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POETIC RITUALITY AND TRANSCULTURALITY
himself later in 1948 formulated in his theoretical essay Kleines Organon für
das Theater: "When one says that the theater has derived from the cult, one is
only saying that it became theater through this exodus."? Doesnt the agitators"
stepping out of the group imply that this very “exodus,” as Brecht calls it, is
itself performed in his play? On the one hand, the drama plays with and uses
ritual forms for its aesthetics, it also comes close to a ritual in its effect, but
on the other hand it does not simply aim to become a ritual itself, but to re¬
main theater that uses, reflects on, and criticizes rituals at the same time. The
opening scene already illustrates that Die Mafsnahme is a deliberate, artistic
adaptation and dramatization of rituals and religious genres. Yet the play is
meta-theater, which is evident in the fact that the agitators themselves perform
the situations in which the young comrade allegedly behaved wrongly. In doing
so, the play does not simply carry out his self-sacrifice but rather presents it
from a “theatrical-mimetic” distance.® It also forces the murderers themselves
to reenact the crime they've committed from the victim’s perspective. With
the affirmative staging of the young comrade’s self-sacrifice, which he accepts
and which the control choir advocates, Brecht makes the entire ambivalence
of materialist politics transparent. Through the way it is performed, the play
creates space for the audience to gain a critical distancing from what they see.?”
In contrast to theories of secularization, which understand religion and
rituality as the “remains” of an unenlightened culture, the play shows the
central importance of sacral and ritual meaning for political and cultural ac¬
tions. Die Maßnahme reminds us of the lasting duration and significance of the
sacred, even in the supposedly rationalized modern age. The young comrade
does not simply die; his death is sacredly glorified.
Furthermore, the mere setting of the message with which the control choir
introduces the play: “Your work has been lucky,’ is not what this play is about.
The focus is on learning and understanding through acting. The challenge,
however, remains that, on the one hand the portrayal of the young comrade
by the agitators does not seem to evoke so much empathy among them that
they see their action not only as a tragic necessity but also as morally wrong,
and, on the other hand, if they were absolutely sure of the justification for the
murder, why would they bring this case before the control choir at all? The per¬
formance is important for the agitators so that they can reassure themselves
once again that they have acted correctly. But by deliberately displaying the
execution of the young comrade as a performance by the agitators, the play
raises the question for the audience of whether this is really so. The repetition
Brecht: Kleines Organon fiir das Theater, in GBA 23, 67. [Wenn man sagt, das Theater sei aus
dem Kultischen gekommen, so sagt man nur, dass es durch den Auszug Theater wurde.]
See Arbeitsgruppe München, Kunst und Todesritual, 79.
57 Ibid.
58 Brecht: Die Mafinahme, in GBA 3, 75.
+ A7 +