Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German dramatist, director, and poet, whose unique, experimental treatment of social themes and revolutionary experiments greatly influenced modern drama and theatrical production.

Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, and was educated at the University of Munich. In 1924 he became dramaturge at the Berlin Deutsches Theater, under the direction of Max Reinhardt. His first play, Baal (written in 1918, published in 1922), shows the influence of Expressionism, the leading dramatic movement at the time. In 1928 Brecht wrote a musical drama, Die Dreigroschenoper (1958; The Threepenny Opera), with the German composer Kurt Weill. This musical, based on The Beggar’s Opera (1728) by the English dramatist John Gay, was a caustic satire on capitalism and became Brecht’s greatest theatrical success. Staged first in Berlin in 1928, it was produced in the United States in 1933.

In 1924 Brecht had begun to study Marxism, and from 1928 until Hitler came to power, Brecht wrote and produced several operas and didactic plays. The opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1930; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, 1956), which also featured music by Weill, again severely criticized capitalism. The concern for justice was a major theme of Brecht’s work.

During this early period in his career Brecht trained actors and began to develop a theory of dramatic technique known as epic theatre. Rejecting the methods of traditional realistic drama, he preferred a loose narrative form in which he used distancing devices such as asides and masks to prevent the spectator from identifying with the characters on stage. He saw this technique of alienation, the Verfremdungseffekt, as being essential to the audience’s learning process since it reduced its emotional response and instead encouraged thought. The Lehrstücke (didactic plays), which include the plays Die Massnahme (The Measures Taken, 1929-1930), Die Ausnahme und die Regel (The Exception and the Rule, 1938), and Der Jasager und der Neinsager (He Who Says Yes, and He Who Says No, 1930), are the most radical expression of Brecht’s socialistic aim.

Because of his opposition to Hitler’s government, Brecht was forced to flee from Germany in 1933, living first in Scandinavia and finally settling in California in 1941. It was during these years of exile that he produced some of his best works, such as Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (1941; Mother Courage and Her Children, 1963), which established his reputation as a serious dramatist, Leben des Galilei (1943; The Life of Galileo), and Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis (1944-1945; The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 1948).

Brecht considered himself a practical man of the theatre who had freed himself from the trends of Expressionist theatre in order to experiment with new forms. He wanted to show that change was not only possible but necessary. His versatile use of language and poetic form—classical language mixed with demotic language, unrhymed and irregular verse—was designed to shake the audience from uncritical passivity into thought and, hopefully, action.

In 1948 Brecht returned to Germany, settled in East Berlin, and founded his own theatrical company, the Berliner Ensemble. He was a controversial figure in Eastern Europe, because his moral pessimism conflicted with the Soviet ideal of socialist realism. Throughout his life Brecht also wrote several outstanding collections of poems that, with the plays, rank him among the greatest German authors.

See Drama and Dramatic Arts.