Abstract
Brecht’s theory and practice of theatre changed considerably during his career. In particular, once he had adopted a Marxist view of society (towards the end of the 1920s) Brecht began to develop a conception of theatre that would propagate that view of society and thus help to bring about fundamental social change. This essay will first outline the main principles of Brecht’s theory before going on to examine the relationship between his declared intentions and his practice as a writer and producer of plays.
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Notes
See Fritz Sternberg, Der dichter und die ratio (Göttingen: Sachse und Pohl, 1963) and the ‘Kölner Rundfunkgespräch’ between Brecht, Sternberg, Herbert Jhering and Ernst Hardt (GW 15, pp. 146–53).
John Willett (ed. and trans.), Brecht on Theatre (London: Methuen, 1978) p. 30.
In their German Ideology Marx and Engels wrote: ‘Consciousness is thus in its origins a social product and will always remain such as long as human beings exist’ (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Werke (Berlin: Marx-Engels Institute, 1957) vol. 3, p. 31).
Francis Fergusson, ‘Three Allegorists: Brecht, Wilder and Eliot’, Seewanee Review, lxiv (1956) pp. 544–73.
One of the earliest, but still one of the best analyses of the various forms of ‘Verfremdung’ is Reinhold Grimm, Bertolt Brecht: Die Struktur seines Werkes (Nürnberg: H. Carl Verlag, 1959)
Saint Joan of the Stockyards, trans. F. Jones (London: Methuen, 1976) p. 106 (adapted).
See the essay by Joachim Tenschert, ‘Über die Verwendung von Masken’, in Brechts Theaterarbeit: Seine Inszenierung des ‘Kaukasischen Kreidekreises’ 1954, ed. W. Hecht (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1985) pp. 151–62.
G. Szczesny, Das Leben des Galilei und der Fall Bertolt Brecht (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1966).
See W. Hecht (ed.), Brechts ‘Leben des Galilei’ (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1981) p. 82.
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© 1994 The Editorial Board, Lumière Cooperative Press Ltd
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Speirs, R. (1994). The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: Theory and Practice. In: Docherty, B. (eds) Twentieth-Century European Drama. Insights. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23073-0_3
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