in love and war: the brig at living theatre

The relationship between theatre and politics is always fraught—and while there are universal themes in plays that can speak beyond historical context, sometimes the reality outplays the art.  Then again, there are other times when revisiting something from a previous century (and isn’t it so strange that we can already consider the 20th century previous) simultaneously reveals a certain naïveté and sophistication from both past and present perspectives.  The Living Theatre’s current restaging of The Brig from 1963 in their new space on the Lower East Side certainly does that—forcing one to confront what nearly half a century ago was a new and controversial statement with the violent reality of the present. 

New York City’s off-Broadway scene owes much to Judith Malina and Julian Beck’s Living Theatre.  Founded in 1947, it is the oldest experimental theatre company in the country and, early in its formation, was among the first US companies to produce plays by Bertolt Brecht, Jean Cocteau, T.S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein, among others.  It also was known for collaborating with composers, including Alan Hovhanness and Luigi Nono—a production of Nono’s collaboration with the Living Theatre, The Forest is Young and Full of Life , from 1964, is, in fact, opening on Tuesday at PS 122, directed by Emmy-nominated Habib Azar and performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble. 

The historical significance of the Living Theatre and its work was part of what made watching the restaging of The Brig, by Kenneth Brown, particularly complicated.  Having just signed a 20-year lease on a newly renovated theatre space on Clinton Street, the company, now led by Malina and Hanon Reznikov, inaugurated their new space with a restaging of the play that, in its last run, led to the closing of the theatre by the IRS and the 60- and 30-day imprisonment of Beck and Malina, respectively.  And which, the night the theatre was closed, resulted in a spontaneous interview conducted from the street by Richard Schechner, yelling into a megaphone questions for Malina.  The Brig is steeped in legend; but when history repeats itself, when we find ourselves once again protesting a war we don’t believe in, saturated with unprecedented images of US military–wrought violence and torture, can the legend live up to the reality?

The new production of The Brig is brilliant and powerful—the action happening behind barbed wire and the metal cage of what I can only imagine is a realistic, if condensed, representation of a military brig, in which soldiers are imprisoned for up to 30 days for “serious crimes.”  The actors, referred to by numbers (Prisoners 1 through 10), were put through drills (running, cleaning—the “Fieldtrip” means the “sanitization of the brig”—pushups, and the like) that, with the sweat streaming down the actors’ bodies, pushed theatre into endurance art, and were alternately punched, grabbed, and otherwise humiliated by the guards.  The repetition of military routine and discipline (not necessarily distinguished from punishment) became a choreographic and sonic spectacle of the prisoners’ sharp movements and hoarse yells in the intimate space.  During the Fieldtrip, in particular, the sound and frenzy completely filled the room and reverberated as if within my own body.  Though the action was completely removed from the audience, it felt as if it were happening all around the space. 

Yet, even as the Fieldtrip overwhelmed, and even as I found myself staring wide-eyed at what the prisoners would have to do next, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, why is it that I am supposed to feel bad for these men? Why critique the military for how it treats its own when we have proof of the horrors it wreaks on those who do not fall under the protection of the US—and even those who do?  Is it possible to pity these men who know their time in the brig is finite; to wince at held punches? (This is where theatre cedes to performance art—in the latter, when someone is cut, they bleed; in theatre, the representation compromises both the literal and metaphoric impact.  I almost would have preferred Batman-esque “BAM”s and “KAPOW”s in lieu of the punches, the fictive violence a better stand-in for the real than a representational one.)

And history begins to break down.  Yes, the play succeeds in demonstrating “the discipline and the training that suppresses free will and makes it possible for good-hearted young women and men to commit the atrocities that armies everywhere commit,” as Malina notes in the program.  So the brig becomes the training ground for the torture evident in images from Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—but The Brig precedes those images, comes out, in fact, of a historical moment, after World War II, when there was, if only in romanticized thought, a certain pride to being a soldier.  In 1963, this play may have been controversial for critiquing what it means to feel that pride; in 2007, it might be controversial not for revealing the internal crimes of the military, but for not revealing the mandated crimes that happen outside The Brig.

The most moving part of the play for me was not the guards’ violence against the prisoners, or even the wonderfully frenetic Fieldtrip.  It was directly after the Fieldtrip, as the prisoners, sitting or kneeling in formation, are writing letters in a half-hour reprieve.  They lean over scraps of paper with tiny golf pencils, and I could almost imagine the illegible, ineloquent words being written.  It is not that the soldiers are turned into animals, or turned into weapons, but that they are turned into children, robbed of the agency and humanity that makes them men, robbed of the pride that may have once made soldiers. 

Comments

[joe rorke]

I read the play quite a few years ago. It was more than just a little hard to take. I thought about Mr. Brown and he reminded me of another Mr. Brown that I knew that experienced the same thing Kenneth Brown did. In essence at least. It is a sad commentary on the human being. I'm so very glad this play is being put out for the public to see once again. I often think they could put it out 10,000 times and the audience might get just an inkling of what this experience is all about. One thing the audience can know for sure. When the play is over they waltz out the door and go home. That's kind of a nice feeling. Their heads will still be screwed on straight.

[Ken Brown]

For those interested, the run of The Brig has been extended indefinitely becaue of the favoirable reviews and overwhelming response.
Best,
Ken

[RLewis]

Thanks for some terrific thoughts on this play. I saw it in previews last month, and it's still on my mind. As with your post it created an internal dialogue that I still don't have answers to. There were moments when I was reminded how little had changed in the world, and other times that so much had changed. But to create such discussion with so little story, narrative or plot, well, for me that's the "show don't tell" of performance Art.