Brecht's History

Brecht's Life

Bertolt Brecht is a drama practitioner who has changed the way that many people now look at theatre. He was German and was born in 1898 and died aged 58 in 1956. He was married to Helene Weigel, who was an actress and played Mother Constance in one of his most famous plays. Bertolt Brecht was a Marxist and many of his beliefs are portrayed through his work.

He was born in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898 and had a fairly middle-class upbringing. He applied for an additional course at Munich University to allow himself to get out of the First World War. It was here that he studied drama. He had a relationship with Paula Banholzer and they had a son together, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother passed away. Brecht managed to get a job with a newspaper, in which he wrote reviews for recent theatre productions. He then produced a play, which had very mixed reviews, so he moved to Berlin for inspiration.

He produced many plays, however they were banned in Germany. He was then exiled because his plays had hints of communist views in them. He then went on to produce a ballet which was performed in Paris and Brecht continued to develop his alienation effect technique. He moved to America to start making films, but he found it unimaginative. He was invited back into Germany in 1949 and produced his play "Mother Courage" in Berlin. He then founded the theatre group the Berliner Company. Brecht died of a heart attack in 1956.

Unlike Stanislavsky, who believed that the audience should focus on what the character's are doing and focused on making the audience become as involved in the theatre as they could be and wanted them to forget about their surroundings and be put into the world of the play. Brecht believed that you should not question what the actor's were doing, but why they were doing it. This involved the audience on a deeper level and made them very aware that they were watching a play. Brecht wanted the audience to remember they were in a theatre and everything they were watching has been made up. This allows the audience to connect on a deeper level to the characters and why they are doing what they are doing.