Bertolt Brecht

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Bertolt Brecht
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• Bertolt Brecht
• - born in Augsburg in 1898, to a Catholic father
  and a Protestant mother
• - began to write poetry as a boy and had his
  first poems published in 1914
• - enrolled as a medical student at Ludwig
  Maximilian University in Munich
• - attended the theatre seminar of Prof. Artur
  Kutscher
• - 1919 1921, he wrote theatre criticism for
  left-wing socialist paper Die Augsburger
• - abandoned his studies in 1921

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• EARLY WORK
• - wrote his first play, BAAL, in 1918 the play,
  celebrating life and sexuality, was a great
  success
• - wrote the play in response to one of Kutscher
  s drama seminars
• - throughout his career, he wanted to counter
  others work
• Anyone can be creative. Its rewriting other
  people thats a challenge. Brecht
• - finished his second major play, Drums in the
  Night, in 1919

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• INFLUENCES
• Erwin Piscator
• - German theatre director and producer, dealt
  with epic theatre
• - same as Brecht, studied theatre with Arthur
  Kutscher
• - wrote poems for a left-wing Expressionist
  literary magazine
• - staged plays by Maxim Gorki, Romain Rolland,
  and Leo Tolstoy
• - produced social and political plays, committed
  to the Russian Revolution
• - got a political asylum in the USSR , but later
  emigrated in the US
• - directed for Broadway
• - considered a major exponent of contemporary
  and documentary theatre

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• Georg Buchner
• - German Dramatist and writer
• - established a secret society dedicated to the
  revolution, and published a revolutionary
  pamphlet criticizing social grievances
• - was charged with treason, but fled to
  Strasbourg
• - died of typhus at the age of 23
• - wrote Dantons Death, Leonce and Lena, and
  Woyzeck (first play in German who characters were
  members of the working class)
• - major influence on naturalism and expressionism

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• Karl Valentin
• - comedian, Cabaret performer, clown, film
  producer, star of silent films
• - The Charlie Chaplin of Germany
• - linguistic anarchist, his plays would begin
  with verbal misunderstandings
• - appeared in Brechts movie, Mysteries of a
  Barbershop
• But the man learnt most from was the clown
  Valentin, who performed in a beer-hall. When
  Brecht was producing his first play, which
  included a thirty minutes' battle, he asked
  Valentin what he ought to do with the soldiers.
  'What are the soldiers like in battle?' Valentin
  promptly answered 'They're pale. Scared
  shitless. Brecht

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• CRITICAL ACCLAIM
• - In 1922, Brecht caught the attention of
  influential critic Herbert Ihering
• At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed
  Germanys literary complexion overnight. . Has
  given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new
  vision. It is a language you can feel on your
  tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal
  column. Ihering
• - Brecht was awarded Kleist Prize

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• RISE TO INTERNATIONAL FAME
• - along with composer Kurt Weil, Brecht adapted
  John Gays The Beggars Opera
• produced at the Lyric Theatre in London, the
  play was a great success
• Brecht moved the action to Victorian times,
  bringing into question bourgeois responsibility

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• BRECHT, THE COMMUNIST
• - in 1919 Brecht joined the Independent Social
  Democratic Party
• after studying Karl Marx, he fully adopted
  communist ideology
• started using art as a means to
• express his political ideals
• - made a political film, Kuhle Wampe
• that concentrated on poor area of Berlin , where
  people lived in shacks
• - the film was released in 1932 and then
  forbidden
• - wrote a political play in 1930, The Measures
  Taken, which talks about suppressing individual
  freedom,

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• BAN AND EXILE
• - in the 1930s, Brechts books and plays were
  banned in Germany
• - he went into exile in Denmark and then in
  Finland
• - lived with Finnish author Hella Wuolijoki,
  with whom he wrote the folk play Herr Puntila Und
  Sein Knecht Matti
• - relocated to the US, to Santa Monica
• - tried to write for Hollywood, but failed
• The intellectual isolation here the US is
  enormous Brecht

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• WITCH HUNT
• - Brecht had to appear in front of the House
  Committee of Un-American Activities
• - initially he did not want to testify about
  his political affiliation
• - later on he denied holding party membership
• - the day after his testimony, he fled to
  Europe, without seeing the opening of his play
  Galileo in New York

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• FOUR GREAT PLAYS
• - between 1938 and 1948 Brecht wrote his 4 great
  plays
• Leben des Galilei
• Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder
• Der Gute Mensch von Sezuan
• Der Kaukasiche Kreidekreis

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• THEORY AND PRACTICE
• - Brecht goes back to Germany in 1948, and
  writes his major theoretical work, A Little
  Organum for the Theatre
• - He founds his own Marxist theatre, the
  Berliner Ensemble his wife Helen Weigel is the
  chief actress and director
• What times are these, when/ to speak of trees is
  almost a crime/ because it passes in silence over
  such infamy!

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• DYING FAMOUS
• - Brecht becomes most popular contemporary poet
• - his works were translated in 42 languages
• - he died in 1956

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• EPIC THEATRE
• Rationale
• - Brecht sought to make audiences evaluate the
  socio-economic implications of what they saw on
  the stage
• - he thought that through art, audiences would
  perceive the need for change
• - he wanted audiences to keep their critical
  judgment throughout the play
• - didnt believe that the problems posed by the
  play should be resolved in the end
• - theatre as collective political meeting

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• EPIC THEATRE
• - theatrical movement of the early to mid 20th
  century
• - purpose of play is to present ideas and make
  judgements
• - style of acting that utilizes gestus (a
  combination of physical gesture and attitude)
• - reveals a specific aspect of a character
• - characters are not supposed to portray real
  people, but to be archetypes or stereotypes
• - reaction to Stanislavskis realistic drama,
  which Brecht thought produced escapism

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• ALIENATION
• - distancing the audience from what happened on
  the stage
• - no empathy
• How?
• - reminding the audience that it was in a
  theatre
• - lighting instruments unmasked, scenery was
  fragmentary
• - musicians were visible
• - captions or maps were projected onto screens
• - simplified, non-realistic set designs
• - actors presented characters, but did not
  identify themselves with them