Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht[a] (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known asBertolt Brecht andBert Brecht, was a Germantheatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during theWeimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wroteThe Threepenny Opera withElisabeth Hauptmann andKurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composerHanns Eisler. Immersed inMarxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didacticLehrstücke and became a leading theoretician ofepic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and theVerfremdungseffekt.
When theNazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled his home country, initially to Scandinavia. DuringWorld War II he moved toSouthern California where he established himself as a screenwriter, and meanwhile was being surveilled by theFBI.[3] In 1947, he was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee for alleged Communist Party affiliations.[4] The day after testifying, he returned to Europe, eventually settling inEast Berlin where he co-founded the theatre companyBerliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actressHelene Weigel.[5]
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as a child known as Eugen) was born on 10 February 1898 inAugsburg, Germany, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) and his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920). Brecht's mother was a devoutProtestant and his father aRoman Catholic (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). The modest house where he was born is today preserved as a Brecht Museum.[6] His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914.[7] At Augsburg, his maternal grandparents lived in the neighbouring house. They werePietists and his grandmother influenced Bertolt Brecht and his brotherWalter considerably during their childhood.
Due to his grandmother's and his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would have a life-long effect on his writing. From his mother came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama.[8] Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied.[9] At school in Augsburg he metCaspar Neher, with whom he formed a life-long creative partnership. Neher designed many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helped to forge the distinctive visual iconography of theirepic theatre.
When Brecht was 16,World War I broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army".[7] Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 for writing an essay in response to the lineDulce et decorum est pro patria mori from the Roman poetHorace, calling itZweckpropaganda ("cheap propaganda for a specific purpose") and arguing that only an empty-headed person could be persuaded to die for their country. His expulsion was only prevented by the intervention of Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute teacher at Brecht's school.[10]
On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought to avoid being conscripted into the army by exploiting a loophole which allowed for medical students to be deferred. He subsequently registered for a medical course atMunich University, where he enrolled in 1917.[11] There he studied drama withArthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist andcabaret starFrank Wedekind.[12]
From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for theAugsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919).[13] Brecht wasdrafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a militaryVD clinic; the war ended a month later.[7]
In July 1919, Brecht andPaula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship in 1917) had a son, Frank. Frank died in 1943, as aWehrmacht conscript on theEastern Front.[14] In 1920 Brecht's mother died.[15]
Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedianKarl Valentin.[16] Brecht's diaries for the next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform.[17] Brecht compared Valentin toCharlie Chaplin, for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology".[18] Writing in hisMessingkauf Dialogues years later, Brecht identified Valentin, along with Wedekind andBüchner, as his "chief influences" at that time:
But the man he learnt most from was the clownValentin, who performed in a beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice.[19]
Brecht's first full-length play,Baal (written 1918), arose in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating a trend that persisted throughout his career of creative activity that was generated by a desire to counter another work (both others' and his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting other people that's a challenge."[20] Brecht completed his second major play,Drums in the Night, in February 1919.
Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht made acquaintance with many influential people in the Berlin cultural scene. Amongst them was the playwrightArnolt Bronnen with whom he established a joint venture, the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company. Brecht changed the spelling of his first name to Bertolt to rhyme with Arnolt.
In 1922 while still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic,Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced,Drums in the Night—"[he] 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."[21] In November it was announced that Brecht had been awarded the prestigiousKleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and probably Germany's most significant literary award, until it was abolished in 1932) for his first three plays (Baal,Drums in the Night, andIn the Jungle, although at that point onlyDrums had been produced).[22] The citation for the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round."[23] That year he married the Viennese opera singerMarianne Zoff. Their daughter,Hanne Hiob, born in March 1923, was a successful German actress.[7]
In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a shortslapstick film,Mysteries of a Barbershop, directed byErich Engel and starring Karl Valentin.[24] Despite a lack of success at the time, its experimental inventiveness and the subsequent success of many of its contributors have meant that it is now considered one of the most important films inGerman film history.[25] In May of that year, Brecht'sIn the Jungle premiered in Munich, also directed by Engel. Opening night proved to be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later productions during theWeimar Republic—in whichNazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage.[17]
In 1924 Brecht worked with the novelist and playwrightLion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation ofChristopher Marlowe'sEdward II that proved to be a milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical development.[26][27] Brecht'sEdward II constituted his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he was to adapt. As his first solo directorial début, he later credited it as the germ of his conception of "epic theatre".[28] That September, a job as assistantdramaturg atMax Reinhardt'sDeutsches Theater—at the time one of the leading three or four theatres in the world—brought him to Berlin.[29]
In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927).[30] Brecht had become involved with bothElisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel.[31] Brecht and Weigel's son,Stefan, was born in October 1924.[32]
In the asphalt city I'm at home. From the very start Provided with every last sacrament: With newspapers. And tobacco. And brandy To the end mistrustful, lazy and content.
