Appendix Bertolt Brecht : A chronology If a young and talented playwright / director today were to need a model to prepare a campaign to become a major force in one of our contemporary theatrical centres , that playwright / director ...
Author: John Fuegi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521282454
Category: Drama
Page: 244
View: 392
Covers Brecht's day-to-day work as a theatre director telling how he worked with actors and how his productions were actually put together in rehearsal.TOM KUHN Bertolt Brecht and Notions of Collaboration ' Nenne doch nicht so genau deinen Namen ' ( Mann ist Mann , BFA , 2 , 210 ) Amongst the literary artists of the twentieth century Brecht stands out as quite extraordinarily inclined ...
Author: Steve Giles
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9042003197
Category: Social Science
Page: 274
View: 857
The publication of this volume of essays marks the centenary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht on 10 February 1898. The essays were commissioned from scholars and critics around the world, and cover six main areas: recent biographical controversies; neglected theoretical writings; the semiotics of Brechtian theatre; new readings of classic texts; Brecht's role and reception in the GDR; and contemporary appropriations of Brecht's work. This volume will be essential reading for all those interested in twentieth century theatre, modern German studies, and the contemporary reassessment of post-war culture in the wake of German unification and the collapse of Stalinist communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The essays in this volume also address a variety of general questions, concerning - for example - authorship and textuality; the nature of Brecht's Marxism in relation to his understanding of modernity, science and Enlightenment reason; Marxist aesthetics; radical cultural politics; and feminist performance theory.HE PRESENT STUDY OFFERS the first detailed commentary in English on Bertolt Brecht's major theoretical writings on the theater. It is not intended as an introduction to the plays or as a basic guide to his main dramaturgical concepts ...
Author: John J. White
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 9781571130761
Category: Literary Criticism
Page: 359
View: 713
As an integral part of his work as a political playwright and dramaturge, Bertolt Brecht concerned himself extensively with the theory of drama. He was convinced that the Aristotelian ideal of audience catharsis through identification with a hero and the resultant experience of terror and pity worked against his goal of bettering society. He did not want his audiences to feel, but to think, and his main theoretical thrusts -- "Verfremdungseffekte" (de-familiarization devices) and epic theater, among others -- were conceived in pursuit of this goal. This is the first detailed study in English of Brecht's writings on the theater to take account of works first made available in the recent German edition of his collected works. It offers in-depth analyses of Brecht's canonical essays on the theater from 1930 to the late 1940s and early GDR years. Close readings of the individual essays are supplemented by surveys of the changing connotations within Brecht's dramaturgical oeuvre of key theoretical terms, including epic and anti-Aristotelian theater, de-familiarization, historicization, and dialectical theater. Brecht's distinct contribution to the theorizing of acting and audience response is examined in detail, and each theoretical essay and concept is placed in the context of the aesthetic debates of the time, subjected to a critical assessment, and considered in light of subsequent scholarly thinking. In many cases, the playwright's theoretical discourse is shown to employ methods of "epic" presentation and techniques of de-familiarization that are corollaries of the dramatic techniques for which his plays are justly famous. John J. White is Emeritus Professor of German and Comparative Literature at King's College London.209–25 Baxandall, Lee,'Brecht in America, 1935', The Drama Review (Autumn 1967),pp. 69–87 Benjamin, Walter, Versuche über Brecht (Frankfurt, 1971) Die Bibliothek Bertolt Brechts, published by the BertoltBrechtArchiv (Frankfurt, ...
Author: Philip Glahn
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781780233017
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 224
View: 517
A playwright, poet, and activist, Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) was known for his theory of the epic theater and his attempts to break down the division between high art and popular culture. He was also a committed Marxist who lived through two world wars and a global depression. Looking at Brecht’s life and works through his plays, stories, poems, and political essays, Philip Glahn illustrates how they trace a lifelong attempt to relate to the specific social, economic, and political circumstances of the early twentieth century. Glahn reveals how Brecht upended the language and gestures of philosophers, beggars, bureaucrats, thieves, priests, and workers, using them as weapons in his work. Following Brecht through the Weimar Republic, Nazism, exile, and East German Socialism, Glahn argues that the writer’s own life became a production of history that illuminates an ongoing crisis of modern experience shaped by capitalism, nationalism, and visions of social utopia. Sharp, accessible, and full of pleasures, this concise biography will interest anyone who wishes to know about this pivotal modern dramatist.Political Theory and Literary Practice Betty Nance Weber, Hubert Heinen. bertoltbrecht Pa /.□□'; idii Ihtur; dial l.lti-riirv /'main- edited by bet(y nance weber hubert heinen Bertolt Brecht bertolt brecht Political Theory and ...
