Bertolt Brecht Biography and List of Works

German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer, one of the most prominent figures in 20th-century theatre. In his works Brecht is concerned with encouraging audiences to think rather than becoming too involved in the story, utilizing in this process alienation effects (A Effekts). Brecht developed a form of drama called epic theatre in which ideas are important.

"In order to produce A Effects the actor has to discard whatever means he has learned of persuading the audience to identify itself with the characters which he plays. Aiming not to put his audience into a trance, he must not go into a trance himself. His muscles must remain loose, for a turn of the head, e.g., with tautened neck muscles, will "magically" lead the spectators' eyes and even their heads to turn with it, and this can only detract from any speculation or reaction which the gestures may bring about. His way of speaking has to be free from ecclesiastical singsong and from all those cadences which lull the spectator so that the sense gets lost."
(from A Short Organum for the Theatre, 1948)

Brecht was born in Augsburg. His father, a Catholic, was a director of a paper company and his mother, a Protestant, was a daughter of a civil servant. Brecht began to write poetry as a boy, and had his first poems published in 1914. After finishing elementary school, he was sent to the Königliches Realgymnasium, where he gained fame as an enfant terrible.

In 1917 Brecht enrolled as a medical student at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. After military service he returned to his studies, but abandoned them in 1921. During the Bavarian revolutionary turmoil of 1918, Brecht wrote his first play, BAAL, which was produced in 1923. The play celebrates life and sexuality, and was a great success.

Brecht's association with Communism began in 1919, when he joined the Independent Social Democratic party. Friendship with the writer Lion Feuchtwanger was an important literary contact for the young writer. Feuchtwanger advised him on the discipline of playwriting. In 1920 Brecht was named chief adviser on play selection at the Munich Kammerspiele. As a result of a brief affair with a Fräulein Bie, Brecht's son Frank was born and in 1922 he married the actress Marianne Zoff. In 1924 Brecht was appointed a consultant at Max Reinhardt's Deutches Theater in Berlin. Brecht´s success started with TROMMELN IN DER NACHT (1922), and continued with DIE DREIGROSCHENOPER after John Gay´s The Beggar´s Opera, which he produced in collaboration with the composer Kurt Weil.

"Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear -
And he shows them pearly white -
Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear -
And he keeps it out of sight."
(from The Threepenny Opera, 1928)

Around 1927 Brecht began to study Karl Marx's Das Kapital and by 1929 he had become a Communist. At the Schiffbauerdam Theater he trained many actors who were to become famous on stage and screen, among them Oscar Homolka, Peter Lorre, and the singer Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weil's wife. With Hanns Eisler, Brecht worked on a political film, Kuhle Wampe, the title referring to an area of Berlin where the unemployed lived in shacks. The film was released in 1932 and banned shortly afterward.

In the 1930s Brecht's books and plays were banned in Germany, performances were interrupted by the police or summarily forbidden.As a result Brecht went into exile, first to Denmark, where he lived until 1939, and then to Finland, where he lived in Iitti in Villa Marlebäck as a guest of the Finnish author Hella Wuolijoki .In collaboration with her Brecht wrote the play HERR PUNTILA UND SEIN KNECHT MATTI (1940). From Finland Brecht continued with his family through Russia to the United States, settling in Santa Monica. In the new country Brecht tried to write for Hollywood, but the only script that found partial acceptance was Hangmen Also Die (1942). In 1947 Brecht was accused of unamerican activities, and he flew to Switzerland, without waiting for the opening of his play Galileo in New York.

Between 1938 and 1945 Brecht wrote his four great plays. LEBEN DES GALILEI (1938-39) deals with the hero's self-condemnation for giving up his heliocentric theory in front of the Inquisition. MUTTER COURAGE UND IHRE KINDER (1939) is an attempt to demonstrate that greedy small entrepreneurs make devastating wars possible. "What they could do with round here is a good war. What else can you expect with peace running wild all over the place? You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization." DER GUTE MENSCH VON SEZUAN (1938-40) examines the dilemma of how to be virtuous and at the same time survive in a capitalist world, and DER KAUKASICHE KREIDEKREIS (1944-45), demonstrates that ownership belongs to those who can make humane use of it.

