Working for Capitalism:

...Like the tendency to what it unintentionally reveals about the heroic saints," from Paul to Frances italicize, he borrows most of them from American left and, in particular, a certain Cabrini...

...there is a paucity of credible work...

...The strongest sites: Munich, Berlin, London, Den- moving story of a gifted man who from impression the book gives us of Brecht is mark, Stockholm, Finland, Hollywood, his earliest poem, Legend of the Dead the man's full consciousness of being a New York...

...His latest book is Journal of Re- activist role during contract negotiations challenged by Mrs...

...the admittedly less `scientific') "so- "activists...

...he rarely even tells us their names...

...an impressive repertory: Walter BenjaElisabeth Bergner...

...That such an idea might be spout neat one-liners which announce the the audience are able to identify with considered new is curious...

...existence independent of it...

...Traditionally, in "America's fundamental problem is rank-and-filer" (among others...

...Francis de Sales, and Therese of Lisieux, New Republic...

...cover in a small book, and too much CUNY, in New York...

...The circum- ideological theater, and of Kenneth the endless complications involved in at- stances surrounding the various produc- Tynan who sees in Brecht a socially tracting a public, in placating the actors, tions are described in this book, but Mr...

...fulfillment...

...However, particular workplace, he has written a I imagine the greatest disappointment this academic, we are told, has "vio- Marxist soap opera, rife with stock for Brecht himself was his failure to lated" the systematic separation between stereotypes and banal moralizing...

...Columbia University Press, $5.95, 382pp...

...Working for Capitalism is less about but Helena was a vain attempt (no mateJOSEPH CUNNEEN, editor of Cross Currents, American workers than it is about a con- rial to work with), Paul suffers from an is teaching courses in...

...Nevertheless, the book is a disap"middle class radical," is painfully con- pointment, especially if one considers REVIEWERS scious of his radical separation from most the high possibilities of subject and auAmericans and from "dominant social thor...

...But Pfeffer only succeeds ment of Francis of Assisi, Thomas More, ROBERT HOWARD is Staff Associate of the in embracing his own abstractions...

...So he strives to connect with Probably the main problem derived sor of Religious Studies at Yale...

...Even simultaneously 'on the left' and an intel- is not only a pleasure to read, but bears those...

...Pfeffer's literary awkwardness (Ironically, the only people who take on they even become part of the problem...

...research of Michael Grant, and poor 8 June 1979:349...

...Pfeffer, a self-styled raphy...

...shrewd publishing idea to get Anne Freknown concepts as if they were brazen If this book has any value, it lies in mantle to present "the lives of thirteen new insights...

...perphaps because these cial" would do...

...And he describes his categories best fit Pfeffer's class struggle first day on the job, learning strange new paradigm...

...There is not cerns the two drives that help shape this an idea or argument in this disappointing man's personality...

...religion and literature trolled experiment in radical wish- uneasy blending ofActs and the historical at Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York...

...Instead of a fascinatquestion from the abundant data pro- for years, usually calling it ing insider's view of class relations in a vided by Klaus Volker...

...of the unoriginal thinking...

...anything specifically about work in Of all the questions that rise up in a America...

...at the factory...

...For awhile he plays a new allow proper follow-through on the teasgrant from the National Endowment for the social role: the militant worker who de- ing line from the Introduction, "What is Humanities to study the problem of "art for fends the "interests" of his class and required of anyone who aspires to beart's sake...

...But these cardboard characters Commonweal: 348 are forced to carry too much weight...

...they may appear briefly In brief up on missed years of working-class to serve his argument but they have no socialization...

...the Mother Courage, for example, that Only a small percentage of the many very uneven literary achievements of the chronicle of a sutler who follows an army names of people in Brecht's personal life plays...

...even more so lessons Pfeffer has learned and on which characters on the stage...

...his theories con- stage...

...He does not let names are not solutions...

...For workplace-are vitiated because he ob- Pfeffer's all-purpose solution to the all his effort to communicate the authen- serves them poorly...

...In effect, the star of this soap opera is emphasis on historical information to GENE BELL-VILLADA teaches Spanish at Williams College...

...The reader will be newly at Sewanee...

...The wanted to dramatize history and man's If a clear picture of the personality of Threepenny Opera, a work done in col- social responsibility...

...Like the real emo- ills of the workplace is "a strong and tic reality of the workplace, Pfeffer tions which are the subject of a soap militant working-class movement...

...notable theatrical successes...

...This In itself, this is not so unusual...

...plays, or is it in the quest for his own kind "so-called elite universities" decided to Pfeffer, a political scientist at Johns of theater which would be the seeking of spend his sabbatical working in a factory...

...But buries it beneath the easy truths...

...Brecht's relationship with his age and and audience should be severed, and he Volker is not a literary critic and for an preeminently with Communism...

...It never worked completely...

...And to the demade to do when active verbs are neces- them speak at any length about their gree that they mask complicated quessary...

...But there were only a few Soldier, to his last play, Turandot, part of history...

...might come about because he is finally so there...

...Volker, we WORKING FOR CAPITALISM a stranger to the social science literature have the sense of a personality changing Richard M. Pfeffer on work, I would write up my work exalso in the light of changing circum- perience before I allowed myself to read stances...

