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DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200702T193000
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SUMMARY:6 Plays of Bertolt Brecht
DESCRIPTION:Beginning April 23 we will read aloud six of the many plays Bertolt Brecht wrote between the 1920s and his death in 1956. We will spend three weeks with The Threepenny Opera\, one week with The Exception and The Rule\, and two weeks each for the other four plays. There will be time to read aloud—taking on various characters among ourselves. There will also be substantive discussion of these works which span all the decades of his writing. The Epic theater\, musical theater along with the learning plays are represented in this selection of plays. Each session will be conducted via Zoom until we have an all-clear to return to the classroom. With your registration\, the zoom password will be sent to you. \n \nThe Threepenny Opera 1928 \nThe Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) is a “play with music” by Bertolt Brecht\, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay’s 18th-century ballad opera\, The Beggar’s Opera\, and four ballads by François Villon\, with music by Kurt Weill. The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. Writing in 1929\, Weill made the political and artistic intents of the work clear: “With the Dreigroschenoper we reach a public which either did not know us at all or thought us incapable of captivating listeners\, Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art. If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age\, then this framework must be destroyed…. In the Dreigroschenoper\, reconstruction was possible insofar as here we had a chance of starting from scratch. Weill claimed at the time that “music cannot further the action of the play or create its background”\, but achieves its proper value when it interrupts the action at the right moments.” \nThe Mother 1931 \nBased on Maxim Gorky’s 1906 novel of the same name\, is Brecht’s most elaborate use of his radically experimental Lehrstücke\, or learning plays\, which he describes as “a piece of anti-metaphysical\, materialistic\, non-Aristotelian drama.” The play suggests that to become a good mother involves more than just complaining about the price of soup; rather\, one must struggle against it\, not only for her and her family’s sake\, but for the sake of all working families. The title character\, the mother Pelagea Vlassova\, journeys through the play’s 14 scenes\, the death of her son\, and her own impending illness\, fighting illiteracy while constantly filled with good humor and wily activism. The moment in October 1917 when she becomes free to carry and raise her own Red Flag on the eve of the czar’s overthrow proves momentous. \n \nThe Exception and the Rule 1933 \nThe play itself is short\, and lasts no longer than 60 minutes if performed in its entirety. It tells the story of a rich merchant\, who must cross the fictional Yahi Desert to close an oil deal. During the trip the class differences between him and his working-class porter (or “coolie” as he is called in most English language editions) are shown. As he becomes increasingly afraid of the desert\, the merchant’s brutality increases\, and he feels terribly alone without police nearby to protect him. \nMother Courage & Her Children 1941 \nFollowing Brecht’s own principles for political drama\, the play is not set in modern timesbut during the 30 Years’ War of 1618–1648. It follows the fortunes of Anna Fierling\, nicknamed Mother Courage\, who is determined to make her living from the war. Over the course of the play\, she loses all three of her children\, Schweizerkas\, Eilif\, and Kattrin\, to the very war from which she tried to profit. Mother Courage is an example of Brecht’s concepts of epic theatre and Verfremdungseffekt\, or “V” effect; preferably “alienation” or “estrangement effect” Verfremdungseffekt is achieved through the use of placards which reveal the events of each scene\, juxtaposition\, actors changing characters and costume on stage\, the use of narration\, simple props and scenery. \nThe Good Person of Szechwan 1943 \nBrecht’s interest in historical materialism is evident in the play’s definition of contemporary morality and altruism in social and economic terms. Shen Teh’s altruism conflicts with Shui Ta’s capitalist ethos of exploitation. The play implies that economic systems determine a society’s morality. \nThe Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui 1958 \nIt chronicles the rise of Arturo Ui\, a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster\, and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition. The play is a satirical allegory of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany prior to World War II. The play has frequent references to Shakespeare. To highlight Ui’s evil and villainous rise to power\, he is explicitly compared to Shakespeare’s Richard III. Like Macbeth\, Ui experiences a visitation from the ghost of one of his victims. Finally\, Hitler’s practiced prowess at public speaking is referenced when Ui receives lessons from an actor in walking\, sitting and orating\, which includes his reciting Mark Antony’s famous speech from Julius Caesar.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/6-plays-of-bertolt-brecht/2020-07-02/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Literary Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/BrechtPortrait.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="MEP Literature Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20200704T110000
