Schwaechen bertolt brecht biography

German poet, playwright, and drama director (1898–1956)

"Brecht" redirects here. Unjustifiable other uses, see Brecht (disambiguation).

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht^[a] (10 Feb 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht plus Bert Brecht, was a European theatre practitioner, playwright, and lyrist.

Coming of age during honesty Weimar Republic, he had consummate first successes as a dramaturgist in Munich and moved keep Berlin in 1924, where pacify wrote The Threepenny Opera cop Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Composer and began a life-long cooperation with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought all along this period, Brecht wrote erudite Lehrstücke and became a outdo theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to telephone "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt.

When the Nazis came identify power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled his home nation, initially to Scandinavia. During Planet War II he moved helter-skelter Southern California where he forward himself as a screenwriter, arm meanwhile was being surveilled overtake the FBI. In 1947, bankruptcy was part of the lid group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by nobility House Un-American Activities Committee obey alleged Communist Party affiliations.^[4] Blue blood the gentry day after testifying, he requited to Europe, eventually settling appearance East Berlin where he co-founded the theatre company Berliner Garb with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.^[5]

Life come to rest career

Bavaria (1898–1924)

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Poet (as a child known monkey Eugen) was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Deutschland, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) and his helpmate Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920).

Brecht's mother was a devout Complaining and his father a Established Catholic (who had been decided to have a Protestant wedding). The modest house where inaccuracy was born is today in one piece as a Brecht Museum.^[6] Sovereignty father worked for a bradawl mill, becoming its managing pretentious in 1914.^[7] At Augsburg, top maternal grandparents lived in representation neighbouring house.

They were Pietists and his grandmother influenced Bertolt Brecht and his brother Conductor considerably during their childhood.

Due to his grandmother's and climax mother's influence, Brecht knew glory Bible, a familiarity that would have a life-long effect inveigle his writing. From his ormal came the "dangerous image embodiment the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama.^[8] Brecht's living quarters life was comfortably middle grade, despite what his occasional essay to claim peasant origins implied.^[9] At school in Augsburg noteworthy met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a life-long inventive partnership.

Neher designed many slap the sets for Brecht's dramas and helped to forge honesty distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre.

When Brecht was 16, World War I penurious out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht any minute now changed his mind on sight his classmates "swallowed by distinction army".^[7] Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 go all-out for writing an essay in put up with to the line Dulce waive decorum est pro patria mori from the Roman poet Poet, calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap agitprop for a specific purpose") settle down arguing that only an unintelligent person could be persuaded vertical die for their country.

Emperor expulsion was only prevented unhelpful the intervention of Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute teacher within reach Brecht's school.^[10]

On his father's advisement, Brecht sought to avoid core conscripted into the army by way of exploiting a loophole which allowable for medical students to live deferred.

He subsequently registered disperse a medical course at Metropolis University, where he enrolled crumble 1917.^[11] There he studied stage play with Arthur Kutscher, who exciting in the young Brecht apartment house admiration for the iconoclastic dramaturgist and cabaret star Frank Wedekind.^[12]

From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper qualifications began appearing under the contemporary name "Bert Brecht" (his principal theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919).^[13] Brecht was drafted into warlike service in the autumn disparage 1918, only to be aware back to Augsburg as elegant medical orderly in a expeditionary VD clinic; the war puffy a month later.^[7]

In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship disintegrate 1917) had a son, Make yourself be heard.

Frank died in 1943, monkey a Wehrmacht conscript on rank Eastern Front.^[14] In 1920 Brecht's mother died.

Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in leadership political cabaret of the City comedian Karl Valentin.^[16] Brecht's deed for the next few time eon record numerous visits to shroud Valentin perform.^[17] Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, for surmount "virtually complete rejection of impressions and cheap psychology".

Writing rip apart his Messingkauf Dialogues years subsequent, Brecht identified Valentin, along peer Wedekind and Büchner, as "chief influences" at that time:

But the man he be aware most from was the zany Valentin, who performed in trim beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played intractable employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers splendid made them look ridiculous.

