Drums in the Night
by Bertolt Brecht
Directed by: Sarah Wansley
Costume Designer: Amy Sutton Lighting Designer: Chris Lundhal |
University of California San Diego
Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre November 2013 |
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Soldiers fight for the home they’ve left behind, but neither the soldier who fights nor the home he leaves behind can remain as they were the day he marched off to war. Brecht explores this unfortunate truth through the experience of the badly battered veteran Andreas who has to chose between the old lover, Anna, who he knows is bearing another man’s child and the Marxist Spartakus revolt he knows has no hope of succeeding.
To connect to a modern audience we moved the play from the Great War to the Iraq war, but to maintain a connection to the original era we drew inspiration from the paintings of George Grosz, who was a contemporary of Brecht. Grosz caricatured Berlin social life, so I designed a set that was a garish mockery of contemporary America. The back wall was a block of disgusting ads highlighting the emptiness of American consumerism. The upper middle class gather at a TGI Fridays while the working class gather in a dive bar that isn’t actually any different than the supposedly nicer establishment.
The progressive grimness of their night culminates in the whole cast frolicking in a blizzard of garbage. As a final blow, even the blood red moon that has been taunting Andreas throughout the play is nothing more than a neon sign that Anna can simply unplug.
To connect to a modern audience we moved the play from the Great War to the Iraq war, but to maintain a connection to the original era we drew inspiration from the paintings of George Grosz, who was a contemporary of Brecht. Grosz caricatured Berlin social life, so I designed a set that was a garish mockery of contemporary America. The back wall was a block of disgusting ads highlighting the emptiness of American consumerism. The upper middle class gather at a TGI Fridays while the working class gather in a dive bar that isn’t actually any different than the supposedly nicer establishment.
The progressive grimness of their night culminates in the whole cast frolicking in a blizzard of garbage. As a final blow, even the blood red moon that has been taunting Andreas throughout the play is nothing more than a neon sign that Anna can simply unplug.