Bertolt Brecht, "Of Poor BB"
At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB".[36] In 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems,Devotions for the Home (Hauspostille, eventually published in January 1927). She continued to work with him after the publisher's commission ran out.[37]
In 1925 inMannheim the artistic exhibitionNeue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity") had given its name to the new post-Expressionist movement in the German arts. With little to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to develop hisMan Equals Man project, which was to become the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended."[38] This collaborative approach to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style of theatrical production, mark Brecht's work from this period as part of theNeue Sachlichkeit movement.[39] The collective's work "mirrored the artistic climate of the middle 1920s",Willett andManheim argue:
with their attitude ofNeue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult ofAnglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeatesMan Equals Man) but also drawing those conclusions for the theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions.[40]
In 1925, Brecht saw two films that had a significant influence on him:Chaplin'sThe Gold Rush andEisenstein'sBattleship Potemkin.[41] Brecht had comparedValentin to Chaplin, and the two of them provided models for Galy Gay inMan Equals Man.[42] Brecht later wrote that Chaplin "would in many ways come closer to theepic than to the dramatic theatre's requirements."[43] They met several times during Brecht's time in the United States, and discussed Chaplin'sMonsieur Verdoux project, which it is possible Brecht influenced.[44]
In 1926 a series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann was closely associated with writing them.[45] Following the production ofMan Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studyingMarxism and socialism in earnest, under the supervision of Hauptmann.[46] "When I readMarx'sCapital", a note by Brecht reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across."[47] Inspired by the developments inUSSR, Brecht wrote a number ofagitprop plays, praising thebolshevikcollectivism (replaceability of each member of the collective inMan Equals Man) and theRed Terror (The Decision).[citation needed]
For us, man portrayed on the stage is significant as a social function. It is not his relationship to himself, nor his relationship to God, but his relationship to society which is central. Whenever he appears, his class or social stratum appears with him. His moral, spiritual or sexual conflicts are conflicts with society.
In 1927 Brecht became part of the "dramaturgical collective" ofErwin Piscator's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for its "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre".[49] Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions,Hoppla, We're Alive! byToller,Rasputin,The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik, andKonjunktur byLania.[50] Brecht's most significant contribution was to the adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic novelSchweik, which he later described as a "montage from the novel".[51] The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the "epic" playwright by the development of stage technology (particularly projections).[52] What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests:
The emphasis on Reason and didacticism, the sense that the new subject matter demanded anew dramatic form, the use of songs tointerrupt and comment: all these are found in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Piscatorial examples as the step-by-step narrative technique ofSchweik and the oil interests handled inKonjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').[53]
Brecht was struggling at the time with the question of how to dramatize the complex economic relationships of modern capitalism in his unfinished projectJoe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in its programme for the 1927–28 season). It wasn't until hisSaint Joan of the Stockyards (written between 1929 and 1931) that Brecht solved it.[54] In 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stageShakespeare'sJulius Caesar and Brecht's ownDrums in the Night, but the productions did not materialize.[55]
The year 1927 also saw the first collaboration between Brecht and the young composerKurt Weill.[56] Together they began to develop Brecht'sMahagonny project, along thematic lines of the biblicalCities of the Plain but rendered in terms of theNeue Sachlichkeit'sAmerikanismus, which had informed Brecht's previous work.[57] They producedThe Little Mahagonny for a music festival in July, as what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. From that point onCaspar Neher became an integral part of the collaborative effort, with words, music and visuals conceived in relation to one another from the start.[58] The model for their mutual articulation lay in Brecht's newly formulated principle of the "separation of the elements", which he first outlined in "The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre" (1930). The principle, a variety ofmontage, proposed by-passing the "great struggle for supremacy between words, music and production" as Brecht put it, by showing each as self-contained, independent works of art thatadopt attitudes towards one another.[59]
In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding.[60] She also became an actress and would later share thecopyrights of Brecht's work with her siblings.
Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential.Elisabeth Hauptmann,Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri,Ruth Berlau and others worked with Brecht and produced the multipleteaching plays, which attempted to create a newdramaturgy for participants rather than passive audiences. These addressed themselves to the massive worker arts organisation that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s. So did Brecht's first great play,Saint Joan of the Stockyards, which attempts to portray the drama in financial transactions.
This collective adaptedJohn Gay'sThe Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to music byKurt Weill. RetitledThe Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) it was the biggest hit in Berlin of the 1920s and a renewing influence on the musical worldwide. One of its most famous lines underscored the hypocrisy of conventional morality imposed by the Church, working in conjunction with the established order, in the face of working-class hunger and deprivation:
Erst kommt das Fressen Dann kommt die Moral.
First the grub (lit. "eating like animals, gorging") Then the morality.
The success ofThe Threepenny Opera was followed by the quickly thrown togetherHappy End. It was a personal and a commercial failure. At the time the book was purported to be by the mysterious Dorothy Lane (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Brecht only claimed authorship of the song texts. Brecht would later use elements ofHappy End as the germ for hisSaint Joan of the Stockyards, a play that would never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime.Happy End's score by Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".
The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations,Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting. TheMahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as a triumphant sensation.
Brecht spent the last years of theWeimar-era (1930–1933) in Berlin working with his "collective" on theLehrstücke. These were a group of plays driven by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. TheLehrstücke often aimed at educating workers on Socialist issues.The Measures Taken (Die Massnahme) was scored byHanns Eisler. In addition, Brecht worked on a script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human impact of mass unemployment,Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed bySlatan Dudow. This striking film is notable for its subversive humour, outstandingcinematography byGünther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin during the last years of theWeimar Republic.
Fearing persecution, Brecht fledNazi Germany in February 1933, just afterHitler took power. Following brief spells in Prague, Zurich and Paris, he and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and authorKarin Michaëlis to move to Denmark. The Brechts first stayed with Michaëlis at her house on the small island ofThurø close to the island ofFunen.[61] They later bought their own house inSvendborg on Funen. This Svendborg house at Skovsbo Strand 8 became the Brecht family residence for the next six years.[62] They often received guests there includingWalter Benjamin,Hanns Eisler andRuth Berlau. Brecht also travelled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London for various projects and collaborations.
When war seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, where he remained for a year.[63] AfterGermany invaded Norway andDenmark, Brecht left Sweden for Helsinki, Finland,[64] where he awaited a pending visa to the United States.[65] During this time he co-wrote the playMr Puntila and His Man Matti (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) withHella Wuolijoki, with whom he lived in the Marlebäck manor house inIitti.
Brecht's house inSanta Monica, 1063 26th Street (2014)
Upon receipt of the U.S. visa in May 1941, the Brecht family relocated toSouthern California.[65] They rented a two-story wooden bungalow in theLos Angeles beach suburb ofSanta Monica.[66] By the late 1930s, the West Side of Los Angeles had become a thriving expatriate colony of European intellectuals and artists. Because the colony included so many writers, directors, actors, and composers from German-speaking countries, it has been referred to as "Weimar on the Pacific".[67]
At the center of the émigré community was Brecht's old friendSalka Viertel, whom he had known in the Berlin theatre world of the 1920s.[68] From her house in Santa Monica Canyon, Viertel hosted frequent tea parties andsalons where European intellectuals could mingle with Hollywood luminaries.[69] Brecht first met actorCharles Laughton at a Viertel party, and it led to the two men collaborating on the English-language version ofLife of Galileo.[70]
Although Brecht was not enamored of life in the movie capital,[71] he worked hard to find a place for himself as a screenwriter.[70] He co-wrote the screenplay for theFritz Lang-directed filmHangmen Also Die! (1943) which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination ofReinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Deputy Reich Protector of the German-occupiedProtectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich had beenHeinrich Himmler's right-hand man in theSS and a chief architect of theHolocaust; he was known as "The Hangman of Prague" (German:der Henker von Prag).[72] For this film, Brecht's fellow expatriate, composerHanns Eisler, was nominated for anAcademy Award in the category ofBest Music Score. The fact that three refugee artists from Nazi Germany – Lang, Brecht and Eisler – collaborated to make the film exemplified the influence this generation of German exiles had on American culture.Hangmen Also Die! turned out to be Brecht's only script that became a Hollywood film. The money he earned from selling the script enabled him to writeThe Visions of Simone Machard,Schweik in the Second World War and an adaptation ofWebster'sThe Duchess of Malfi.[65]
At the onset of theCold War and "Second Red Scare" in the U.S., Brecht wasblacklisted by movie studio bosses and investigated by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).[74] Along with more than 40 other Hollywood writers, directors, actors and producers, he was subpoenaed in September 1947 by the HUAC. Although he was one of the 19 "unfriendly" witnesses who had declared ahead of time they would not cooperate with the House investigation, Brecht eventually decided to go before the committee and answer questions.[75] He later explained he was following the advice of attorneys and did not want to delay his planned trip to Europe.
