Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson: The Dialectical Triad of Playwright, Director and Berliner Ensemble Actors in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera

1. Introduction

Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson are both theatrical giants who have transformed the mode of presentation and communication in the 20^th century. Both recognized the representation of theatre as an artifact but also the significance of the man-the-actor, the live performers’ activities. However, for Brecht and Wilson, the intended effect on the audience is quite different.

  Brecht targets the underlying socio-political reality, whereas Wilson explores a pre-verbal reality of synesthesia. Thus, we can also argue that they develop different types of Verfremdung and dialectics, corresponding to the divergent missions they assign to their theatres.

  Wilson’s 2007 production of Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera at the Schiffbauerdamm theatre of the Berliner Ensemble, can be considered a special case among Wilson’s works. He has much less freedom in editing and re-organizing the music and the text, and there is a linear narrative and pre-existing structure to follow. In his later artistic stage, Wilson usually enjoys disintegrating, cutting and re-sequencing the text, or inserting other texts, so that the classics are vivisected under Wilson’s aesthetics. He deconstructs and plays with language and opens up a space for pre-verbal reality and pre-cognitive mental activities of the spectator.

In addition, in this production, Wilson mainly worked with actors from the Berliner Ensemble, who were not only familiar with the classical interpretation of Brecht’s plays but also trained in “gestic” acting. They were used to a rehearsal process where actors were co-creators with the director and designer which seems to be incompatible with Wilson’s usual way of directing, having great control over the mise en scène. This became a second restraint Wilson encountered in this production.

Therefore, an interesting question is: Without his freedom to edit, do Wilson’s unique aesthetics still work? How did he deal with such constraints? Do the aesthetics of Wilson and Brecht clash with each other or can they in some way dialectically co-create a unique third aesthetic? How can Wilson’s directing and dominant aesthetic structure collaborate with the Brechtian actors’ training? 

To demonstrate the dialectical complexity between Brecht and Wilson concretely, this paper first analyzes the scenography and the costume design in Wilson’s production of The Threepenny Opera. These combined components create a Wilsonian visual space that is, on the one hand, different from historical materialism and dialectical realism by mixing historically specific details with an abstract space of theatrical artificiality. On the other hand, these sister arts support the Brechtian Verfremdung and dialectical thinking in an even more effective way, especially in the contemporary context. In addition, we will examine the acting of two actors, Juergen Holtz and Angela Winkler, who acted with different styles but both helped the holistic aesthetics of Wilson by enhancing the depth of Brecht’s dialectical play. In this part, we shall also look into the rehearsal process to see how Wilson collaborates with strong actors, their spontaneity and individualized inputs.

2. Mise en scène

For an analysis of the chemistry between Wilson’s mise en scène, we shall focus on some moments from the Prologue, the first scene in Peachum’s shop, and the wedding scene.

Wilson explains in the Berliner Program what he finds interesting about Brecht’s theatre "...is the space 'behind it': behind the text there is the finest irony, behind the story there is an idea, behind the characters there are stories, behind the space there is tension. It is a great challenge to find this other side of the work, far beyond what is on paper." (Wilson 86)

The production is introduced by the boisterous voice of Walter Schmidinger announcing the content of the scenes. Then, in true Wilsonian fashion, the characters parade in robot-like movements across the apron, backed by a black curtain with flashing swirls of light reminiscent of a circus atmosphere (Video 1). Mac sings the song "Mac the Knife" with his back to the audience, exposing a naked shoulder. At the end, Jenny stands next to him, facing the audience and informs them: "This is Mac the Knife." The association with a 1920s cabaret is striking, and the introduction of Jenny’s perspective as a narrative setup adds multiple layers of interpretation.

Wilson’s set design ignores Brecht’s stage theory which juxtaposes realistic theatrical signs, designating milieu and time and linking stage space to non-theatrical reality. The Model-book of the 1928 Berliner production, showed the use of a huge wooden door, indicating the wedding scene’s location as a typical stable. 

Instead, Robert Wilson sees the stage abstractly and begins every production with sketches and drawings: "Once I know the space it is much easier for me to decide what to do in it." (Wilson 32)

Inspired by the American minimalist artist, Dan Flavin, who created installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures, Wilson describes the Peachum shop in the following words:

And the marriage scene as

By confronting two modes of representation - visual (the abstract neon lights) and verbal (Brecht’s text) - that complete and conflict with each other, Wilson highlights the arbitrary and inadequate nature of all systems of representation but adds another dimension to Brechtian critique. 