Magnanimity employer was played by government partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a accepted woman comedian who used deal with pad herself out and discourse with in a deep bass voice.

Brecht's first full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response take a breather an argument in one be taken in by Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating regular trend that persisted throughout reward career of creative activity make certain was generated by a covet to counter another work (both others' and his own, brand his many adaptations and re-writes attest).

"Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting different people that's a challenge."^[20] Dramatist completed his second major era, Drums in the Night, preparation February 1919.

Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht compelled acquaintance with many influential liquidate in the Berlin cultural location.

Amongst them was the dramaturge Arnolt Bronnen with whom sand established a joint venture, honesty Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Playwright Company. Brecht changed the orthography of his first name finished Bertolt to rhyme with Arnolt.

In 1922 while still board in Munich, Brecht came substantiate the attention of an effectual Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Poet has changed Germany's literary constitution overnight"—he enthused in his regard of Brecht's first play become be produced, Drums in nobility Night—"[he] has given our constantly a new tone, a additional melody, a new vision.

[...] It is a language set your mind at rest can feel on your patois, in your gums, your custom, your spinal column."^[21] In Nov it was announced that Playwright had been awarded the uplifting Kleist Prize (intended for unsubstantiate writers and probably Germany's about significant literary award, until monotonous was abolished in 1932) promote his first three plays (Baal, Drums in the Night, most important In the Jungle, although daring act that point only Drums confidential been produced).^[22] The citation in the direction of the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is vivid without give deliberately poetic, symbolical without fashion over literary.

Brecht is spruce up dramatist because his language practical felt physically and in representation round."^[23] That year he wed the Viennese opera singer Marianne Zoff. Their daughter, Hanne Hiob, born in March 1923, was a successful German actress.^[7]

In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario demand what was to become top-notch short slapstick film, Mysteries regard a Barbershop, directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin.

Despite a lack of prosperity at the time, its emergent inventiveness and the subsequent health of many of its contributors have meant that it task now considered one of probity most important films in Teutonic film history.^[25] In May look up to that year, Brecht's In decency Jungle premiered in Munich, additionally directed by Engel.

Opening dimness proved to be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize assorted of his later productions sooner than the Weimar Republic—in which Nazis blew whistles and threw effluvium bombs at the actors buy the stage.^[17]

In 1924 Brecht la-di-da orlah-di-dah with the novelist and scriptwriter Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he difficult met in 1919) on fraudster adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II that proved to well a milestone in Brecht's obvious theatrical and dramaturgical development.

Brecht's Edward II constituted his culminating attempt at collaborative writing with was the first of visit classic texts he was hitch adapt. As his first unescorted directorial début, he later credited it as the germ suffer defeat his conception of "epic theatre".^[28] That September, a job whereas assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater—at the time give someone a jingle of the leading three act for four theatres in the world—brought him to Berlin.^[29]

Weimar Republic Songster (1925–1933)

In 1923 Brecht's marriage give permission Zoff began to break connect (though they did not breakup until 1927).^[30] Brecht had expire involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel.

Brecht extremity Weigel's son, Stefan, was indigenous in October 1924.^[32]

In his pretend as dramaturg, Brecht had luxurious to stimulate him but approximately work of his own.^[33] Reinhardt staged Shaw's Saint Joan, Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters (with the improvisational approach of say publicly commedia dell'arte in which representation actors chatted with the assistant about their roles), and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search a variety of an Author in his parcel of Berlin theatres.

A additional version of Brecht's third fanfare, now entitled Jungle: Decline vacation a Family, opened at nobleness Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success.

At this put on the back burner Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB".^[36] Dupe 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as above all assistant for the completion rule his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home (Hauspostille, one day published in January 1927).

She continued to work with him after the publisher's commission ran out.

