Brecht, B., "from Augsburg, Germany" as he told the HUAC in his strong Suabian accent when he had to testify there, isn't a favourite writer of mine, but I wouldn't want to miss some of the poems and several of the plays. And no, I'm not just talking about the Three-Penny Opera. One of my favourite poems isn't a well known one; it captures the oddities and one unexpected grace of exile, as well as the passion of working with someone else. Brecht had already staged a first version of his Life of Galileo while still in Europe, but he completely rewrote the play and created a second version in the US, working directly with the actor who was going to create the part in English, Charles Laughton. In a way, you couldn't have asked for a less likely pairing: fleshy, sensitive Laughton, thin, aggressive and quarrelsome Brecht, who didn't speak English very well while Laughton didn't speak a word of German. Both not at home in the California that harbored them while their respective countries were at war. And yet it worked out beautifully. Long after returning to Europe, Brecht wrote an essay describing Laughton's performance in detail (which is fortunate, since we don't have it on film), and while still in America, a poem about working with him. In the spirit of the occasion, I've done a translation into English. Have the German version first:


Brief an den Schauspieler Charles Laughton, die Arbeit an dem Stück "Leben des Galilei" betreffend

Noch zerfleischten sich unsere Völker, als wir
über den abgegriffenen Heften saßen, in Wörterbüchern
Suchend nach Wörtern und viele Male
Unsere Texte ausstrichen und dann
Unter den Strichen hervor die anfänglichen Wendungen
Wieder ausgruben. Allmählich -
Während die Wälle der Häuser einstürzten in unseren
Hauptstädten -
Stürzten die Wälle der Sprachen zusammen. Gemeinsam
Fingen wir an, dem Diktat der Figuren und Vorgänge
Neuem Text zu folgen.

Immerfort wandelte ich mich zum Schauspieler, zeigend
Gestus und Tonfall einer Figur, und du
Wandeltest dich zum Schreiber. Weder ich noch du
Sprangen aus unserm Beruf doch.


Here's my attempt of rendering it in English:

Letter to the actor Charles Laughton


Our people were still tearing each other apart, when we
sat over well-thumbed exercise books, were browsing through dictionaries
in a quest for words, and many times
crossed out our texts, and then
unearthed the original phrases below
the crosses. Bit for bit -
while the walls of houses fell down in our
capitals -
the walls of languages fell into each other. Together
we started to follow the dictation of characters and events,
a new text.

Again and again I made myself an actor, producing
body language and intonation of a character, while you
became a writer. Neither you nor I
fell out of our profession.


Here'a picture of Laughton as Galileo Galilei, from the Los Angeles staging (William Phipps as Andrea and Mickey Knox as the Little Monk):



And here's Brecht, being asked about another poem of his, and the most popular question of post war times, was he now, or had he ever been...




After which Brecht left America, and didn't see Laughton (nor most of the other friends he'd left there) ever again. But he wrote that essay, ""Building Up A Part: Laughton's Galileo", and to this day, it tends to get reprinted whenever this particular play is staged.