The 2010 National Theatre adaptation of Georg Büchner’s
Danton’s Death, adapted by Howard Brenton and directed by Michael Grandage,
serves as a revealing cultural artifact of its era. Expertly staged,
well-acted, and carefully lit, it also exposes a significant ideological flaw:
the failure of modern bourgeois theatre to see the masses as active historical
participants. By removing two brief crowd scenes—which may seem trivial—the
production loses the social force central to Büchner’s work. What’s left is a
superficial psychological conflict between two isolated individuals, devoid of
historical context and revolutionary significance.
This issue goes beyond dramaturgy; it signals a deeper
cultural decline in the post-Soviet era, where revolution is seen as pointless,
history becomes psychological, and the working class is excluded from the
narrative of human liberation.
The Crowd as Protagonist
Ann Talbot’s review accurately points out a significant
mistake. Brenton's removal of two very brief crowd scenes, which are so short
that their exclusion cannot be justified by pacing, leads to serious issues.
Talbot explains, “It eliminates a character that is essential to the conflict
between Danton and Robespierre — not a single character, but the collective
crowd of many individuals.” The crowd is not just background; it functions as
the third main character in the play. Without it, Danton appears as a dull,
exhausted figure who “simply cannot be bothered to defend himself,” and
Robespierre becomes “a dogmatic man with a prissy concern for morality.” Their
historical significance diminishes because the social forces they symbolize are
no longer represented on stage.
Büchner instinctively and materially recognized that the
French Revolution was driven by mass action rather than individual leaders.
Danton’s influence came from his bond with the sans-culottes, while
Robespierre’s authority depended on his capacity to express their needs. When
the crowd is absent, the rivalry between these two figures loses meaning,
transforming from a clash of revolutionary factions into a personal dispute
between two anxious individuals. This situation does not describe Büchner but
rather Brenton.
The Collapse of Büchner’s Dialectic
The distortion goes beyond political characterisation. It
undermines the dialectical connection between public and private life that
Büchner vividly depicts with scientific accuracy. Take Marion’s monologue on
her sexuality. Alone, it might seem misogynistic, as if Büchner intended to
show women as manipulative and self-serving. However, when contrasted with the
absent crowd scene—“It’s her hunger that whores and begs. A knife for the
people who buy the flesh of our wives and daughters.”
The meaning becomes evident: Marion’s emotional numbness
isn’t a personal flaw but a societal outcome. The commodification of bodies in
an unequal society erodes authentic intimacy. The decline of private
relationships is intrinsically linked to the nature of public social
interactions. Remove the crowd, and this entire dialectic falls apart. Marion
turns into a stereotype; her social context vanishes. The play’s materialist
critique is replaced by moralism. Büchner’s approach—"an autopsy of the French
Revolution," literally on his dissection table—relies on the presence of
every social organ. As the text states: "The method only works if all the
parts are present." Brenton has taken out the heart.
The Post‑Soviet Intelligentsia and the Ideology of
Futility
Why does such a cut exist? Why remove the masses from
history? The reason isn't rooted in Büchner, but in today's intellectual
climate. It has become very challenging for writers to envision revolution
except in catastrophic terms. Since the USSR's fall, Western intellectuals have
experienced a significant political decline. The fall of Stalinist
regimes—often wrongly linked with socialism—did not lead to renewed
revolutionary ideas but instead fostered widespread disillusionment. The
working class was dismissed as outdated; history was said to have come to an
end; and the concept of collective political action was increasingly viewed
with suspicion.
Brenton, once regarded as a left‑wing playwright, has not
escaped this ideological tide. His adaptation presents the French Revolution as
a tragic inevitability: factionalism, bloodshed, futility. Revolution becomes
pathology. The masses become dangerous or irrelevant. The historical process is
reduced to a morality play in which idealists destroy one another. This is not
a neutral artistic choice. It is the ideological function of contemporary
bourgeois culture: to portray revolution as hopeless, to sever the connection
between past struggles and present conditions, and to render the working class
invisible.
Removing the crowd scenes serves as the mechanism to realize
this ideological project. Once the masses are gone, history shifts into
psychology. Danton and Robespierre are no longer seen as representatives of
social forces but as isolated individuals caught in private conflicts. Their
actions seem unnecessary; their motivations become unclear; their tragedies
appear insignificant. This focus on psychology is typical of post-Soviet
cultural works, which reflect a worldview where collective action is unthinkable
and political struggles are reduced to personal issues. The Revolution then
becomes a moral lesson rather than a historical event, emphasizing lessons of
morality over material consequences.
Büchner’s play differs by focusing on social forces rather
than individual personalities. It examines a historical deadlock instead of
lamenting human weakness. Turning it into a psychological drama would distort
its true meaning. Contrast Brenton’s approach with Trevor Griffiths’s A New
World: A Life of Thomas Paine, which shows that the American and French
Revolutions can still be vividly reimagined and linked to current class issues.
Griffiths views revolution not as a disease but as a dynamic, ongoing
historical process. He brings the masses back into focus, recognising that
history is shaped by collective action.
Brenton’s adaptation, in contrast, highlights the futility
of the revolutionary effort—both in the 18th century and today. It is a bleak,
post-Soviet piece that strips Büchner’s drama of its revolutionary
significance, resulting in a spectacle that lacks historical meaning.
The absence of the crowd in *Danton’s Death* symbolizes a
larger cultural trend: the marginalization of the working class from historical
awareness. In theatre, film, literature, and politics, masses have been
replaced by individuals, identity groups, and psychological archetypes. History
has been depoliticized, revolution pathologized, and the future closed off.
Reviving Büchner’s play means bringing the masses back to the
stage—acknowledging that history is created through collective struggle rather
than by isolated figures. It also involves rejecting the futility ideology and
recognizing the potential for revolutionary change. The crowd isn’t a minor
detail; it is the fabric of history.
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