Author: Betty Nance Weber
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820334783
Category: Literary Criticism
Page: 224
View: 395
First published in 1980, this collection of fifteen original essays touches on a variety of topics related to the genesis of Brecht's works and their impact on contemporary literature, theater, and film. Discussed are Brecht's confrontation with Marxism and its political manifestations, the influence of his work on film and theater practitioners, the uses his literary descendants have made of his political commitment, and much more.Journals 1934 - 1955 Bertolt Brecht ... Brecht had been hoping that Berthold Viertel would again come to direct this for the Ensemble, with Therese Giehse in the part of Frau Wolff/Fielitz. See Letter 649 explaining his intended ...
Author: Bertolt Brecht
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781000143317
Category: Performing Arts
Page: 574
View: 565
This book contains selected poems, plays, and prose by Bertolt Brecht taken from various points throughout his career. It includes translations of two prose works and provides some background information on Brecht's life and career.Bibliography Bertolt Brecht's works The standard German edition of Brecht's writings (Werke) is: Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe (Berlin and Frankfurt: Aufbau/Suhrkamp, 1988–2000), abbreviated as BFA.
Author: David J. Shepherd
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9780567685674
Category: Performing Arts
Page: 224
View: 375
This volume offers an examination of Brecht's largely forgotten theatrical fragments of a life of David, written just after the Great War but prior to Brecht winning the Kleist Prize in 1922 and the acclaim that would launch his extraordinary career. David J. Shepherd and Nicholas E. Johnson take as their starting point Brecht's own diaries from the time, which offer a vivid picture of the young Brecht shuttling between Munich and the family home in Augsburg, surrounded by friends, torn between women, desperate for success, and all the while with 'David on the brain'. The analysis of Brecht's David, along with his notebooks and diaries, reveals significant connections between the reception of the Biblical David and one of Germany's most tumultuous cultural periods. Drawing on theatrical experiments conducted with an ensemble from Trinity College Dublin, this volume includes the first ever translation of the David fragments in English, an extensive discussion of the theatrical afterlife of David in the early twentieth century as well as new interdisciplinary insights into the early Brecht: a writer entranced by the biblical David and utterly committed to translating the biblical tradition into his own evolving theatrical idiom.... Patricia MumfordCoutts, Amy Sargeant andPeter Thomson. Andfinally, heartfelt thanks to myfamily, the most patient and generous collaborators in this endeavour. 1 A LIFE OF FLUX WHICH BRECHT? BertoltBrecht (1989–1956) wouldhave.
Author: Meg Mumford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781134188055
Category: Drama
Page: 234
View: 248
Routledge Performance Practitioners is a series of introductory guides to the key theatre-makers of the last century. Each volume explains the background to and the work of one of the major influences on twentieth- and twenty-first-century performance. Bertolt Brecht is amongst the world’s most profound contributors to the theory and practice of theatre. His methods of collective experimentation and his unique framing of the theatrical event as a forum for aesthetic and political change continue to have a significant impact on the work of performance practitioners, critics and teachers alike. This is the first book to combine: an overview of the key periods in Brecht's life and work a clear explanation of his key theories, including the renowned ideas of Gestus and Verfremdung an account of his groundbreaking 1954 production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle an in-depth analysis of Brecht's practical exercises and rehearsal methods As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today’s student. Meg Mumford is a lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at The University of New South Wales, Australia. She has published widely on the subject of Brecht’s theatre and contemporary appropriations of his theory and practice.Sternberg, Fritz, Der Dichter und die Ratio: Erinnerungen an Bertolt Brecht (Göttingen: Sachse und Pohl, 1963). Symonette, Lynne and Kim H. Kowalke (eds), Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The Letters ofKurt Weill and Lotte Lenya ...
Author: Stephen Parker
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781408155639
Category: Biography & Autobiography
Page: 768
View: 593
This first English language biography of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) in two decades paints a strikingly new picture of one of the twentieth century's most controversial cultural icons. Drawing on letters, diaries and unpublished material, including Brecht's medical records, Parker offers a rich and enthralling account of Brecht's life and work, viewed through the prism of the artist. Tracing his extraordinary life, from his formative years in Augsburg, through the First World War, his politicisation during the Weimar Republic and his years of exile, up to the Berliner Ensemble's dazzling productions in Paris and London, Parker shows how Brecht achieved his transformative effect upon world theatre and poetry. Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life is a powerful portrait of a great, compulsively contradictory personality, whose artistry left its lasting imprint on modern culture.