“This face of a happy self-satisfied citizen,” Mr. Eustis said, “it’s a public mask.” Then he quoted from memory a poem Brecht wrote close to his death in 1956: “Sad in my youth/ Sad later on/ When can I be happy?/ Better be soon.”
Yikes. You might guess that Mr. Eustis’s mordant appreciation of the Meissen plate contains a sting of criticism for his mother’s undying love for one of the 20th century’s greatest ideological failures. But this story is not about Hamlet, but Brecht. Or, you might say, Brecht with Hamlet overtones.
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