Intentional Melodrama Forms in Brecht's The Jewish Wife

The triviality of melodrama is so often the theatrical scapegoat that boils the blood of the modern-day critic: the sentimental monologues, the martyred young lovers, the triumphant hero, and the self-indulgent imagery. Melodrama would seem the ultimate taboo; another failed Shakespearean staging or even worse, an opera minus the pretty music. Ironically, Bertolt Brecht, dramatic revolutionary and cynic of all things contrived found promise in the melodramatic presentation. Brecht examined and manipulated the various superficial and spectacular aspects of theatre, establishing a synthesis of entertainment and social criticism as his fundamental goal. Bertolt Brecht employs various facets of melodramatic technique in The Jewish Wife, ultimately reconfiguring the genre and conveying his central theme; a society rendered immobile at the will of a totalitarian regime.

In an initially superficial investigation of the text, Brecht's The Jewish Wife is aesthetically structured in the same concrete format of melodrama. Though only a one-act piece, the play is broken down into a series of distinct units, each one an intense highlight of the protagonist's life (Brooks, 87). Superfluous exposition is almost entirely eliminated from the text and the audience is introduced to the heroine, Judith Keith, through her rather impersonal phone conversations.

Much like its traditional counterpart, the text utilizes precise rhythmic patterns through each of Judith's one-sided segments of dialogue (Brooks, 89). The suspense

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builds with every call Judith makes, the urgency of her departure made more imperative

with every conversation. Whereas in the first call, she takes the time to explain her parting and making ...

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...h is revealed the hero and her society, incapacitated.

Although Brecht's work remains thoroughly melodramatic for much of the action, there is a clear contrast between the standard form and his altered style. Whether or not the audience can appreciate the clever use of the genre however does not compare to the importance of entertainment. With an emphasis on the melodramatic convention, there is no longer the impulse to settle into the tragedy of the heroine but instead to do something of much greater value: to consider new societal questions and criticisms.

Works Cited

Bentley, Eric. The Jewish Wife and Other Short Plays.

New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1965.

Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism; Four Essays.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957.