For an inexperienced actor, being in a play means a high degree of dedication and the willingness to take a risk, but doing it in a foreign language brings an entirely new set of challenges. That’s what a group of students will be doing this week when they perform Bertolt Brecht’s “Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit” in the original German.
That title alone might be enough to scare most English speakers, but the 11 students have involved themselves in virtually all the aspects of the play’s production, from acting to directing, to costume and set design.
The students are enrolled in “Performance and Production of a German Play,” a course taught by Assistant Professor of German Studies Ulrich Plass and cross-listed in the German Studies and Theater departments, which has not been offered at Wesleyan in three years.
“The idea is to give students a way to put German language skills—which could be somewhat abstract—to use on campus,” said Emrah Yildiz ’05, the play’s director. “Performing motivates people to further explore language in an artistic setting.”
The students have a wide range of speaking abilities, ranging from beginners to fluent speakers. While most German literature classes are reserved for only the most advanced students, this course gives everyone involved the opportunity to move beyond grammar.
Plass began the semester by giving his class five plays to read. After reviewing them all they voted and selected Brecht’s play. Since then, Yildiz said, Plass has left most of the planning up to his students.
The class studied the time period in which the play was written and designed their characters, costumes, and the background music accordingly.
Brecht wrote “Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit” or, in English, “The Petty Bourgeois Wedding,” in 1919. According to Yildiz, the play is a one-act satire that critiques post-World War I German society, specifically of the lower-class’s aspirations toward upward social mobility.
The play, centered on a newly wed bride and groom, is set in the couple’s home built by the groom himself. The couple holds a celebration in their home in honor of their marriage.
Throughout the entire play, the bride is awkwardly trying to conceal the obvious fact that she is already five months pregnant. Brecht questions the ideal of virginity by making it clear that the baby’s father is not necessarily the bridegroom.
“Brecht definitely calls into question monogamy as the basis of marriage, one of the most important societal institutions [in Germany at the time],” Yildiz said.
According to Yildiz, Brecht’s lampoon of monogamy is a parallel theme to the play’s satire of upward social mobility. The playwright is skeptical of the idea that in order to move upward in society, all one needs is the social morale of the bourgeois class.
According to Katrina Smith-Mannschott ’08, a member of the class and also the stage manager for the play, the process of preparing for the production has been challenging, but fun.
“People have improved a lot,” she said. “Saying the same line over and over again gives people a chance to really understand the meaning of the language instead of stumbling over a sentence in a regular classroom exercise.”
Smith-Mannschott took on the task of designing and building the set for the play, in addition to serving as its stage manager. With the help of Charlie Carroll, Assistant Technical Director and Scenery Specialist at the CFA, she built walls that fit between the pillars of campus center’s multi-purpose room to represent the interior of the house where the play is set.
Smith-Mannschott had an extra challenge because she was asked to build a set that will break down during course of the play, which for Yildiz, symbolizes the demystification of marriage of the social mobility.
Also, Smith-Mannschott added that the language barrier should not keep potential audience members away because a complete English synopsis will be available at both performances.
The play is free and will be performed at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday nights in the Campus Center’s multi-purpose room.
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