At first, Mr. Eustis was charmed by the notion that the East German regime would put an intellectual hero like Brecht on a commemorative plate. (Would the Franklin Mint put Tony Kushner’s face on one?) But as his knowledge of Brecht grew and the East German government fell, Mr. Eustis learned that there is more to kitsch than decoration.
The plate bears the crossed-swords hallmark of Meissen, which made its first porcelain 300 years ago and which continued to operate under Communist rule. But, he said, “there’s something very deceptive about it.”
He pointed out the quirky smile on the playwright’s cleanshaven face, which more readily suggests a cheerful radio-jingle writer than the man who wrote “Mother Courage and Her Children” (newly translated by Mr. Kushner for the Public last year). In the early 1950s, Brecht had been lured to East Berlin with the promise of his own theater, but he was far from the model Communist the East German government hoped he would be. He rarely smiled or shaved.
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