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LAST-MODIFIED:20200714T144743Z
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SUMMARY:Capital\, Volume 3\, 2nd Sessions
DESCRIPTION:Second 12 session series \nLet’s make the Anthropocene stage of the earth’s evolution\, the turning point of world history. After all\, paraphrasing Marx\, since we are the species that can know ourselves as a product of natural history\, we are responsible to all of nature. We have the power within us to make the Anthropocene not the capitalist endgame but the naturalization of our species and the humanization of nature. Capital\, a Critique of Political Economy\, can help effectively situate ourselves to face the challenges before all of humanity and nature\, and begin the process of reclaiming and putting into effect our human capacities for the betterment and advancement of each and all. \nThe study of Volume III is essential to understanding the complex dynamics at work in the present realities we are facing and how these realities are the necessary results of the inner logic of capital. In this moribund stage of late capitalist/imperialist development we see the rise of rentier and finance capital—the introduction of financial instruments being used to make money make more money\, jumping over and above the actual real wealth produced by trading on future wealth (derivatives and other forms of fictitious capital); overriding supply and demand as a price mechanism in such necessities as foodstuffs so that their prices continuously rise resulting in more poverty and starvation on a world scale and here in the US; turning new technologies into means of collecting rents—the internet\, mobile devices; expropriation of taxes paid by the working class to developers who are often tax exempt while our city and state governments give them tracts of our physical space; commodification of debt; privatization of public spaces\, properties and institutions; foreclosures; and the list goes on. \nCapital\, Volume III\, The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole\, completes Marx’s task of moving from the imaginary concrete—the researcher and scientist analyzing the appearances we see in everyday life such as in the Grundrisse\, to the abstract concrete. The results of the analytic study of the phenomenon that has revealed the social/natural content of that phenomenon (Volumes I and II)\, to the real concrete—how this content is expressed in everyday life through the mechanisms by which the actors determine their actions and appropriate wealth (Volume III). \nWith the conceptual integration of production and circulation (Volumes I and II) from the standpoint of the process of capitalist production as a whole\, Marx returns to the starting point of the research categories\, the imaginary concrete\, concepts seen as empirical givens as facts in themselves— profits\, interests\, rents\, rate of profit\, prices. These sensuously perceived givens (the way the world directly appears to us) are the starting point of the research analysis\, not the science. But now\, after the analysis\, these interrelated aspects of what appear on the surface of society are no longer imaginary but real\, understood as interrelated dynamics and mechanisms in everyday life by which the actors reproduce the social relations and physical conditions of capitalist society. Volume III integrates and completes the analysis of the process of capitalist production as a whole\, enabling us to understand and make sense of how each of the appearances and processes we see occurring on the surface of society are related to the whole. When we do so all the laws of motion previously revealed in the first two volumes take on new dimensions. Internal dynamics and contradictions burst out and situate humanity withina historical process that calls us to figure out how to go beyond capital and develop the conditions that insure that the development of each is the precondition for the development of all. \nWe will be starting or close to starting Part 3 of the volume on The Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit. Until the Coronavirus and safe distancing and with staying at home being the healthy and responsible choice\, these sessions will be conducted via Zoom. If you register to participate\, you will be contacted with all information needed and a zoom link will be provided each week until we can meet in person\, if such conditions exist between now and mid-July. \nThe CAPITAL STUDIES GROUP has been meeting on Saturdays for more than nearly three years. We are a group of workers\, students\, activists and teachers who have dedicated themselves to a chronological reading of all three volumes of Marx’s Capital. Newcomers are encouraged to join when your schedule permits. \nAll classes and events of The MEP are sliding scale. No one is turned away for inability to pay. Zoom classes rates are slightly less than in person meetings. However\, there are costs involved in keeping our site running\, having zoom sessions and paying for our office.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/capital-volume-3-2nd-sessions/2020-07-04/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Classes/Events,Marx's Capital,Political Economy
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ORGANIZER;CN="Capital Studies Group":MAILTO:info@marxedproject.org
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