LETTERS Death of Brecht
Sir: 'I suspect that Tynan has a lot to answer for,' writes Christopher Edwards, reviewing Brecht's The Good Person of Sichuan (2 December), 'for it was his advocacy that helped establish Brecht as an indispensable part of the subsidised reper- tory. Surely the time has come to dump this repetitious and wrong-headed man. The naive, plodding drama he is allowed to foist upon us is intellectually bankrupt and Just no pleasure to watch.' Just in case Mr Edwards thinks that all British critics were on the Brecht/Tynan bandwagon, may I be allowed to quote from my own review of the same play in the Evening Standard of 1 November, 1956.
Brecht represents for me the distillation of all that is plodding, obvious, stolid and worthy in German culture. . . . The parable that Brecht drills home with the enthusiasm of a sadistic dentist is based on the disclosure that virtue is difficult to find in an evil world . . . . He treats his audience as if they were illiterate peasants incapable of grasping the simplest of moral truths . . . The lan- guage contains few lines of memorable wit, imagery or poetry.
If communism is dead, can Brecht be far behind?
Milton Shulman 51G Eaton Square, London SW1
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