10 facts about bertolt brecht
They lived in Zurich, Switzerland, before moving back to Germany in Brecht lived in East Berlin, where he established his own theatre company, the Berliner Ensemble. Although he was never a member of the Communist Party, Brecht was a sworn Marxist until the end of his life, and he enjoyed certain privileges in the German Democratic Republic East Germany that other writers did not.
In , he received the Stalin P eace Prize. Brecht died in Berlin at the age of 58 on 14th August The cause of his death was a heart attack. Bertolt Brecht was one of the most influential modernist theatre practitioners and drama theorists. Set in Victorian London , The Threepenny Opera is about the criminal Macheath, who wants to legitimise his illegal business.
Her father almost gets Macheath arrested for his criminal activities, such as running brothels. Macheath is luckily saved in an unrealistic parody of a happy ending. The play has socialist elements and offers a satirical critique of capitalist society. All techniques, including the songs, are used to encourage the viewers to think objectively.
Bertolt brechts biography wikipedia
In sum, victory and defeat both come at a price for ordinary people. The story revolves around a woman who suffers the loss of her children because of war but, at the same time, depends on war to make her living. Mother Courage and Her Children is considered to be one of the greatest anti-war dramas. The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error Galileo, Scene 9.
In the later parts of his life, as he makes extraordinary scientific discoveries, Galileo is opposed by the Catholic Church. The Life of Galileo tackles the themes of knowledge, progress, and the social responsibility of scientists. Epic theatre is a style of theatre that was created and developed by Bertolt Brecht. It stands in opposition to traditional dramatic theatre.
Life of Galileo, aka Galileo, is a play by Bertolt Brecht, written in and first performed at the Zurich Schauspielhaus in At the time of its premiere, Brecht, who typically directed his own plays, handed over directorial duties to Steffin was a German actress, writer, and translator, and Brecht's The play emerged as a brilliant and poetic tribute to his most despairing and nihilistic phase from Set in Chicago, it portrays the The Measures Taken was written between the years of and First performed in in He emphasized the need to adapt Marxism to the realities of the twentieth century.
In that time, he worked on several motion picture productions and wrote three plays. But his work in America was not warmly received, and Brecht did not receive the United States warmly, either. He never applied for citizenship. During the late s and s, the United States was in the initial stages of the so-called Cold War with the Soviet Union , and a feeling of extreme paranoia regarding the dangers of communism pervaded society and the government.
It was perhaps inevitable that he would be called before the communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee and questioned about his communist connections. Almost immediately, he left the United States to return to Germany. He and his wife Helene Weigel founded a theater company there, the Berliner Ensemble,.
Bertolt brechts biography wife
Brecht's ability to express his political and philosophical views in fresh and formally ingenious ways is also observable in his poetry, which he produced throughout his career. In both poetry and drama he attained one of the most controlled and completely realized aesthetic visions in literature. During the last part of his life, Brecht returned to Berlin and formed his own company, the Berliner Ensemble, enabling him to implement his dramatic theories and gaining him the admiration of devotees of dramatic art.
Farcical Satire In style, Brecht's early works tend toward farcical satire; they show some influence of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin, whose witty dialog-sketches Brecht admired and with whom he had performed in sideshows at fairs. It is both a literary and a social protest. Social Concerns Brecht's genius for artistic invention and his desire to motivate social concerns in the playgoer combine in his mature dramas to form a rich and varied view of existence.
Through the crisis of its scientist hero, Galileo reexamines Brecht's recurrent theme of the obstacles to social progress. Yet despite its focus on philosophical issues, critics find in this play a strong main character who, along with the protagonist of Mother Courage and Her Children , enlists the spectator's feelings as well as reason.
In his mature works Brecht transcended the single-minded message of his earlier didactic pieces and achieved a more complex viewpoint than that permitted by the official policies and doctrines of communism. The Threepenny Opera Well known in Germany during his life, Brecht became recognized as a major dramatist by critics throughout Europe and the United States only after his death.
His best-known plays, The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage and Her Children , are both considered highly influential on later dramatists.
Though set in London, the play conveys perhaps like no other work of literature the moral malaise of the German Weimar Republic. It was not until the off-Broadway production featuring famed German actress Lotte Lenya Weill's widow that the play was hailed as a masterpiece in America. Other works that address these themes include:.
The Plague , a novel by Albert Camus. This novel explores the human condition by examining the reactions of the residents of a city during an outbreak of plague. Arbitrary class divisions disintegrate in the face of death, only to rear up again once the epidemic has passed. Monsieur Verdoux , a film directed by Charlie Chaplin.
The darkest of Chaplin's comedies, this film centers on an unemployed banker who marries and murders wealthy widows in order to support his family.
Bertolt brechts biography
He justifies his behavior by saying that he is simply doing what businessmen and soldiers do every day. Trainspotting , a novel by Irvine Welsh. By presenting a story narrated from the point of view of heroin junkies, Welsh challenges the reader to identify with the lowest of lower-class characters in true Brechtian fashion.
Angels in America , a play by Tony Kushner.
Another work that focuses on a marginalized group, in this case gay men dealing with the AIDS epidemic of the s. Kushner was also heavily influenced by Brecht's use of multiple points of perspective and the chronicle play, all of which are in evidence in this epic work. However, the play is also very long and difficult to stage, and successful productions are rare.
The play hinges on the characterization of the character of Mother Courage herself, and the exact nature of the character is a matter of much critical debate. Some have branded Mother Courage as a greedy coward; others laud her practicality and toughness. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book.
Bertolt brechts biography book
James Hardin, University of South Carolina. The Gale Group, Wolfgang D. Esslin, Martin. Gassner, John. Ira Mark Milne. David M. Pres, Terrence Des. Barthes, Roland. Critical Essays , trans. Richard Howard. Evanston, Ill. Bentley, Eric.
Bertolt brechts biography summary: Bertolt Brecht, German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theater departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. His notable plays include The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage and Her Children.
The Brecht Commentaries: — New York : Grove Press, Fuegi, John. New York: Grove Press, Giles, Steve. New York: P. Lang, Giles, Steve, and Rodney Livingstone, eds. Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays. Rodopi, Mews, Siegfried. A Bertolt Brecht Reference Companion. Westport, Conn. Szczesny, Gerhard. Alexander Gode. New York: Ungar, Thomson, Peter, and Glendyr Sacks.
The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. New York: Cambridge University Press, Denton, Martin. Brecht was born on February 10th, and died on August 14th, Aside from his dramatic work, Berthold Brecht also wrote poetry, essays, and shorts stories. Brecht was raised in a middle-class family in Germany, although he often fabricated stories of an impoverished childhood.
As a young man, he was attracted to fellow artists, actors, cabaret musicians, and clowns. As he began to write plays of his own, he discovered that the theater was the perfect forum to express social and political criticism. Instead, each character represented a different side of an argument. Certainly not.
His dramatic works blatantly condemn fascism, but they also endorse communism as an acceptable form of government. His political views developed from his life experiences. After the war, he willingly moved to Soviet-occupied East Germany and became a proponent of the communist regime. Brecht's most acclaimed work is " Mother Courage and Her Children "