In 1948, after 15 years of exile, Brecht returned to Germany, and spent a year in Zürich working on Sophocles Antigone (trans. by Friedrich Hölderin) and on his major theoretical work A Little Organum for the Theatre. In 1949 Brecht moved to Berlin where he founded his own Marxist theatre,The Berliner Ensemble. His second wife, Helene Weigel, whom he had married in 1928, was his chief actress and carried on as a director. Although he wrote prose that pleased the censors, in his verse Brecht cryptically expresses his suspicion about the inhumanity of the new regime .In order to assure himself freedom of travel, Brecht took an Austrian passport in 1950.

In West as well as in East Germany, Brecht became the most popular contemporary poet, outshone only by such classics as Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe. Jean Vilar's production of Mutter Courage in 1951 secured him a following in France, and the Berliner Ensemble's participation in the Paris International Theatre Festival (1954) further enhanced his reputation. In 1955 Brecht received the Stalin Peace Prize. The following year he contracted a lung inflammation, and died of a coronary thrombosis on August 14, 1956, in East Berlin.

Brecht's work has been translated into 42 languages and has sold over 70 volumes. He wanted his theatre to represent a political lecture hall rather than a place of illusions. Brecht derives some of his basic concepts of staging and theatrical stylization from Russian and Chinese theatre. His concept of the Verfremdungseffekt, or V-Effekt (sometimes translated as 'alienation effect') centres on the idea of 'making strange' and thereby making poetic. He aimed to take emotion out of the production, persuade the audience to distance itself from the make believe characters and make the actors dissociate from their roles. Then the political truth would be more easy to comprehend.

Brecht formulated his literary theories largely in reaction to Georg Lukács (1885-1971),the Hungarian philosopher and Marxist literary theoretician. He disapproves of Lukács attempt at distinguishing between good realism and bad naturalism. Brecht considers the narrative form of Balzac and Tolstoy limited. He rejectes Aristotele's concept of a plot as a simple story with a beginning and end. From Marx he borrows the idea of superstructure, to which art belongs, but avoids simple explanations based solely upon economic conditions.

For further reading: Brecht: A Choice of Evils by M. Esslin (1959); Brecht: The Man and His Work by M. Esslin (1959); Bertold Brecht by R. Gray (1961); The Art of Bertold Brecht by W. Weideli (1963); Bertold Brecht by F. Ewen (1967); Bertold Brecht by W. Haas (1968); Understanding Brecht by W. Benjamin (1973); Brecht as they knew him, ed. by H. Witt (1975); Brecht by R. Hayman (1983); Bertold Brecht by J.Speirs (1987); The Poetry of Brecht, by P.J. Thompson (1989); Postmodern Brecht by E. Wright (1989); Brecht by Hans Mayer (1996); Brecht & Co. by John Fuegi (1997); Brecht-Chronik by Klaus Völker (1997); Bertold Brecht by G. Berg (1998) - See also: Elias Canetti, Bertold Brecht/Kurt Weil's Alabama Song (Whisky Bar), performed by The Doors, and the Swiss avant-garde electronic band The Young Gods, who have recorded a CD of Weil's compositions.

"Oh! Moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whiskey
Oh, you know why!"
(from Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, 1931, 'Alabama Song')

Mr. Puntila and His Hired Man, Matti (wr. 1940/41, prod. 1948). Based on stories by the Finnish writer Hella Wuolijoki. Puntila is a rich farmer, who is generous when drunk and mean and selfish when sober. Puntila wants his daughter Eva to marry a diplomat but his drunk personality sees a better choice in his chauffeur and drinking companion Matti. A party is arranged to celebrate Eva's engagement to a diplomat.When Puntila gets drunk he insults the fiancé, and wants Matti to marry her. Matti puts her to the test. She fails to prove herself to be a good proletarian wife, and Matti leaves Puntila to join his working-class comrades.

Books by Bertolt Brecht