In 1925 in Mannheim blue blood the gentry artistic exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity") had given its title to the new post-Expressionist transfer in the German arts. House little to do at magnanimity Deutsches Theater, Brecht began engender a feeling of develop his Man Equals Man project, which was to understand the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group follow friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended."^[38] This combined approach to artistic production, cartel with aspects of Brecht's script book and style of theatrical contracts, mark Brecht's work from that period as part of glory Neue Sachlichkeit movement.

The collective's work "mirrored the artistic indisposed of the middle 1920s", Willett and Manheim argue:

with their attitude of Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing have a phobia about the collectivity and downplaying a range of the individual, and their contemporary cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery endure sport.

Together the "collective" would go to fights, not inimitable absorbing their terminology and knowledge (which permeates Man Equals Man) but also drawing those opinion for the theatre as topping whole which Brecht set set aside in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried occasion realise by means of excellence harsh lighting, the boxing-ring embellish and other anti-illusionistic devices stray henceforward appeared in his official productions.

In 1925, Brecht saw join films that had a best influence on him: Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin.

Brecht had compared Valentin to Chaplin, and the connect of them provided models convey Galy Gay in Man Equals Man. Brecht later wrote consider it Chaplin "would in many conduct come closer to the noble than to the dramatic theatre's requirements." They met several period during Brecht's time in description United States, and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux project, which ethnic group is possible Brecht influenced.

In 1926 a series of short mythological was published under Brecht's reputation, though Hauptmann was closely allied with writing them.

Following high-mindedness production of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Poet began studying Marxism and collectivism in earnest, under the control of Hauptmann. "When I make Marx's Capital", a note tough Brecht reveals, "I understood out of your depth plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for return to health plays I'd ever come across." Inspired by the developments bring into being USSR, Brecht wrote a back copy of agitprop plays, praising position bolshevikcollectivism (replaceability of each shareholder of the collective in Man Equals Man) and the Colored Terror (The Decision).^{[citation needed]}

In 1927 Brecht became part time off the "dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first company, which was designed to tackle the attention of finding new plays fit in its "epic, political, confrontational, movie theatre".^[49] Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of blue blood the gentry latter's landmark productions, Hoppla, We're Alive! by Toller, Rasputin, The Adventures of the Good Combatant Schweik, and Konjunktur by Lania.

Brecht's most significant contribution was to the adaptation of primacy unfinished episodic comic novel Schweik, which he later described whilst a "montage from the novel".^[51] The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and model, and alerted him to high-mindedness radical potentials offered to depiction "epic" playwright by the step of stage technology (particularly projections).^[52] What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and let go acknowledged it" Willett suggests:

The emphasis on Reason and didacticism, the sense that the spanking subject matter demanded a pristine dramatic form, the use atlas songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found unexciting his notes and essays reminiscent of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Fishy examples as the step-by-step fiction technique of Schweik and description oil interests handled in Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').^[53]

Brecht was struggling at the without fail with the question of even so to dramatize the complex mercantile relationships of modern capitalism detect his unfinished project Joe Proprietress.

Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre proclaimed in its programme for interpretation 1927–28 season). It wasn't till such time as his Saint Joan of rank Stockyards (written between 1929 bracket 1931) that Brecht solved arousal. In 1928 he discussed farm Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Brecht's cast a shadow Drums in the Night, on the contrary the productions did not materialize.

The year 1927 also saw blue blood the gentry first collaboration between Brecht prep added to the young composer Kurt Weill.^[56] Together they began to make progress Brecht's Mahagonny project, along line lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered in terms of the Neue Sachlichkeit's Amerikanismus, which had enlightened Brecht's previous work.^[57] They show up The Little Mahagonny for graceful music festival in July, laugh what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for loftiness large-scale piece.

From that flop on Caspar Neher became break off integral part of the organization effort, with words, music remarkable visuals conceived in relation relating to one another from the start.^[58] The model for their reciprocated articulation lay in Brecht's latterly formulated principle of the "separation of the elements", which perform first outlined in "The Virgin Theatre Is the Epic Theatre" (1930).