On 30 October 1947, Brecht testified to the HUAC that he had never been a member of theCommunist Party.[74] He made wry jokes throughout the proceedings, punctuating his inability to speak English well with continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC vice-chairmanKarl Mundt thanked Brecht for his cooperation.[76] The remaining unfriendly witnesses who appeared before the HUAC at that time, the so-calledHollywood Ten, declined onFirst Amendment grounds to answer about their Communist Party affiliations and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to be a "cooperative" witness—albeit in an evasive way and providing no useful information—led to criticism of him, including accusations of betrayal. The day after his testimony, Brecht fled to Europe and never returned to the U.S.
He lived inZurich, Switzerland, for a year. In February 1948 in the Swiss town ofChur, Brecht staged an adaptation ofSophocles'Antigone, based on a translation byHölderlin. The play was published under the titleAntigonemodell 1948, accompanied by an essay on the importance of creating a "non-Aristotelian" form of theatre.
In 1949 he moved toEast Berlin and established his theatre company there, theBerliner Ensemble. He retainedAustrian nationality which was granted in 1950, and his overseas bank accounts from which he received valuable hard currency remittances. The copyrights on his writings were held by a Swiss company.[77]
Though he was never a member of the Communist Party, Brecht had been schooled inMarxism by the dissident communistKarl Korsch. Korsch's version of theMarxist dialectic influenced Brecht greatly, both his aesthetic theory and theatrical practice. Brecht received theStalin Peace Prize in 1954.[78] His proximity to Marxist thought made him controversial in Austria, where his plays wereboycotted by directors and not performed for more than ten years.
Brecht wrote very few plays in his final years in East Berlin, none of them as famous as his previous works. He dedicated himself to directing plays and developing the talents of the next generation of young directors and dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth,Benno Besson andCarl Weber. At this time he wrote some of his most celebrated poems, including theBuckow Elegies.
At first, Brecht apparently supported the measures taken by the East German government against theEast German uprising of 1953, which included the use of Soviet military force. In a letter from the day of the uprising toSED First SecretaryWalter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote: "History will pay its respects to the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about the speed of socialist construction will lead to a viewing and safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I must assure you of my allegiance to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany."[79]
Brecht's subsequent commentary on those events, however, offered a very different assessment. In one of the poems in theElegies, "Die Lösung" (The Solution), a disillusioned Brecht would write a few months later:
After the uprising of the17th of June The Secretary of theWriters Union Had leaflets distributed in theStalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By increased work quotas.
Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?[80]
Brecht's involvement inagitprop and his lack of clear condemnation of purges resulted in criticism from many contemporaries who became disillusioned with communism earlier.Fritz Raddatz, who knew Brecht for a long time, described his friend's attitude as "broken", "escaping the problem of Stalinism", ignoring his friends being murdered in the USSR, and keeping silent duringshow trials such as theSlánský trial.[81]
After Khrushchev's "Secret Speech"—the report read on the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which brought the crimes of Stalinism to the public—Brecht wrote poems critical of Stalin and his cult, unpublished during Brecht's lifetime. In the best-known of them, "The Tsar Spoke to Them" (Der Zar hat mit ihnen gesprochen),[82][83] Brecht mocked the epithets applied to Stalin as "the honoured murderer of the people"[84] and compared his state terror policies with the ones of the Russian TsarNicholas II, famous for violent suppression of a peaceful demonstration on "Bloody Sunday" and later protests which resulted in theRussian Revolution of 1905.[83]
the sun of the peoples burned its worshippers. ... when young he was conscientious when old he was cruel young he was not god who becomes god becomes dumb.[85]
Brecht died on 14 August 1956[86] of a heart attack at the age of 58. He is buried in theDorotheenstadt Cemetery onChausseestraße in theMitte neighbourhood of Berlin, overlooked by the residence he shared with Helene Weigel.
