156. A Man’s a Man by Bertolt Brecht

For English readers, the title of Brecht’s play A Man’s a Man (1926) has echoes of Rabbie Burns —‘A man’s a man for a’ that’. But the original German title has a twist it is impossible to render in English. It is Mann ist Mann, which can, in German, be heard either as ‘Man is Man’ or ‘Man Eats Man’, since ‘ist’ (‘is’) and ‘isst’ (’eats’) are homophones.

The play, set in British India, deals with a fish porter who is brainwashed into assuming the identity of a dead soldier, and, as the action progresses, witnesses and commits numerous atrocities. Brecht claimed the play presented a ‘new human type...mendacious, optimistic, flexible’: and in the light of current events of 1926 — thousands were joining the Nazis — this seems prescient. Man is predatory and cannibalistic, and Germany, under the guise of national renewal, was consuming itself.

Consulted:
Hayman, Ronald: Brecht: A Biography‎ (1983)

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