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Bertolt Brecht: Plays
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The best book in English on Brecht is Frederic Ewen, Bertolt Brecht: His Life, His Art and His Times (1967). A good introduction, which points up the political issues sharply, is Martin Esslin, Brecht: The Man and His Work (1960). John Willett, The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht (1959; rev. ed. 1967), concentrates on Brecht's technique and the writing and staging of his plays. Other useful works are Ronald D. Gray, Bertolt Brecht (1961), and Peter Demetz, Brecht: A Collection of Critical Essays (1962). Brecht's literary tradition is illuminated by Max Spalter, Brecht's Tradition (1967). His general importance in the modern theater is shown in Eric Bentley, The Playwright as Thinker: A Study of Drama in Modern Times (1946) and What is Theatre?
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The best general account of Brecht's work is Martin Esslin's A Choice of Evils (Methuen; ISBN 0413547507; currently out of print). Brecht's own writings on the theatre are available in a collection edited by John Willett - Brecht on Theatre (Methuen; ISBN 041338800X). English translations of Brecht's plays are available from the same publishers. Willett's Methuen translations are closer to sense of the German originals than Eric Bentley's Penguin versions. Bentley's versions are more literary but seem dated, and far less suitable for theatre performance than the translations by Willett - perhaps because Willett has shown more respect to the original work of Brecht. Click on the links below to buy these books:
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Considered by many to be one of Brecht's masterpieces, Galileo explores the question of a scientist's social and ethical responsibility, as the brilliant Galileo must choose between his life and his life's work when confronted with the demands of the Inquisition. Through the dramatic characterization of the famous physicist, Brecht examines the issues of scientific morality and the difficult relationship between the intellectual and authority. This version of the play is the famous one that was brought to completion by Brecht himself, working with Charles Laughton, who played Galileo in the first two American productions (Hollywood and New York, 1947). Since then the play has become a classic in the world repertoire. "The play which most strongly stamped on my mind a sense of Brecht's great stature as an artist of the modern theatre was Galileo." - Harold Clurman; "Thoughtful and profoundly sensitive."
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Brecht was appointed in 1924 a consultant at Max Reinhardt's Deutches Theater in Berlin. Brecht´s rise to international fame began with TROMMELN IN DER NACHT (1922). DIE DREIGROSCHENOPER, after John Gay´s The Beggar´s Opera, Brecht made with the composer Kurt Weil. Gay's play, revived by Sir Nigel Playfair at the Lyric Theatre in London, had been a great success from 1920. Brecht moved the action to Victorian times, and instead of mocking the pretentions of Italian grand opera, he attacked on bourgeois respectability. Although rehearsals were disastrous, the audience wanted to hear over and over again the duet between Macheath and the Police Chief, Tiger Brown.
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Brecht's third play was written in 1921 as In the Jungle and later acquired its fuller title in a revised version. It was first produced in 1921. In this play Brecht enlisted the cooperation of Caspar Neher, a designer friend of his. Inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle it was set in an imaginary Chicago and was presented similarly to a boxing match. This was not the last occasion on which Brecht would set his action in some imagined city. He repeated the Chicago setting for St Joan of the Stockyards, Happy End and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.
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Brecht continued in May of 1941 with his wife, children and secretary through Russia to the United States, eventually ending in Santa Monica. Ruth Berlau, a Danish actress and Brecht's mistress, had joined family in Helsinki and travelled with them from Finland to America Margarete Steffin, a German proletarian writer and Brecht's secretary and mistress, died in Moscow; she had been tubercular when she left Germany. Like Berlau, she made contributions to Brecht’s exile plays. In the new country Brecht tried to write for Hollywood, but the only script that found partial acceptance was Hangmen Also Die (1942). "The intellectual isolation here is enormous," Brecht compained. "Compared to Hollywood, Svendborg was a world center." His ideas, such as "the production, distribution and enjoyment of bread," were not taken seriously by movie moguls.
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