The principle, a kind of montage, proposed by-passing rectitude "great struggle for supremacy betwixt words, music and production" despite the fact that Brecht put it, by performance each as self-contained, independent mill of art that adopt attitudes towards one another.^[59]

In 1930 Dramatist married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon afterwards the wedding.^[60] She also became an actress and would next share the copyrights of Brecht's work with her siblings.

Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very relevant. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and nakedness worked with Brecht and communicate the multiple teaching plays, which attempted to create a unique dramaturgy for participants rather top passive audiences. These addressed person to the massive worker portal organisation that existed in Deutschland and Austria in the Decade.

So did Brecht's first unmodified play, Saint Joan of class Stockyards, which attempts to paint the drama in financial dealing.

This collective adapted John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to music exceed Kurt Weill. Retitled The Inexpensive Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) it was the biggest hit in Songster of the 1920s and dialect trig renewing influence on the lyrical worldwide.

One of its wellnigh famous lines underscored the duplicity of conventional morality imposed hard the Church, working in combination with the established order, follow the face of working-class itch and deprivation:

Erst kommt das Fressen Dann kommt die True.

First the grub (lit. "eating like animals, gorging") Then interpretation morality.

The success of The Threepenny Opera was followed hard the quickly thrown together Happy End. It was a outoftheway and a commercial failure. Elbow the time the book was purported to be by illustriousness mysterious Dorothy Lane (now blurry to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator).

Poet only claimed authorship of glory song texts. Brecht would afterwards use elements of Happy End as the germ for crown Saint Joan of the Stockyards, a play that would not till hell freezes over see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. Happy End's score unhelpful Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".

The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall detect the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), caused an uproar when slap premiered in 1930 in City, with Nazis in the consultation protesting. The Mahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin walk heavily 1931 as a triumphant thrill.

Brecht spent the last existence of the Weimar-era (1930–1933) essential Berlin working with his "collective" on the Lehrstücke. These were a group of plays reluctant by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. The Lehrstücke often aimed at educating officers on Socialist issues.

The Getting ready Taken (Die Massnahme) was scored by Hanns Eisler. In and, Brecht worked on a letters for a semi-documentary feature single about the human impact well mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. This striking film practical notable for its subversive ludicrousness, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic dulcet contribution.

It still provides dexterous vivid insight into Berlin extensive the last years of position Weimar Republic.

California and Fake War II (1933–1945)

Fearing persecution, Poet fled Nazi Germany in Feb 1933, just after Hitler took power. Following brief spells unsubtle Prague, Zurich and Paris, stylishness and Weigel accepted an attraction from journalist and author Karin Michaëlis to move to Danmark.

The Brechts first stayed buy and sell Michaëlis at her house engage in battle the small island of Thurø close to the island admonishment Funen.^[61] They later bought their own house in Svendborg metamorphose Funen. This Svendborg house scorn Skovsbo Strand 8 became influence Brecht family residence for nobleness next six years.^[62] They frequently received guests there including Conductor Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Bitterness Berlau.

Brecht also travelled generally to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, Original York and London for many projects and collaborations.

When bloodshed seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, at he remained for a year.^[63] After Germany invaded Norway ground Denmark, Brecht left Sweden consign Helsinki, Finland,^[64] where he expected a pending visa to depiction United States.^[65] During this generation he co-wrote the play Mr Puntila and His Man Matti (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) with Hella Wuolijoki, partner whom he lived in significance Marlebäck manor house in Iitti.

Upon receipt of the U.S. visa in May 1941, righteousness Brecht family relocated to Austral California.^[65] They rented a two-story wooden bungalow in the Los Angeles beach suburb of Santa Monica.^[66] By the late Thirties, the West Side of Los Angeles had become a booming expatriate colony of European masterminds and artists.

Because the unity included so many writers, executive administratio, actors, and composers from German-speaking countries, it has been referred to as "Weimar on goodness Pacific".^[67]

At the center of distinction émigré community was Brecht's dampen down friend Salka Viertel, whom elegance had known in the Songwriter theatre world of the Decennary.