According to Stephen Parker, who reviewed Brecht's writings and unpublished medical records, Brecht contractedrheumatic fever as a child, which led to anenlarged heart, followed by life-long chronic heart failure andSydenham's chorea. A report of aradiograph taken of Brecht in 1951 describes a badly diseased heart, enlarged to the left with a protrudingaortic knob and with seriously impaired pumping. Brecht's colleagues characterized him as being very nervous, and sometimes shaking his head or moving his hands erratically. This can be reasonably attributed to Sydenham's chorea, which is also associated withemotional lability, personality changes,obsessive-compulsive behavior, andhyperactivity, which matched Brecht's behavior. "What is remarkable," wrote Parker, "is his capacity to turn abject physical weakness into peerless artistic strength,arrhythmia into the rhythms of poetry, chorea into the choreography of drama."[87]
Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of aclimacticcatharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognize social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside.[88] For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is arepresentation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed, and as such, was changeable.
One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called theVerfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect").[90] This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them".[91] To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs tointerrupt the action, explanatory placards, the transposition of text to thethird person orpast tense in rehearsals, and speaking the stage directions out loud.[92]
In contrast to many otheravant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire todestroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to "re-function" the theatre to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in theaesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the "high art/popular culture" dichotomy—vying with the likes ofTheodor W. Adorno,György Lukács,Ernst Bloch, and developing a close friendship withWalter Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to itspsychological andsocialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama sinceIbsen andStrindberg,"Raymond Williams argues,[93] whilePeter Bürger dubs him "the most importantmaterialist writer of our time."[94]
Brecht was also influenced by Chinese theatre, and used its aesthetic as an argument forVerfremdungseffekt. Brecht believed, "Traditional Chinese acting also knows the alienation [sic] effect, and applies it most subtly.[95] The [Chinese] performer portrays incidents of utmost passion, but without his delivery becoming heated."[96] Brecht attended a Chinese opera performance and was introduced to the famous Chinese opera performerMei Lanfang in 1935.[97] However, Brecht was sure to distinguish between Epic and Chinese theatre. He recognized that the Chinese style was not a "transportable piece of technique",[98] and that epic theatre sought to historicize and address social and political issues.[99]
Brecht used his poetry to criticize European culture, includingNazis, and the Germanbourgeoisie. Brecht's poetry is marked by the effects of theFirst andSecond World Wars.
Throughout his theatric production, poems are incorporated into his plays with music. In 1951, Brecht issued a recantation of his apparent suppression of poetry in his plays with a note titledOn Poetry and Virtuosity. He writes:
We shall not need to speak of a play's poetry ... something that seemed relatively unimportant in the immediate past. It seemed not only unimportant, but misleading, and the reason was not that the poetic element had been sufficiently developed and observed, but that reality had been tampered with in its name ... we had to speak of a truth as distinct from poetry ... we have given up examining works of art from their poetic or artistic aspect, and got satisfaction from theatrical works that have no sort of poetic appeal ... Such works and performances may have some effect, but it can hardly be a profound one, not even politically. For it is a peculiarity of the theatrical medium that it communicates awarenesses and impulses in the form of pleasure: the depth of the pleasure and the impulse will correspond to the depth of the pleasure.
Brecht's most influential poetry is featured in hisManual of Piety (Devotions), establishing him as a noted poet.
