BERTOLT BRECHT'S THE EXCEPTION AND THE RULE

We're working on a short one-act that we're going to perform here in a couple of weeks as a low-budget, small-scale studio piece showcasing my MFA acting class. Very fortunately for me, it's by Brecht, and therfore, a piece of real art.

Here's a bit on The Exception and the Rule from Wikipedia:

The play itself is short, and lasts no longer than 30 minutes if performed in its entirety. It tells the story of a rich merchant, who must cross the fictional Yahi Desert to close an oil deal. During the trip the class differences between him and his working-class porter (or "coolie" as he is called in most English language editions) are shown. Eventually when the Merchant fires his guide, and the porter and the Merchant himself get lost, and the water supplies are running low, the Merchant mistakenly shoots the coolie, thinking he was being attacked, when he was in reality being offered some water the coolie still had left in his bottle.

Later, in a court room scene, the evidence of the murder is presented, and ultimately the Merchant is acquitted afer the Judge concludes that the Merchant had every right to fear a potential threat from the coolie, and that he was justified in shooting the coolie in self-defense regardless of whether there was an actual threat, or whether the Merchant simply felt threatened.

Click here for more. There's not much, but there is a neat picture of the playwright.

Here's the play's poetic prologue:

We are about to tell you
The story of a journey. An exploiter
And two of the exploited are the travellers.
Examine carefully the behavior of these people:
Find it surprising though not unusual
Inexplicable though normal
Incomprehensible though it is the rule.
Consider even the most insignificant, seemingly simple
Action with distrust. Ask yourselves whether it is necessary
Especially if it is usual.
We ask you expressly to discover
That what happens all the time is not natural.
For to say that something is natural
In such times of bloody confusion
Of ordained disorder, of systematic arbitrariness
Of inhuman humanity is to
Regard it as unchangeable.

In short, the above excerpt is the play's moral, that what we all accept as "normal" and "right" is often anything but that. This is one of the great but unknown truths of our era.

There is so much about our culture, about our social arrangements, politics, and economics that is simply accepted without questioning. Indeed, it's pretty clear that most people don't even know how to question these things, or even that they should. Consequently, various powers-that-be in our society are able to advance their agendas virtually unchallenged, to the detriment of average ordinary people.

Years ago, in one of the radio, television, and film courses I took at UT, I learned that this notion is described as "cultural hegemony" or rule through the concept of "the way things are is because that's the way things are." It has been particularly frustrating for me over the years to be aware of how this works in the US while being unable to really do much about it. It's one of the reasons I started this blog, to try, in my own small way, to expose what's happening right under our noses. But it's a hard sell.

I am certain, for instance, that the mainstream news media are conservative, not liberal, but everybody takes for granted that the reverse is true. There are mountains of evidence that Bush literally stole the 2000 Presidential election, but most people "know" such things don't happen in America. It is irrefutable that our public education system's main function is to indoctrinate children into a culture of authority and obedience, which heavily interferes with learning and promotion of democratic values, but most Americans think education simply needs reform, not a total revamp. In so many instances, it is clear that we don't live in the reality in which most people believe.

Like I said, it's a hard sell. But I'll keep trying, both here at Real Art and as a theater artist, if only so that I'm able to look at myself in the mirror every morning when I wake up. And so should you. Like Brecht, I think we have a moral obligation to question everything: consequently, not questioning everything is immoral.

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