From her house in Santa Monica Canyon, Viertel hosted everyday tea parties and salons disc European intellectuals could mingle disconnect Hollywood luminaries.^[69] Brecht first fall over actor Charles Laughton at precise Viertel party, and it moneyed to the two men collaborating on the English-language version flawless Life of Galileo.^[70]

Although Brecht was not enamored of life speak the movie capital,^[71] he touched hard to find a clench for himself as a screenwriter.^[70] He co-wrote the screenplay be a symbol of the Fritz Lang-directed film Hangmen Also Die! (1943) which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, glory Nazi Deputy Reich Protector weekend away the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Heydrich had anachronistic Heinrich Himmler's right-hand man crate the SS and a knack architect of the Holocaust; unquestionable was known as "The Covet of Prague" (German: der Henker von Prag).^[72] For this peel, Brecht's fellow expatriate, composer Hanns Eisler, was nominated for strong Academy Award in the group of Best Music Score.

Prestige fact that three refugee artists from Nazi Germany – Lang, Playwright and Eisler – collaborated to sham the film exemplified the sway this generation of German exiles had on American culture. Hangmen Also Die! turned out put the finishing touches to be Brecht's only script range became a Hollywood film.

Integrity money he earned from contracts the script enabled him have got to write The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik in the Alternate World War and an change of Webster's The Duchess exhaustive Malfi.^[65]

During the reign of righteousness Third Reich, Brecht was dinky prominent practitioner of the Exilliteratur.

He expressed his opposition interrupt the National Socialist and Ideology movements in his famous plays: Life of Galileo, Mother Size and Her Children, The Travelling fair Person of Szechwan, The Get pleasure from Rise of Arturo Ui, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Fear existing Misery of the Third Reich, and many others.

However, crown refusal to speak in assist of Carola Neher, who epileptic fit in the GULAG after bring into being arrested during Joseph Stalin's Textbook Purge, was harshly criticised beside Russian émigrés living in rectitude West.^[73]

Cold War and final eld in East Germany (1945–1956)

At high-mindedness onset of the Cold Hostilities and "Second Red Scare" put it to somebody the U.S., Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses additional investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).^[74] Along go one better than more than 40 other Feeling writers, directors, actors and producers, he was subpoenaed in Sept 1947 by the HUAC.

Tho' he was one of leadership 19 "unfriendly" witnesses who locked away declared ahead of time they would not cooperate with depiction House investigation, Brecht eventually arranged to go before the congress and answer questions.^[75] He afterward explained he was following character advice of attorneys and plainspoken not want to delay sovereignty planned trip to Europe.

On 30 October 1947, Brecht testified to the HUAC that be active had never been a 1 of the Communist Party.^[74] Without fear made wry jokes throughout description proceedings, punctuating his inability resurrect speak English well with nonstop references to the translators cook, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible abolish himself.

HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for his cooperation.^[76] The remaining unfriendly witnesses who appeared before the HUAC story that time, the so-called Screenland Ten, declined on First Rectification grounds to answer about their Communist Party affiliations and were cited for contempt.

Movie

Brecht's decision to be clean "cooperative" witness—albeit in an devious way and providing no practical information—led to criticism of him, including accusations of betrayal. Honesty day after his testimony, Playwright fled to Europe and on no occasion returned to the U.S.

He lived in Zurich, Switzerland, pick a year. In February 1948 in the Swiss town disseminate Chur, Brecht staged an conversion of Sophocles' Antigone, based association a translation by Hölderlin.

Probity play was published under primacy title Antigonemodell 1948, accompanied by means of an essay on the desirability of creating a "non-Aristotelian" act of theatre.

In 1949 closure moved to East Berlin impressive established his theatre company relating to, the Berliner Ensemble. He keep Austrian nationality which was conj albeit in 1950, and his external bank accounts from which be active received valuable hard currency remittances.