Brecht's widow, the actressHelene Weigel, continued to manage the Berliner Ensemble until her death in 1971. The theatre company was primarily devoted to performing Brecht's plays. His plays were a focus of theSchauspiel Frankfurt whenHarry Buckwitz was general manager, including the world premiere ofDie Gesichte der Simone Machard in 1957.[100]
Besides being a prominent dramatist and poet, Bertolt Brecht has also been cited by scholars for making significant original contributions to social and political philosophy.[101]
Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill influenced the evolution ofrock. The "Alabama Song" for example, originally published as a poem in Brecht'sHauspostille (1927) and set to music by Weill inMahagonny, was recorded byThe Doors on their self-titled debut album, as well as byDavid Bowie and various other bands and soloists since the 1960s.[103] In his memoir,Bob Dylan wrote about the huge impact that "Pirate Jenny" fromThe Threepenny Opera had on him. He first heard the song in a New York theatrical show that featured compositions by Brecht and Weill. At the time, Dylan was performing traditional folk music and had barely ventured into his own songwriting. But the "outrageous power" of "Pirate Jenny" was an epiphany which prompted him to start experimenting with the storytelling possibilities of song.[104]
Brecht wrote hundreds of poems throughout his life.[109] He began writing poetry as a young boy, and his first poems were published in 1914. His poetry was influenced by folk-ballads, Frenchchansons, and the poetry ofRimbaud andVillon.[citation needed] The last collection of new poetry by Brecht published in his lifetime was the 1939Svendborger Gedichte.[110]
^Hässler, Hans-Jürgen; von Heusinger, Christian, eds. (1989).Kultur gegen Krieg, Wissenschaft für den Frieden [Culture against War, Science for Peace] (in German). Würzburg, Germany:Königshausen & Neumann.ISBN978-3-88479-401-2.
^Thomson 1994, p. 24. In hisMessingkauf Dialogues, Brecht cites Wedekind, along withBüchner andValentin, as his "chief influences" in his early years: "he", Brecht writes of himself in the third person, "also saw the writerWedekind performing his own works in a style which he had developed in cabaret. Wedekind had worked as aballad singer; he accompanied himself on the lute." (Brecht 1965, p. 69).Kutscher was "bitterly critical" of Brecht's own early dramatic writings (Willet and Manheim 1970, vii).
^Meech 1994, pp. 54–55 andBenjamin 1983, p. 115. See the article onEdward II for details of Brecht's germinal 'epic' ideas and techniques in this production.
^According to Willett, Brecht was disgruntled with theDeutsches Theater at not being given a Shakespeare production to direct. At the end of the 1924–1925 season, both his andCarl Zuckmayer's (his fellow dramaturg) contracts were not renewed. (Willett 1967, p. 145). Zuckmayer relates how: "Brecht seldom turned up there; with his flapping leather jacket he looked like a cross between a lorry driver and a Jesuit seminarist. Roughly speaking, what he wanted was to take over complete control; the season's programme must be regulated entirely according to his theories, and the stage be rechristened 'epic smoke theatre', it being his view that people might actually be disposed to think if they were allowed to smoke at the same time. As this was refused him he confined himself to coming and drawing his pay." (Quoted byWillett 1967, p. 145.
^Willett and Manheim point to the significance of this poem as a marker of the shift in Brecht's work towards "a much more urban, industrialized flavour" (Willett & Manheim 1970, p. viii).
^Willett 1998, p. 103 andWillett 1978, p. 72. In his bookThe Political Theatre, Piscator wrote: "Perhaps my whole style of directing is a direct result of the total lack of suitable plays. It would certainly not have taken so dominant form if adequate plays had been on hand when I started" (1929, 185).
^See Brecht'sJournal entry for 24 June 1943. Brecht claimed to have written the adaptation (in hisJournal entry), but Piscator contested that; the manuscript bears the names "Brecht, [Felix] Gasbarra,Piscator,G. Grosz" in Brecht's handwriting (Willett 1978, p. 110). See alsoWillett 1978, pp. 90–95. Brecht wrote a sequel to the novel in 1943,Schweik in the Second World War.
^Willett 1998, p. 104. In relation to his innovations in the use of theatre technology, Piscator wrote: "technical innovations were never an end in themselves for me. Any means I have used or am currently in the process of using were designed to elevate the events on the stage onto ahistorical plane and not just to enlarge the technical range of the stage machinery. My technical devices had been developed to cover up the deficiencies of the dramatists' products" ("Basic Principles of a Sociological Drama" [1929]; inKolocotroni, Goldman & Taxidou 1998, p. 243).
