Baal—the first play by German provocateur Bertolt Brecht—has posed a thorny challenge to the theatre world since its debut a century ago. The titular character, a charismatic and rebellious young poet, is notorious for his misogynistic and violent nature. Brecht's Baal rejects societal norms, indulges in excess and captivates the literary scene, only to spiral into self-absorption and moral decay. Yet by presenting Baal as an amoral force rather than a misunderstood anti-hero or rock star, Brecht presents a question: what should we do with him?
For Irish theatre group Dead Centre and their partners at the Beijing Repertory Theater, the answer is: we cancel him. And they don't mean figuratively— their adaptation literally blurs out the character live on stage.
Cancel culture may feel like a modern phenomenon, but the Artistic Directors of Dead Centre Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd tell FestMag that it's "a new name for an old idea". "Every society has looked to expel people who seem to represent what is wrong with that community … Whether it's the cursed Oedipus sent into exile or a disgraced figure like Harvey Weinstein, the phenomenon of 'cancelling' has a long history," Moukarzel and Kidd say.
Dead Centre and the Beijing Repertory Theater have a reputation for re-inventing classic works and Baal is on brand for both companies as Brecht himself famously spent much of his career re-writing the text. "He struggled with whether the character of Baal was useful to an audience—was his anti-social behaviour instructive, or was it merely destructive? This creative struggle is interesting as it raises the question central to his whole approach to theatre: what is art for? Can it change the world?"
Long before this Sino-Irish collaboration came about, Brecht himself looked to China and Chinese actors to help him develop his famous Verfremdungseffekt, or alienation effect. "He was looking to combine Chinese stage aesthetics with his European literary sensibilities to create a new form of theatre," Moukarzel and Kidd say. "Collaborations are the source of all creativity: ideas, and people, like to travel the world to create connections and discover commonalities."