The copyrights on his data were held by a Nation company.^[77]

Though he was never smashing member of the Communist Aggregation, Brecht had been schooled lecture in Marxism by the dissident politico Karl Korsch. Korsch's version influence the Marxist dialectic influenced Poet greatly, both his aesthetic belief and theatrical practice.

Brecht ordinary the Stalin Peace Prize burden 1954.^[78] His proximity to Collective thought made him controversial return Austria, where his plays were boycotted by directors and whoop performed for more than cry out years.

Brecht wrote very cowed plays in his final majority in East Berlin, none blame them as famous as her highness previous works.

He dedicated ourselves to directing plays and flourishing the talents of the catch on generation of young directors ride dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Director. At this time he wrote some of his most famed poems, including the Buckow Elegies.

At first, Brecht apparently backed the measures taken by representation East German government against excellence East German uprising of 1953, which included the use promote Soviet military force.

In spiffy tidy up letter from the day pointer the uprising to SED Supreme Secretary Walter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote: "History will pay its congratulations to the revolutionary impatience deal in the Socialist Unity Party illustrate Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about say publicly speed of socialist construction wish lead to a viewing predominant safeguarding of the socialist achievements.

At this moment I be obliged assure you of my dedication to the Socialist Unity Entity of Germany."^[79]

Brecht's subsequent commentary honor those events, however, offered great very different assessment. In make sure of of the poems in justness Elegies, "Die Lösung" (The Solution), a disillusioned Brecht would compose a few months later:

After the uprising of the Seventeenth of June
The Secretary virtuous the Writers Union
Had handbills distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had strayed the confidence of the government
And could win it in response only
By increased work quotas.

Would it not be easier
In that case for honesty government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?^[80]

Brecht's involvement hit down agitprop and his lack sketch out clear condemnation of purges resulted in criticism from many propagation who became disillusioned with marxism earlier.

Fritz Raddatz, who knew Brecht for a long put on the back burner, described his friend's attitude importance "broken", "escaping the problem signify Stalinism", ignoring his friends work out murdered in the USSR, paramount keeping silent during show trials such as the Slánský trial.^[81]

After Khrushchev's "Secret Speech"—the report prepare on the 20th Congress show signs of the CPSU, which brought birth crimes of Stalinism to ethics public—Brecht wrote poems critical faultless Stalin and his cult, furtively during Brecht's lifetime.

In character best-known of them, "The Absolute ruler Spoke to Them" (Der Zar hat mit ihnen gesprochen),^[82][83] Poet mocked the epithets applied drawback Stalin as "the honoured killing of the people"^[84] and compared his state terror policies break the ones of the Country Tsar Nicholas II, famous supporting violent suppression of a become calm demonstration on "Bloody Sunday" sports ground later protests which resulted direct the Russian Revolution of 1905.^[83]

the sun of the peoples turn its worshippers.
...
when minor he was conscientious
when advanced in years he was cruel
young
explicit was not god
who becomes god
becomes dumb.^[85]

Death

Brecht died exact 14 August 1956^[86] of uncomplicated heart attack at the graph of 58.

He is secret in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery amendment Chausseestraße in the Mitte zone of Berlin, overlooked by leadership residence he shared with Helene Weigel.

According to Stephen Author, who reviewed Brecht's writings fairy story unpublished medical records, Brecht constricted rheumatic fever as a descendant, which led to an large heart, followed by life-long long-lasting heart failure and Sydenham's chorea.

A report of a shadowgraph taken of Brecht in 1951 describes a badly diseased soul, enlarged to the left care a protruding aortic knob esoteric with seriously impaired pumping. Brecht's colleagues characterized him as growth very nervous, and sometimes oscillation his head or moving authority hands erratically. This can aside reasonably attributed to Sydenham's chorea, which is also associated connect with emotional lability, personality changes, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and hyperactivity, which identical Brecht's behavior.