^Willett 1978, pp. 109–110. The similarities between Brecht's and Piscator's theoretical formulations from the time indicate that the two agreed on fundamentals; compare Piscator's summation of the achievements of his first company (1929), which follows, with Brecht'sMahagonny Notes (1930): "In lieu of private themes we had generalisation, in lieu of what was special the typical, in lieu of accident causality. Decorativeness gave way to constructedness, Reason was put on a par with Emotion, while sensuality was replaced by didacticism and fantasy by documentary reality." From a speech given by Piscator on 25 March 1929, and reproduced inSchriften 2 p. 50; quoted byWillett 1978, p. 107. See alsoWillett 1998, pp. 104–105.
^The two first met in March 1927, after Weill had written a critical introduction to the broadcast on Berlin Radio of an adaptation of Brecht'sMan Equals Man. When they met, Brecht was 29 years old and Weill was 27. Brecht had experience of writing songs and had performed his own with tunes he had composed; at the time he was also married to an opera singer (Zoff). Weill had collaborated withGeorg Kaiser, one of the fewExpressionist playwrights that Brecht admired; he was married to the actressLotte Lenya (Willett & Manheim 1970, p. xv).
^Willet and Manheim (1979, xv–xviii). In Munich in 1924 Brecht had begun referring to some of the stranger aspects of life in post-putsch Bavaria under the codename "Mahagonny". TheAmerikanismus imagery appears in his first three "Mahagonny Songs", with their Wild West references. With that, however, the project stalled for two and a half years. With Hauptmann, who wrote the two English-language "Mahagonny Songs", Brecht had begun work on an opera to be calledSodom and Gomorrah orThe Man from Manhattan and a radio play calledThe Flood or 'The Collapse of Miami, the Paradise City', both of which came to underlie the new scheme with Weill. SeeWillett & Manheim 1970, pp. xv–xvi. The influence ofAmerikanismus is most clearly discernible in Brecht'sIn the Jungle of Cities.
^In this respect, the creative process forMahagonny was quite different fromThe Threepenny Opera, with the former beingdurchkomponiert or set to music right through, whereas on the latter Weill was brought at a late stage to set the songs. SeeWillett & Manheim 1970, p. xv.
^The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht. Translated by Constantine, David; Kuhn, Tom. New York: Liveright Publishing. 18 December 2018.ISBN978-0871407672. In "Hollywood Elegies" (1942), he wrote, "The town of Hollywood has taught me this / Paradise and hell / Can be one city".
^Walter Held: "Stalins deutsche Opfer und die Volksfront", in the underground magazineUnser Wort, Nr. 4/5, October 1938, pp. 7 ff.;Michael Rohrwasser,Der Stalinismus und die Renegaten. Die Literatur der Exkommunisten, Stuttgart 1991, p. 163
^Brecht 2000, p. 440. The poem was first printed in the West-German newspaperDie Welt in 1959 and subsequently in theBuckow Elegies in the West in 1964. It was first published in the GDR in 1969 after Helene Weigel had insisted on its inclusion in a collected edition of Brecht's works.
^Röhl, Bettina (2018).So macht Kommunismus Spaß: Ulrike Meinhof, Klaus Rainer Röhl und die Akte Konkret. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag.ISBN978-3-453-60450-6.They were all "broken", and by this I mean they avoided the problem of Stalinism, ran from it. Never mentioned their murdered friends and comrades, mostly in the USSR. Never engaged politically during Slansky Trial in Prague. "Broken" means they experienced the lie. I accuse them of keeping silent about the crimes of Stalin's regime. They put aside the whole complex of guilt that came with communism, real communism, or Stalinism to be precise. If that was not enough, they also wrote panegyrics praising Stalin, and they did that when they already knew about all these murders and atrocities.
^Squiers, Anthony (2015). "A Critical Response to Heidi M. Silcox's "What's Wrong with Alienation?"".Philosophy and Literature.39:243–247.doi:10.1353/phl.2015.0016.S2CID146205099.
^On these relationships, see "autonomization" inJameson (1998, pp. 43–58) and "non-organic work of art" inBürger (1984, pp. 87–92). Willett observes: "With Brecht the samemontage technique spread to the drama, where the oldProcrustean plot yielded to a more "epic" form of narrative better able to cope with wide-ranging modern socio-economic themes. That, at least, was how Brecht theoretically justified his choice of form, and from about 1929 on he began to interpret its penchant for "contradictions", much as hadSergei Eisenstein, in terms of thedialectic. It is fairly clear that in Brecht's case the practice came before the theory, for his actual composition of a play, with its switching around of scenes and characters, even the physical cutting up and sticking together of the typescript, shows that montage was the structural technique most natural to him. LikeJaroslav Hašek and Joyce he had not learnt this scissors-and-paste method from the Soviet cinema but picked it out of the air" (Willett 1978, p. 110).
