By Fredric Dannen
My previous two columns were devoted to an unpleasant truth about the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, namely that he had cheated his most important collaborator, Elisabeth Hauptmann, out of co-authorship credit and royalties. Hauptmann was Brecht’s lover and evidently hoped to marry him, until he threw her over in 1930 for actress Helene Weigel. There is credible evidence that Hauptmann wrote the majority of “The Threepenny Opera,” Brecht’s collaboration with composer Kurt Weill, on which her name did not even appear until recent years. Brecht acknowledged that Hauptmann was principal author of “Happy End,” another musical collaboration with Weill, but allegedly swindled her out of thousands of dollars in payments for foreign rights. All of this has given me a jaundiced view of Brecht and the hope that one day Hauptmann will receive the literary recognition she deserves.
I thought I was done writing about the subject until the other day, when I received a startling email message from a gentleman named Michael Alford, who lives part-time in San Miguel. Though his home is only a few blocks from mine, we had never met. Michael is the son of Werner Aufricht, who changed the family name to Alford in 1939 when he emigrated from what is now Poland to New Zealand, where Michael was born. Werner’s first cousin was Ernst Josef Aufricht, who produced the 1928 world premiere of “The Threepenny Opera” at the Theater am Schiftbauerdamm in central Berlin.
Michael was aware through his family’s oral history that Elisabeth Hauptmann had been cheated of credit for “The Threepenny Opera,” and, like me, had registered a form of protest. In his case, it was a painting he commissioned in 2019 from San Miguel artist José Luis Rivera, reproduced here, which depicts Hauptmann in a café alongside Brecht and Weill. She has been denied a seat at the table and, as Michael puts it, is portrayed “outrageously and symbolically,” serving Brecht as his waitress. I might never have been aware of the painting, which hangs in Michael’s San Miguel home, had he not read my columns in Atención and written to me. Michael is also an author and has related the story of the painting in a glossy coffee-table book, and as part of a family memoir. His spy novel, “The Degenerate Saxophonist,” which opens at the Schiftbauerdamm theater in Berlin on the night of “The Threepenny Opera” premiere, can be purchased at the gift shop of the Biblioteca Pública.
I will let Michael describe the painting in his own words:
“One night I could not sleep. My mind wandered. If only I could paint. (If only I could write, you might wonder!) I thought the story needed a painting, so I looked for an artist and found José Luis Rivera in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I live part of the year. We sat in a café (appropriately symbolic) and together began a creative journey. Under my direction, he got to work. There were adjustments along the way, and this is the result …
“The painting is in the style of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) School, fashionable in the interwar years of the Weimar Republic. Proponents included Otto Dix, Christian Schad, Max Beckmann, Jeanne Mammen, and George Grosz. The style, a reaction to Expressionism, is characterized by realism. The subject matter: portraiture, cityscapes, and interiors (mainly clubs and cafés). José Luis and I agreed that he should take Christian Schad as the style benchmark.
“The image shamelessly abuses time and geography. There are three locations: Beuthen, Berlin, and even a touch of plagiarism from a well-known photograph of a Paris café scene during the German occupation, which some readers may recognize. The time spans the late 1920s through to about 1940.
“On the left are my father, grandfather, grandmother, and uncle. They are taking afternoon coffee in the Hindenburg Café on Kaiser Franz Josef Strasse—the so-called Boulevard—in Beuthen (now Bytom in Poland), where they lived. Uncle Gunther is wearing his uniform from the Czech Battalion (Allied armies), which he joined much later than the notional time of the gathering, which is about 1933. Through the window can be seen Dad and Gunther’s high school and the family Mercedes.
“On the right you see the Schlichter Cafe on Martin Luther Strasse, Berlin. The year is 1928. Dad’s cousin, Ernst Josef Aufricht (far right), is looking for a play to produce in the Theatre am Schiffbauerdam, which he has just leased. He meets Bertolt Brecht (wearing his signature leather jacket) in the café and eventually collaborates with Kurt Weill (second from right) to stage ‘The Threepenny Opera.’ Actually, the play was translated and probably adapted by Brecht’s lover, Elizabeth Hauptmann, here the anonymous servant, pouring the wine! Brecht took credit for the play and ‘rewarded’ Hauptmann by dumping her and marrying Helena Weigel, seen in the portrait on the left, painted by Rudolf Schlichter, who happens to be the brother of Max (who owns the café). Rudolf also painted an excellent portrait of Brecht. The Theatre am Schiffbauerdam, where the play premiered, now the Berliner Ensemble, is seen through the window. A poster of (a later production of) the play can be seen on the right.
“Finally, a bit of a reality check: the Nazi officer enjoying his coffee at the rear, along with the flag, provides a stark reminder that all those below were directly affected by Nazism: either killed or forced to migrate. The allusion to ‘The Last Supper’ is not inappropriate.”