"What is remarkable," wrote Parker, "is his prerogative to turn abject physical fragility into peerless artistic strength, cardiopathy into the rhythms of plan, chorea into the choreography deal in drama."^[87]

Theory and practice of theatre

Brecht developed the combined theory distinguished practice of his "Epic theatre" by synthesizing and extending interpretation experiments of Erwin Piscator tube Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore integrity theatre as a forum miserly political ideas and the prelude of a critical aesthetics draw round dialectical materialism.

Epic Theatre wished-for that a play should yell cause the spectator to discover emotionally with the characters eat action before him or affiliate, but should instead provoke sound self-reflection and a critical talk with of the action on magnanimity stage. Brecht thought that character experience of a climacticcatharsis asset emotion left an audience selfcomplacent.

Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical stance in order to recognize organized injustice and exploitation and allure be moved to go surrounding from the theatre and cessation change in the world outside.^[88] For this purpose, Brecht full the use of techniques cruise remind the spectator that rectitude play is a representation answer reality and not reality upturn.

By highlighting the constructed universe of the theatrical event, Dramatist hoped to communicate that description audience's reality was equally constructed, and as such, was fickle.

Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement have a high regard for the "epic form" of say publicly drama. This dramatic form assessment related to similar modernist innovations in other arts, including leadership strategy of divergent chapters pathway James Joyce's novel Ulysses, Sergei Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist "montage" in the cinema, good turn Picasso's introduction of cubist "collage" in the visual arts.^[89]

One good deal Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", take often mistranslated as "alienation effect").^[90] This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its incontrovertible, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment playing field curiosity about them".^[91] To that end, Brecht employed techniques much as the actor's direct give instructions to the audience, harsh topmost bright stage lighting, the bushy of songs to interrupt primacy action, explanatory placards, the abnormality of text to the tertiary person or past tense compel rehearsals, and speaking the stratum directions out loud.

In contrast cancel many other avant-garde approaches, notwithstanding, Brecht had no desire stick at destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to "re-function" the theatre to a in mint condition social use.

In this break into he was a vital contributor in the aesthetic debates corporeal his era—particularly over the "high art/popular culture" dichotomy—vying with integrity likes of Theodor W. Adorno, György Lukács, Ernst Bloch, station developing a close friendship go through Walter Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulate popular themes and forms hash up avant-garde formal experimentation to found a modernist realism that explicit in sharp contrast both pileup its psychological and socialist varieties.

"Brecht's work is the accumulate important and original in Indweller drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Putz Bürger dubs him "the well-nigh important materialist writer of mark out time."

Brecht was also influenced preschooler Chinese theatre, and used hang over aesthetic as an argument in favour of Verfremdungseffekt.

Brecht believed, "Traditional Island acting also knows the division [sic] effect, and applies record most subtly. The [Chinese] actress portrays incidents of utmost selfassurance, but without his delivery suitable heated." Brecht attended a Asiatic opera performance and was naturalized to the famous Chinese work performer Mei Lanfang in 1935.^[97] However, Brecht was sure occasion distinguish between Epic and Sinitic theatre.

He recognized that nobility Chinese style was not top-notch "transportable piece of technique", concentrate on that epic theatre sought think a lot of historicize and address social extremity political issues.

Brecht used his ode to criticize European culture, containing Nazis, and the German multitude. Brecht's poetry is marked stomach-turning the effects of the Premier and Second World Wars.

Throughout his theatric production, poems escalate incorporated into his plays tweak music. In 1951, Brecht come around c regard a recantation of his tower suppression of poetry in rulership plays with a note entitled On Poetry and Virtuosity. Recognized writes:

We shall not call for to speak of a play's poetry ...

something that seemed relatively unimportant in the instant past. It seemed not one and only unimportant, but misleading, and primacy reason was not that description poetic element had been greatly developed and observed, but delay reality had been tampered converge in its name ... incredulity had to speak of a- truth as distinct from meaning ...

we have given artifice examining works of art shun their poetic or artistic unquestionable, and got satisfaction from dramatic works that have no style of poetic appeal ... Specified works and performances may possess some effect, but it vesel hardly be a profound tending, not even politically. For spectacular act is a peculiarity of nobility theatrical medium that it communicates awarenesses and impulses in glory form of pleasure: the taken as a whole of the pleasure and authority impulse will correspond to honesty depth of the pleasure.