^Brooker 1994, p. 193. Brooker writes that "the term 'alienation' is an inadequate and even misleading translation of Brecht'sVerfremdung. The terms 'de-familiarisation' or 'estrangement', when understood as more than purely formal devices, give a more accurate sense of Brecht's intentions. A better term still would be 'de-alienation'".
^Dylan, Bob (2004).Chronicles: Volume One. Simon & Schuster. pp. 272–276.ISBN0-7432-2815-4.
^Jameson (1998, pp. 10–11). See also the discussions of Brecht's collaborative relationships in the essays collected inThomson & Sacks 1994. John Fuegi's take on Brecht's collaborations, detailed inBrecht & Co. (New York: Grove, 1994; also known asThe Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht) and summarized in his contribution toThomson & Sacks 1994, pp. 104–116, offers a particularly negative perspective; Jameson comments "his book will remain a fundamental document for future students of the ideological confusions of Western intellectuals during the immediate post-Cold War years"Jameson 1998, p. 31; Olga Taxidou offers a critical account of Fuegi's project from a feminist perspective inTaxidou 1995, pp. 381–384.
^Bertolt, Brecht (1983). Willet, John; Manheim, Ralph (eds.).Short stories, 1921-1946. London; New York: Methuen. p. 121.
^Hellman, Lillian; Baker, Josephine; Bertolt, Brecht; Wolf, Christina; Kafka, Franz; Pynchon, Thomas. Miller, John; Smith, Tim (eds.).Berlin: Tales of the City. Chronicle Books. p. 1.
^The translations of the titles are based on the standard of the Brecht Collected Plays series (see bibliography, primary sources). Chronology provided through consultation withSacks 1994 andWillett 1967, preferring the former with any conflicts.
^Note: Several of Brecht's poems were set by his collaboratorHanns Eisler in hisDeutsche Sinfonie, begun in 1935, but not premiered until 1959 (three years after Brecht's death).
Seven Plays by Bertolt Brecht, 1961. Ed. Eric Bentley. New York:Grove Press.In the Swamp, A Man's A Man, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Mother Courage, Galileo, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Caucasian Chalk Circle.OCLC294759
Brecht, Bertolt. 1994a.Collected Plays: One. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose. London: Methuen.Baal, Drums in the Night, In the Jungle of Cities, The Life of Edward II in England, andFive One-Act Plays.ISBN0-413-68570-5.
1994b.Collected Plays: Two. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen.Man Equals Man, the Elephant Calf, The Threepenny Opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, andThe Seven Deadly Sins.ISBN0-413-68560-8.
1997.Collected Plays: Three. Ed. John Willett. London: Methuen.St Joan of the Stockyards, the Mother, andSix Lehrstöcke (Lindbergh's Flight, The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent, He Said Yes / He Said No, The Decision, The Exception and the Rule, andThe Horatians and the Curiatians)ISBN0-413-70460-2.
2003b.Collected Plays: Four. Ed. Tom Kuhn and John Willett. London: Methuen.Round heads and pointed heads, Dansen, How much is your iron?, The trial of Lucullus, Fear and misery of the Third Reich, andSeñora Carrar's riflesISBN0-413-70470-X.
1995.Collected Plays: Five. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen.Life of Galileo andMother Courage and Her ChildrenISBN0-413-69970-6.
1994c.Collected Plays: Six. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen.The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, andMr Puntila and His Man MattiISBN0-413-68580-2.
1994d.Collected Plays: Seven. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen.The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweyk in the Second World War, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, andThe Duchess of MalfiISBN0-413-68590-X.
2004.Collected Plays: Eight. Ed. Tom Kuhn and David Constantine. London: Methuen.The Antigone of Sophocles, The Days of the Commune, andTurandot or the Whitewasher's CongressISBN0-413-77352-3.
1972.Collected Plays: Nine. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. New York: Vintage.The Tutor; Coriolanus; The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen, 1431; Don Juan; andTrumpets and DrumsISBN0-394-71819-4.
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