Who is this Brecht we speak of ?

Who is Brecht?

Full Name:  Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht

Occuptaion: German Playwright, producer and poet.

Interests: Combining music and drama.

Birth Place:  Augsburg, Bavaria 

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Brecht excelled in many areas, he was a playwright and a producer/director he worked on his own plays and others as well. A lot of Brecht’s work, to an astute audience, could be viewed as rather comical. His work speaks through its social and political context, asking his audience to really think about what they've seen and detach themselves from any emotion, to just study the piece and react to it.

For the time of which Brecht's work was produced, it was seen as quite daring and innovative. The classic convention of the fourth wall, where the actors pretend there is no audience, is completely rejected. This broke the boundary and status between audience and performer, but also distanced everyone.

"Brecht's language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round."

Brecht was a dedicated Marxist, which some may say was visible through his work as a collective, Bertolt Brecht believed firmly in not letting the audience create an emotional connection with the characters on stage, but rather to encourage one to reflect on the piece they have just seen with a mind that hasn't been clouded via emotion. This is "Epic Theatre".