Brecht's most influential poetry is featured in his Manual of Dedication (Devotions), establishing him as graceful noted poet.

Legacy

Brecht's widow, class actress Helene Weigel, continued cause to feel manage the Berliner Ensemble till such time as her death in 1971.

Authority theatre company was primarily committed to performing Brecht's plays. Potentate plays were a focus ferryboat the Schauspiel Frankfurt when Follow Buckwitz was general manager, with the world premiere of Die Gesichte der Simone Machard misrepresent 1957.^[100]

Brecht's son, Stefan Brecht, became a poet and theatre essayist interested in New York's artistic theatre.

Besides being a salient dramatist and poet, Bertolt Dramatist has also been cited vulgar scholars for making significant designing contributions to social and state philosophy.^[101]

The aesthetic theories of Poet had a major influence settle on radical cinema in the Decennary and 1970s. Jean-Luc Godard, Alexandre Kluge, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Ōshima and Jean-Marie Straub alight Danielle Huillet are often insincere as the principal exponents indifference "Brechtian cinema".^[102]

Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill influenced the evolution interrupt rock.

The "Alabama Song" back example, originally published as elegant poem in Brecht's Hauspostille (1927) and set to music dampen Weill in Mahagonny, was factual by The Doors on their self-titled debut album, as on top form as by David Bowie come to rest various other bands and soloists since the 1960s.^[103] In top memoir, Bob Dylan wrote generate the huge impact that "Pirate Jenny" from The Threepenny Opera had on him.

He good cheer heard the song in unblended New York theatrical show range featured compositions by Brecht mushroom Weill. At the time, Songster was performing traditional folk descant and had barely ventured demeanour his own songwriting. But character "outrageous power" of "Pirate Jenny" was an epiphany which prompted him to start experimenting condemnation the storytelling possibilities of song.^[104]

Collaborators and associates

Collective and collaborative exploitable methods were inherent to Brecht's approach, as Fredric Jameson (among others) stresses.

Jameson describes blue blood the gentry creator of the work whimper as Brecht the individual, on the other hand rather as 'Brecht': a common subject that "certainly seemed elect have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer inaccessible in the bourgeois or individualist sense." During the course in shape his career, Brecht sustained spend time at long-lasting creative relationships with beat writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Helene Weigel, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Uncomfortable Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Carola Neher and Charles Laughton.

This level-headed "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different superior theatre as expression or trade in experience."^[105]

List of collaborators and associates

Works

Fiction

Plays and screenplays

Entries show: English-language interpretation of title (German-language title) [year written] / [year first produced]^[108]

Theoretical works

• The Modern Theatre Is rank Epic Theatre (1930)
• The Threepenny Lawsuit (Der Dreigroschenprozess) (written 1931; publicised 1932)
• The Book of Changes (fragment also known as Me-Ti; bound 1935–1939)
• The Street Scene (written 1938; published 1950)
• The Popular and honesty Realistic (written 1938; published 1958)
• Short Description of a New Access of Acting which Produces fraudster Alienation Effect (written 1940; publicized 1951)
• A Short Organum for high-mindedness Theatre ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)
• The Messingkauf Dialogues (Dialoge aus dem Messingkauf, published 1963)

Poetry

Brecht wrote nick of poems throughout his life.^[109] He began writing poetry by reason of a young boy, and surmount first poems were published calculate 1914.

His poetry was played by folk-ballads, French chansons, tolerate the poetry of Rimbaud present-day Villon.^{[citation needed]} The last gathering of new poetry by Poet published in his lifetime was the 1939 Svendborger Gedichte.^[110]

Some uphold Brecht's poems

See also

Notes

References