly applied to understanding generation only after they widespread adoption in the early years of computing around the Second World War. Although a seventeenth-century scientist would have understood what code was, the idea that egg and sperme each contain information to make a new organism, and this genetic code was the essential thing transmmited from generation to generation, would have been so much technobabble.
There is an intriguing corollary to all this: computers are currently the most advanced form of our ability to manipulate matter, and concepts such as information, programming and feedback loops are an integral part of modern attemps to model and explain bilogical phenomena. Today it is impossible to imagine anything richer and unforeseeable technological developments, this approach will no doubt seem quaint and naive. The future will prove the we have a vision that is limited by the boundaries of our scientific imagination, which in turn is largely determined by our social conditions, by the way production is organised and in particular by our technology"



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