Bertold+Brecht

=Bertolt Brecht= (February 10th, 1898 - August 14th, 1986)



Born in Augsburg, Germany, Bertold Brecht's life and work were largely defined by the political movements of Germany. Although Brecht studied medicine and served in an army hospital during World War I, he soon began writing plays, starting with //Baal//, produced in 1923. As World War I came to a close, Europe as a whole was left disillusioned. Brecht soon became swept up in the Marxist movement, viewing the bourgeois class as a key factor in the fall of civilization during World War I. At the same time, a movement known as Dadaism soon emerged, a senseless conglomeration of various images and objects brought together to depict the senselessness and disillusionment within the world. Brecht's friendships and ties to this movement would later influence the style of his plays. In 1933, as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement began gaining more and more influence, Brecht fled Germany, first going to Scandinavia, but later he came to the United States, where he became involved in film and Hollywood. As Germany became more and more censored, Brecht's early works were burned and he lost his citizenship. Between 1937 and 1941, as the international community became embroiled in World War II, Brecht wrote some of his most well-known works, such as //Mother Courage and Her Children, The Life of Galileo,// and //The Caucasian Chalk Circle.// Brecht left the United States in 1947, after his Marxist activities led him to the House Un-American Activities Committee, designed to find Communists within the States. He then spent a year in Zurich- where the Dada movement originally gained its strength, before finally returning to East Berlin, which was under Soviet control following World War II. He was in Berlin to stage a production of his play, //Mother Courage and Her Children,// but soon formed his own theatre company, the Berliner Ensemble, leading to him staying in East Berlin.
 * Personal History**

Brecht developed a unique style of theatre that came to be known as the "epic" theatre. Rather than allowing the audience to completely identify with the hero, a tactic used in Aristotelian drama, Brecht wanted the audience to think and question the hero. He believed the trancelike state of the audience was dangerous and that the reason people were so drawn into Nazi propaganda was because of its theatrics. He believed theatre had become so realistic that people would absorb it all without considering it to be anything but truthful. Thus, his style of writing and directing involved the alienation of the audience. He believed it was necessary for the audience to know at all times that the theatre was not a reality.
 * Brecht and the "Epic" Theatre**


 * The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre** (1930)

//Baal (1918)// //Drums in the Night (1918-1920)// //The Beggar (1919)// //A Respectable Wedding (1919)// //Driving Out a Devil (1919)// //Lux in Tenebris (1919)// //The Catch (1919)// //Mysteries of a Barbershop (1923)// //In the Jungle of Cities (1921-1924)// //The Life of Edward II of England (1924)// //Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer (1926-1930)// //Man Equals Man (1924-1926)// //The Elephant Calf (1924-1926)// //Little Mahagonny (1927)// //The Threepenny Opera (1928)// //The Flight across the Ocean (1928)// //The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent (1929)// //Happy End (1929)// //The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1927-1929)// //He Said Yes / He Said No (1929-1930)// //The Decision (1930)// //Saint Joan of the Stockyards (1929-1931)// //The Exception and the Rule (1930)// //The Mother (1930-1931)// //Kuhle Wampe (1931)// //The Seven Deadly Sins (1933)// //Round Heads and Pointed Heads (1931-1934)// //The Horatians and the Curiatians (1933-1934)// //Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (1935-1938)// //Senora Carrar's Rifles (1937)// //Life of Galileo (1937-1939)// //How Much is Your Iron? (1939)// //Dansen (1939)// //Mother Courage and Her Children (1938-1939)// //The Trial of Lucullus (1938-1939)// //Mr. Puntila and his Man Matti (1940)// //The Good Person of Szechwan (1939-1942)// //The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)// //Hangmen Also Die! (1942)// //The Visions of Simone Machard (1942-1943)// //The Duchess of Malfi (1943)// //Schweik in the Second World War (1941-1943)// //The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1943-1945)// //Antigone (1947)// //The Days of the Commune (1948-1949)// //The Tutor (1950)// //The Condemnation of Lucullus (1938-1939)// //Report from Hernburg (1951)// //Coriolanus (1951-1953)// //The Trial of Joan of Arc of Proven, 1431 (1952)// //Turandot (1953-1954)// //Don Juan (1952)// //Trumpets and Drums (1955)//
 * List of Plays by Bertolt Brecht**

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0106517/bio http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/bertolt_brecht_001.html http://www.biography.com/articles/Bertolt-Brecht-9225028