...each of his plays is analyzed either with a constantly shifting background of The biography of Volker revives the briefly or at some length...

...Brecht's many ac- This biography of a man is also a min, Arnold Schoenberg, Peter Lorre, tivities in the theater are fully related, and chronicle of the productions of his plays, Aldous Huxley, among others...

...receives the accolades of his work-mates come a saint is to become what they were WAUACE FOWLIE will be teaching next year for it (see Pfeffer's description of his meant to be...

...The used every device possible to obstruct assessment of the plays one would have personal dramas are there also: his wives, any identification with characters on the to go to the writings of Martin Esslin, children and mistresses...

...about opera, they cannot be taken seriously for he cannot suggest how such a movement capitalist exploitation which he finds Pfeffer has so trivialized them...

...in satisfying the producers, is a life constantly changing its focus, its cities, its friends, its projects...

...LOUIS DUPRE is T. Lawrence Riggs Profes- realities...

...his skill as play director...

...His radicalism is a Working for Capitalism is so poorly writ- need for more complex and subtle de- kind of "left-wing nominalism...

...Although not the stylistic equal Marx, but with none of the verve and kind of left-wing intellectual...

...reader's mind, the most persistent con- Robert Howard Unfortunately, it shows...

...rivals the worst excesses of bourgeois any personality in the book are the Working for Capitalism neither asks nor sociologists and cries out for an editor...

...made more clearly and cogently by Marxist didacticism of so many of his A college professor and graduate of someone else...

...cerning a new kind of playwriting...

...These pages read like the unrevised scriptions of working-class lives...

...the working class, to submerge his sense from the restrictions of the editorial asEUGENE FONTINELL is a member of the of difference in the camaraderie of the signment: there were too many saints to philosophy department at Queens College, workplace...

...Most of these workers are work tasks as "frantically trying to catch mere shadows...

...This enhances is the fact that, is spite of his intense he then expounds with generous use of the enjoyment of the audience and awareness of all that separates him from italics and quasi-Marxist buzz words, sharpens the skills of the actors...

...participant-observation...

...Because of these The professor's radical soap opera inevitable changes going on, which are faithfully narrated by Mr...

...too inten...

...Hopkins University, spent seven months his self, of his self-realization...

...This opera on the vio- from the two extreme views of Eugene cuse the biographer...

...Fremantle's treathearsals: A Memoir (Duke University...

...bosses-foremen, supervisors, their answers any of the really hard questions He consistently uses "societal" where union collaborators-and a few left-wing about work in capitalist society...

...In Eric Bentley and David Grossvogel...

...aspects of working life which he lectual, two roles which have never stood witness to the author's long-time study of observes more or less correctly-the ar- for much in this society, is to be world religions and her professional skills bitrariness of management's authority, threatened by a peculiar double lack of dealing with popular history and biogthe ambivalent role of labor unions in the social affirmation...

...tions of consciousness and ideology, dialogue...

...academics in 1974 and 1975 operating a fork-lift in a reader finds it impossible to answer this have made forays into the workplace Baltimore factory...

...Is it an austere devo- THE PROBLEMS with Working for and unoriginal book which has not been tion to Communism revealed in the Capitalism begin with the Prologue...

...Descriptions are vague Pfeffer never allows these men and he puts it), he never quite realizes that and choppy...

...his rela- and sells food to the soldiers, there is and theatrical career will be recognized tionships with some of the celebrated inevitably an impulse of sympathy on the by American readers, but those friends figures of the day: Erwin Piscator, part of the audience toward the leading and associates who are known here form Thomas Mann, Charles Laughton, character...

...They successfully acted plays, the members of capitalism...

...To be of her Three-Cornered Hat, Saints Alive...

...adjectives and adverbs are women to come to life...

...Pfeffer's capitalist society to portray them as com- The saints are "in" again, and it was a maddening habit is to announce well- plex and contradictory human beings...

...There apply his principal dramatic theory by mental and manual labor in our society is the "young movement type," the "not which he hoped to create a new kind of and as a result has acquired a "new un- particularly progressive woman," the theater In English, this is usually called derstanding" of how society functions...

...Working for Capitalism is especially ignorant of working class consciousness A large part of the problem is that disappointing because it panders to our in American society...

...Pfeffer is too SAINTS ALIVE...

...savvy worker," and the "scrappy the "alienation effect...

...by Anne Fremantle, The labored style is simply a correlate busy preaching his morals about work in Doubleday, $7.95, 183 pp...

...So tent on naming what he sees 'correctly' notes Pfeffer says he kept in the factory enamored of his "new understanding," (making the "capitalist connection" as while working...

...Brecht workers and their daily lives, the author just in case the reader didn't catch it the believed that this alliance between actor decides: ". . . Although I was essentially first time...

...He recently received a its author...

...intellectual audacity of his forbear...

...committed ideal...

...In its final estimate, Bertolt Brecht does not emerge from this laboration with Kurt Weill, lasted a year the book does not take a view different biography, I would not necessarily ac- in Berlin in 1928...

...A life spent in the lence of the underworld still appears lonesco who sees in Brecht's art a sterile theater as playwright and director, with today on university stages...