Bertolt%20Brecht

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Bertolt Brecht
By Dillon Felix Medina

• Dynamic Throwback

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Quick Bio

• Born in Augsburg Bavaria to middle class parents.
• Bright quiet student in grade school
• As a child, he visited folk festivals and saw
  extremely detailed dioramas of historical events.
  These simple, expressive images captured his
  imagination and had a strong influence on his
  artistic style later in life.

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Quick Bio (cont.)

• Went to Medical school where he was drafted into
  the German army near the end of the first World
  War.
• He was stationed in a VD clinic, but was still
  affected by the images he was exposed to.
• This experience would greatly influence his
  writing throughout his life and lead him to
  adopting a pacifist philosophy.

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Emerging Artist

• Around this time he began to write plays,
  finishing his first full length piece, entitled
  Baal, in 1919.
• Created in response to The Loner (Der Einsame) by
  Hans Johst.
• The first of many works to be created in response
  to another work.

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Anyone can be creative. Its rewriting other
people thats challenging.
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Berlin

• In September 1924, Brecht was hired as a
  dramaturge at Max Reinhardts Deutsches Theater
  in Berlin, one of the top theaters in the world
  at the time.
• Around this time he met Elisabeth Hauptmann who
  he remained romantically and professionally
  involved with for the rest of his life.
• Also during this time, he married Helene Weigel,
  a successful actress with whom he remained with
  for the rest of his life, albeit not faithfully.

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Berlin (cont.)

• Around this time he began establishing the
  Brecht Collective.
• First play produced by the collective was Mann
  ist Mann.
• Marks the beginning of his epic theatre.
• Began studying Marxist theory, and from this
  point on remained an avid communist in life and
  art.

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Exile

• Because of Hitlers rising power, Brecht left
  Germany in 1933 for Denmark, and then on to
  Sweden, and finally ending in America in 1941.
• He worked on several screenplays for Hollywood
  and hated every second of it.

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HUAC

• Blacklisted and subpoenaed in 1947.
• Laughed through the whole proceedings and
  contradicted everything he espoused, which was
  defendable according to his personal philosophy.
• Flabbergasted the board.
• Flew to Europe the day after the hearings were
  finished.

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Return

• Brecht returned to communist controlled East
  Germany in 1949
• Established the Berliner Ensemble in his very own
  theater in 1954.
• No new plays came out of this period, but he
  continued to write poetry, and some of his better
  known pieces came out of this period.

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Butting Heads

• Brecht and East German officials continually
  bumped heads over the years. Artistic censorship
  frustrated Brecht, even as he was being held up
  to the Western world as a shining example of
  communist artistic achievement.

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Death

• Bertolt Brecht died of heart failure on August
  14, 1956 at the age of 58.
• In his will, he requested that a stiletto be
  placed in his heart, and that he be buried in a
  steel coffin to prevent the worms from eating his
  corpse.

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Epic Theatre

• Created in response to the Aristotelian
  theatrical tradition, the melodrama of the
  nineteenth century, and the Naturalistic style
  promoted by Stanislavsky.
• Composed of ideas and conventions that existed
  for hundreds or even thousands of years before
  hand, from many different cultures around the
  world.

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Aristotle
Circa 335 B.C.
384 332 B.C.
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Aristotelian Drama

• Single event presented over a short period of
  time.
• Clear sequence of beginning, middle and end.
• Scenes interdependent on one another to convey
  plot.
• Subject primarily Mans relation to God.

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Melodrama

• Easily digestible schlock.
• Protagonist is archetypical good guy and
  Antagonist is archetypical dastardly villain.
• Endings all wrapped up and everyone goes home
  happy.

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Naturalism

• Stanislavsky attempted to overcome the shallow,
  static style of melodrama with an in-depth
  reflection of real life.
• Subject is Man and his relation to Himself.
• Great emphasis on characters internal life.
• Aimed at pulling the audience into the world of
  the play by suspending their disbelief to the
  utmost extent.
• Subtle Gradient.

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Aims of Epic Theatre

• Brecht felt that theatre should be used as a
  vehicle for social change, a forum for social
  issues to be examined and discussed.
• Subject is Man and his relation to Society.
• He felt that the audience should retain their
  critical thinking skills, and should therefore be
  pulled from the world of the play at all costs.

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Conventions

• Play construction is epic in that it spans
  large periods of time.
• Scenes are not dependant one another and can be
  added, removed or reordered with little overall
  effect to the plot.
• Sparse, non-realistic stage and lighting design.
• Placards and projections.

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Verfremdungseffekt

• Alienation effect
• Acting in the third person (traffic accident).
• Presentational as opposed to Representational.
• Actors and audience are encouraged to not, at any
  point, feel that they are the character they are
  portraying.
• Characters are not representative of individuals,
  but of social groups or types.
• Attempts to create a space between audience and
  actors.

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Influence

• Writers like Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams,
  and Jean Paul Sartre.
• Theorists and Directors like David Mamet and
  Peter Brook.
• Modern stage design.
• Anti-illusory presentation.

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Sources

• Mews, Siegfried Critical Essays on Bertolt
  Brecht. Princeton University Press, 1989
• Esslin, Martin Brecht The Man and His Work.
  Double Day and Company, 1960
• Bentley, Eric Seven Plays by Bertolt Brecht.
  Grove Press 1961
• http//german.lss.wisc.edu/brecht/