Brecht’s Bears and Rattlesnakes
Mr. Puntilla and his Man Matti is one of the few comedies Brecht wrote and it contains many ideas in fun that are explored elsewhere in dead earnestness. For example, in one choice scene the four jilted fiancées of the landowner Puntila complain about how easy it is to be duped by wealthy landowners and accept their promises at face value. The Telephonist among them reflects, “we’re too stupid for their jokes and tricks and we fall for them every time. Know why? Cause they look the same as our sort, and that’s what fools us. If they looked more like bears and rattlesnakes people might be more on their guard” (scene 8). Throughout his career Brecht expressed his hostility to realism and realistic acting and here he has once again reiterated the reason for his aversion: it is too easy to be duped in to believing and accepting the real as an extension of ourselves and indiscriminately direct our sympathies toward real acting and real characters. Brecht would rather have us see bears and rattlesnakes acting as human beings, to keep us on our guard and not allow ourselves to be duped by what we see.