   At one point in the wedding scene, when Mac and Tiger Brown sing the Cannon-Song, Polly is hanging high up like a religious icon amid the vertical lines, giving the illusion of a church with Madonna. Religious associations are not new for Wilson. For the occasion of the Passion Play, 2000, in Oberammergau, he was commissioned to create 14 stations, temporarily bound up with the staging of the passion play next door. At the thirteenth station of the strongly stylized tableaux “Jesus is taken down from the cross and laid in Mary’s arms,” the Mater Dolorosa was printed on a thin curtain with the face of the pop star Madonna, as a modern relic. 

The dialectic of Wilson’s abstraction, his lighting, the body of the actor and Brecht’s text can be seen as a higher dialectical synthesis revealing religious aspects not written in the text.

Accordingly, the renowned playwright and novelist, Roland Schimmelpfennig, comments on the production: ”I was very taken by the friction between Wilson’s strong vision and Brecht’s anarchy; that was something I did not expect. I find the Threepenny Opera always a bit difficult because it is so anchored in specific social settings. Take for instance the beggars who are represented as running a business in the play, and Wilson depicts this in a refreshingly comical manner that surprised me quite a bit.” (Schimmelpfennig) 

Jacques Reynaud’s costumes don’t give concrete statements about the dramatic characters. They are all black and white - except for Macheath and Polly - and reveal strong silhouettes, according to Wilson. On the one hand the costumes are reminiscent of German silent films, Expressionism and the seductive world of Weimar-area cabaret. On the other hand, they evoke some of the central themes of the current political climate like gender issues, androgyny and sexuality, “far beyond what is on paper”. 

Stefan Kurt as Macheath has a blonde wavy, lacquered dandy hairstyle, wears elbow-length gloves, big painted eyes with false eyelashes, and fetish underwear underneath a shimmering, sequenced black suit, a kind of corset that emphasizes the missing breasts.  Getting up from the wedding bed, he displays a tiny black slip with the corset.

Later, when he briefly puts on his friend Tiger Brown's top hat, the association with Marlene Dietrich is obvious. Once back in jail, after having shown up at the whorehouse, Mac is dressed like a Wall Street Banker. Fleeing from his father-in-law, he was supposed to hide in the heaths of Highgate where his outfit had to blend in with the locals but he could not resist making a visit to the Turnbridge whorehouse before his departure. This series of costume changes underscores the fluidity of Macheath’s identity, navigating between private and public spaces. Juergen Holtz as Peachum looks like a clown or mime reminding the audience of the circus-like atmosphere of the Prologue and Tiger Brown is a caricature out of the 1920 film Nosferatu.  

From the few details mentioned above, we can see that Wilson’s visuals simultaneously perform a threefold function in their interaction with Brecht’s text:

1. Echoing what the scenes require according to the text via visual suggestions

2. Adding new associations, including both socio-political and non-political ones, to the socio-political themes and topics in the text, especially in relation to the contemporary context where the socio-historical conditions and social concerns have changed

3. Injecting rich visual aesthetics of expressionism, symbolism, surrealism and abstractionism to Brecht’s dialectical-sociological text, exposing the contradiction and limitations while at the same time letting them enrich each other, allowing the audience to make their own associations. 

Besides interacting with Brecht’s text, Wilson’s visuals also form a self-sufficient aesthetic space, through his signature elements, like his use of light and contrast, his huge horizontal proscenium stage, and a spatial configuration that compresses a 3D theatre stage into a 2D canvas. The actors and settings become part of a larger painting that is evolving, as can be clearly seen in the Prologue and many other moments. Moreover, his use of sound effects and the time-prolongating moments of silence create intentional interruptions to the original flow of the text, although Wilson cannot change the musical score. This allows Wilson’s own aesthetics to temporarily dominate, and make Brecht’s narrative subordinate to Wilson’s aesthetic cosmos. All this creates a possibility of reading Brecht under Wilson, which can be non-political but purely poetic and dreamy, different from a reading in which Wilson’s mise en scène serves and enriches Brecht. This possibility of opposing readings, provides chances of mutual Verfremdung between Brecht’s dramaturgy and Wilson’s mise en scène, actualizing the dialectics among sister arts that Brecht envisioned. Therefore, in The Threepenny Opera, the non-political (from Wilson) and the political (from Brecht) are dialectically assisting each other. The contradiction and interruption between modes of representation create Verfremdung through which spectators get even more space to experience and think, a space that Wilson promised in the Berliner Program quoted earlier.

3. Acting

Now let’s turn also to the acting to see how the dialectics between Wilson and Brecht worked to create a dialectical relationship between Wilson and strong actors.

In Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, Wilson offers his usual extravagant, often grotesque visual aesthetic like Tiger Brown’s macabre and abstract dance during an interlude making only his hands and face visible in front of the black background. Another example would be when Mac’s bandits prepare the wedding scene by entering the “stable“ in the same manner as they paraded across the stage in the prologue having pieces of furniture under their arms which also serve as props in their well-choreographed ballet. But there are also many Brechtian moments. Juergen Holtz as Peachum worked throughout his career with many former Brecht students like Benno Besson and Heiner Mueller. He can’t help himself translating vague, stylized Wilson gestures into a Brechtian Gestus. His pronunciation of words is crystal clear, but his body posture often contradicts the text. (Video 2)

When Filch pays his dues, Peachum’s body mimes the dropping of the coins into his hand and pocket accompanied by a prolonged and exaggerated clanking of the silver as if falling into a metal can. Peachum’s face changes from a grim expression into a laughing grimace. Money seems to be the principal motivation for most characters. (Video 3)

Polly’s announcement to her parents of her wedding causes her mother to faint. She badly needs a drink and every sip she takes is accompanied by dripping water sounds. Her husband closes his ears with his hands - he hates his wife’s drinking - and then points silently at his wife making it clear that his daughter’s marriage is all her fault. This scene clearly corresponds to Brecht’s wish that a production should be understood without text and just through precise body language.  

Christina Drechsler as the wide-eyed fluttery and doll-like Polly transforms her girlish behaviour when singing the Pirate-Jenny song. Suddenly one can recognize the cold, tough daughter of Peachum behind the childish façade equipped to take over both businesses, her father’s and Mac’s. (Video 4) The wedding is like a business transaction. Mac drags his bride along the floor onto the stage like a sack of potatoes. (Video 5) The two hardly ever look at each other and when they do kiss, they are rather like two women, which also questions Polly’s sexual orientation. Their body postures dispel any notion of sexual tension or “love” between them. They both radiate loneliness and cold calculation. (Video 6) On the other hand, there is clearly a strong erotic connection between Mac and Tiger Brown while Mac tells the audience how the chief of the London police was covering up all his crimes. (Video 7)

A very special place in Wilson’s production which was lauded by most critics was Angela Winkler as Mac’s ex-lover and whore, Jenny.  Winkler does not give a damn about acting jargon like Verfremdung, she is a great actor who always finds the “right” way to bring out the meaning of the text.  In a conversation, she related that Wilson never imposed any gestures on her, he just tells her stories and allows her to find her own body posture and voice. She said, “Bob needs strong personalities, not small actors who just want to imitate him”. Winkler’s Solomon-song is like a unique mini mise en scène devoid of any Verfremdung, singing in a brilliant vibrato how she is torn apart by love for and hatred of Macheath. This almost delirious scene by Angela Winkler is like an accident in Wilson’s theatre. He is not interested in the soul of his characters – neither is Brecht – but precisely because he keeps the characters of his Threepenny Opera production so distant, Angela’s realistic and emotional rendering provides such a powerful contrast. (Video 8) 

Roland Schimmelpfennig found "the acting and singing sensational, Angela Winkler in particular; she only had a small role but she was unbelievably great. The familiar music score was given different layers of meaning, forcing the audience to listen with fresh ears.  Brecht’s text can be rather old-fashioned and sometimes feels a bit antiquated, but Wilson almost made it seem dangerous." (Schimmelpfennig)

4. Dialectics between the political and the non-political in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera

   
   

Besides being a director, Wilson is also an architect and a painter. To sum up the subtle, dialectical relationship between Wilson’s directing and canonical texts like Brecht’s, in addition to Wilson’s earlier quoted words, another quote of Wilson from Arthur Holmberg’s book can be helpful. Besides digging into the space behind Brecht’s text, directing Lear, Wilson said the following during rehearsals:

The same applies also to Brecht. The key here is creating space for the text to be listened to and reflected upon. Wilson also created space around the text, building a place for the spectators to meet the text and form their own associations. Here, Wilson’ works like an architect, which he was really trained to be.

Meanwhile, Wilson the painter and visual artist, took moments to interrupt the text in The Threepenny to show his painterly vision, in which the architecture he built on stage, the actors, and Brecht’s text all turn into images that are parts of this painting. Both Wilson’s architectural and painterly design interact with Brecht’s text, supporting and renewing the latter with visual-audio suggestions as well as rich imaginary possibilities of association and creative ambiguities. 

However, Wilson’s mise en scène and Brecht’s text as two modes of representation also interrupt and contradict each other at different moments. This is the first layer of additional dialectics that Wilson’s aesthetics give to the original dialectics already present in Brecht’s play.

Moreover, Wilson’s openness to and utilization of actors with strong but different qualities and strengths during rehearsals also adds on another layer of dialectics to the text. The result is a synthesis of three aesthetics: Wilsonian, Brechtian, and Stanislavski’s naturalistic-psychological acting. This enriches both Wilson’s and Brecht’s mode of acting and opens even more space in the play.

