„Fabriktagebuch/ Die Mutter“
(Factory Diary / The Mother)
based on Simone Weil and Bertolt Brecht
Corinna Harfouch
Corinna Harfouch interweaves scenes from Brecht’s didactic play “The Mother” with the harrowing descriptions of a working day in the 1930s from the “Diary of a Factory” by Brecht’s contemporary, Simone Weil. In the interplay between objective theatre and reading, all revolutionary pathos disappears. A sophisticated image is created using the simplest of methods. Where Brecht succeeds in a structural presentation of the gradual emancipation of the mother of a socialist worker and the struggle against oppression, Simone Weil fills in the blanks with true-to-life illustrations. Where Brecht focuses on the fight for better wages, the philosopher and social revolutionary Weil addresses the actual conditions under which people work. Where Brecht sees the owner of the factory as the enemy, Weil does not conceal the multi-layered problems of hierarchical work structures. Weil speaks from the experience of a courageous activist who was employed as an unskilled worker in a factory for her research.
idea, concept, production:
Corinna Harfouch
director:
Corinna Harfouch, Hannah Dörr
music:
Hannes Gwisdek
camera, light:
Jesse Mazuch
thanks to:
Bo Anderl, Oscar Olivo, Suheer Saleh
with texts b Bertolt Brecht:
„Die Mutter“ (1933) and Simone Weil: „Fabriktagebuch“ (1934) © Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin / Bertolt-Brecht-Erben
special thanks to:
Erdmut Wizisla