y separately published work icon Bertolt Brecht Leaves Los Angeles single work   musical theatre   - Two acts
Issue Details: First known date: 1978... 1978 Bertolt Brecht Leaves Los Angeles
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Bertolt Brecht has decided to direct his own version of Madame Butterfly on the eve of his departure from America. This will be his final comment to and about the country. But some of the actors he has chosen to use have different opinions. They are on the eve of their own country's new era; an era of mistrust, patriotism, personal and political repression. The backdrop for all of this is both the opera by Puccini and the condition of society in the City of Los Angeles in the Year of Our Lord, 1947.' Roger Pulvers.(1982): 6.

Notes

  • Dedication: Bertolt Brecht Leaves Los Angeles is dedicated to Mel Helstien.
  • Author's Foreword: I set out to write a play about the enmeshing conflict of the personal and the political. Interwoven throughout the gaudy tactics of the American battle against Brecht is a real love story...This play is an exploration. The so-called Brechtian method has become a tired orthodoxy...If Brecht stood for anything it was for a healthy, strapping cynicism. The play has thirteen songs; and I have always seen it as a musical. The masks are not an additional feature of colour, but the essential elemenet of the play. At the heart of this is the relationship between the actor and his mask [his character]. This is something I learned in Japan. In that sense I want to explore Brecht from the East rather than from the West....Finally, if I may add a personal note, this play is about someone who tries to create drama in a country in which he was not born. One of its themes is intolerance toward an individual who does not fit into the 'mainstream'. One can have many comforts in a foreign land. But nothing is worse than the personal exile that a society imposes on someone different from the outside. In that sense BERTOLT BRECHT LEAVES LOS ANGELES is a very Australian play....Roger Pulvers.

Production Details

  • First produced at the Playbox Theatre, Melbourne, 1 June 1979.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
  • ms emendations.
  • Date of writing : 25 July 1978 (note on last page by author).
      1978 .
      Extent: 29 leavesp.
      Description: Typescript (duplicated).
      (Manuscript) assertion

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Queensland University of Queensland Library Fryer Library
      Local Id: H1409
Alternative title: Bertolt Brecht Leaves Los Angeles - in the year of Our Lord 1947 - A musical with tableaux, to explore the mask.
First known date: 1978
    • Montmorency, Lower Plenty - Eltham area, Melbourne - Northeast, Melbourne, Victoria,: Yackandandah Playscripts , 1982 .
      Extent: 66p.
      Note/s:
      • Author's Foreword: I set out to write a play about the enmeshing conflict of the personal and the political....The play has thirteen songs; and I have always seen it as a musical....Finally, if I may add a personal note, this play is about someone who tries to create drama in a country in which he was not born. One of its themes is intolerance toward an individual who does not fit into the 'mainstream'. One can have many comforts in a foreign land. But nothing is worse than the personal exile that a society imposes on someone different from the outside. In that sense, Bertolt Brecht Leaves Los Angeles is a very Australian play....' (pp.5-6).
      ISBN: 0868050156
      Series: Yackandandah Playscripts Series 1 Jeffrey Fiddes (editor), Yackandandah Playscripts (publisher), 1982 series - publisher drama
Last amended 2 May 2017 16:03:52
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