The Threepenny Opera was a special opportunity for such dialectical synthesis to happen, not just because Wilson encounters constraints that he seldom has, but also because Brecht’s text is special in its episodic structure, its equal emphasis on realism and artifact, and its inherent dialectical dramaturgy. These are absent in other canonical texts that Wilson worked with. This case demonstrates an important example of how the non-political and the political can be combined. It opens up a possibility of dual reading and a space with ample freedom of association on the audience’s side. Such dialectical synthesis of art and politics ensures a space to prevent a socio-political text from turning into propaganda and shows us the importance of the non-political in the political. Wilson’s visual-audio cosmos is in itself non-political, but it has also a threefold political significance, enriching the political dimension of Brecht’s text:

1. Each audience member has freedom in making their association and interpretation.

2. There is a space of creative ambiguity and contained chaos for “ordinary” order to dissolve or to be deconstructed, and for new order to come into formation.

3. There is a space for the non-political to exist, which is important to avoid everything being subordinated to the political interpretation as the only single possibility.

Conversely, the political horizon of Brecht’s play also enriches Wilson’s non-political cosmos because, even if the political is not necessarily the only or the most important human quality, it is still an important and inevitable dimension of human existence and can be reflected upon within the Wilsonian universe. 

Contemplating Wilson’s world as seen through Brecht’s lens, and vice versa, cruelty and isolation among people is not only political but also metaphysical. The meaning of the political is expanded. Not only does it refer to the vertical politics regarding the individuals and dominating infrastructures and ideological hegemony, it also includes the horizontal politics of interpersonal relationship among individuals. As we see in Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera, the isolated individuals are cruel to each other, taking other individuals as means instead of an end. The only exception could probably be Jenny played by Winkler with her authentic acting that expresses her pain and emotions towards Macheath and the whole crazy world. However, all of them, including Jenny, inevitably get caught in isolation: they can only speak in a monologue-like fashion despite being in a dialogue situation. This is amplified by their moments of singing which interrupt the play, and it is intensified by Wilson’s insertion of pause and his directing choice of making the characters not look at each other. It leaves room for the spectators to think, imagine and explore whether it is the political-economic conditions that make individuals cruel to and isolated from each other, or whether it is such cruelty and isolation being existential characteristics of the conditio humanae that create politics with cruelty and isolation. The dialectics between Wilson’s and Brecht’s aesthetics maintain an open space for us to keep contemplating on these conditions and phenomena, preventing us from jumping to any easy conclusions. It deepens our contemplation that is both political and metaphysical.

V. Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera in the contemporary debates about ‘political theatre’

Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera explores the interplay between political themes and a contemplative, indeterminate space. This duality engages with contemporary debates on the nature of political theatre. Specifically, it addresses the dilemma of how theatre can remain politically relevant as it avoids reducing performances to mere thematic engagement and avoids unintentionally adopting forms that are politically conservative or even oppressive. On the other hand, it also avoids formalism that, while appearing politically progressive, risks becoming self-enclosed and detached from the real world.

Often categorized as post-dramatic theatre, Wilson’s works, as described by Hans-Thies Lehmann, respond to the sociocultural shifts of the late 20th century, where media technology and globalization transformed traditional dramatic theatre (16-17). Post-dramatic theatre emphasizes form over fictional representation, narrative unity, coherent characters, and passive spectatorship. These elements, as Jürs-Munby et al. argue, redefine political theatre by rejecting mimetic storytelling in favor of non-linear, participatory, and perceptually immediate experiences. This approach shifts from "making political theatre" to "making theatre in a political way." (9)

However, critiques expressed by the likes of Thomas Ostermeier highlight potential pitfalls, including the risk of formalism leading to political apathy, which ultimately becomes part of the oppressive system (Boenisch 459). Ostermeier argues that some post-dramatic works inadvertently reinforce the ideological status quo through "capitalist realism," rendering them self-referential and detached from social relevance (Boenisch and Ostermeier 2). This critique underscores the tension in post-dramatic theatre between formal innovation and meaningful political engagement.

Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera, combining Brechtian dramaturgy with post-dramatic aesthetics, offers a potential resolution to this tension. Brecht’s use of fable and socio-economic causality, while contrasting with Lehmann’s critique of narrative structures, retains its political sharpness through strategies of estrangement and interruption. Wilson enriches this dialectic by blending Brecht’s political intent with his own visual and structural innovations, creating a layered experience that resists superficial coherence, as discussed earlier in this essay. By maintaining loose, multilayered, and often indirect connections to external realities while also fostering imaginative reflection, the production bridges the divide between form and theme, avoiding the pitfalls of formalism and expanding the possibilities of political theatre.

In this synthesis, Wilson’s The Threepenny Opera affirms the value of combining political and non-political elements, offering a model for addressing contemporary complexities. It preserves the political dimension through open-ended engagement, enabling audiences to explore nuanced interpretations of societal and existential dynamics.