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.
With a twisted and long prologue that was ignored by the so-called world leaders for the longest time, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. By the end ...of the month, most countries in the world had closed their borders and went on lockdown or imposed quasi-lockdown measures. Entire sectors of global economy shut down; global supply chains disrupted; transoceanic maritime trade halted; oil trading ceased. The situation was uncanny to the extent that only comparisons were suitable as a way to fathom the experience. And yet, comparisons failed. The pandemic’s interruption messed with the global plot in unseen ways, and as we live through it and start to forecast where the next scene will take us, it is crucial that we reflect on where we came from and what is the destiny that awaits us. Who owns that future? Who is making it? This piece will consider the current global situation by engaging with Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt (V-Effekt) and epic theatre as a lens to foresee what theatre criticism in the age of social distancing and digital assemblies could mean. What if the pandemic were a Verfremdungseffekt that sheds a new light to a global social crisis that is been going far longer and is rooted somewhere else? What if the cascade of digital performance we have witnessed in the last few months was a musical interlude announcing the greater forces that are coming into play? What if the muted shout of the quarantine is the gestus that the new digital capitalism will afford us?
Paradoxa als »Gegenmeinungen« sind zentrales Gestaltungsmerkmal der Texte von Denis Diderot und Bertolt Brecht. Beide gehören nicht nur zu den bekanntesten Theaterdichtern, sondern sind auch ...politische Autoren. Dies zeigt sich sowohl in der Wahl ihrer Themen als auch in ihrer Formsprache. Susanne Schmiedens ausführliche Lektüre ausgewählter Texte im Zusammenspiel mit zeitgenössischen theoretischen Diskursen demonstriert, dass Theater, Wissenschaft und Demokratie gleichermaßen Gegenmeinungen als ihre Möglichkeitsbedingung betrachten müssen. Für eine demokratische Gesellschaft gilt, diese nicht nur zuzulassen, sondern zum gemeinsamen Tanz aufzufordern.
During his period of exile in Scandinavia, Bertolt Brecht wrote “I don’t think the traditional form of theatre means anything any longer. Its significance is purely historic; it can illuminate the ...way in which earlier ages regarded human relationships … but a modern spectator can’t learn anything from themz” (Brecht in
Brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic
. Trans. John Willett., Eyre Methuen Publishing, London, p. 66,
1964
). To create a modern theatre fit for a modern audience, Brecht holds that not only would the content of plays have to change, but the
experience
of theatrical spectatorship itself. To fully capture how Brecht’s work differs from that of previous playwrights, a close analysis of spectatorial experience and perception is required. In this paper, I compare the aesthetic techniques used in Brecht’s epic theatre to the genetic phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Reading Brecht’s
Verfremdungseffekt
(or estrangement effect) through a Husserlian lens, I argue that Brecht mobilizes phenomenological methodology in order to suspend the audience’s preconceived notions of theatre and to cultivate self-conscious, critically aware, and socially motivated spectatorship. Just as Husserl describes phenomenology as a presuppositionless science, so too does Brecht offer epic theatre as a way to free “… socially-conditioned phenomena from the stamp of familiarity” (Brecht
1964
, p. 192).
This article investigates the crucial role of Brechtian aesthetics in representing the voice of Aboriginal Australians. It examines the theatre of Wesley Enoch, an Aboriginal Australian director and ...playwright, and argues that Enoch's 2013 adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, performed at the Queensland Theatre Company, Brisbane, formed an instance of resistance against epistemic hegemony. The first part of the article examines the device of the heckler, central to the writings of Australian Aboriginals, by focusing on Kevin Gilbert's The Cherry Pickers (1988) and shows how the device functions to articulate the peripheral voices of the Aboriginal Australians. The second part demonstrates how Enoch employed the heckler trope through his dramaturgy to protest against the Australian nation state. Broadly, it illustrates how Enoch's production used Aboriginal aesthetics to voice Aborigines' challenge to established norms, an act that remained independent of Brechtian theatre's previous uses in the Australian context.
This article advocates for scholarship-informed theatre practice, demonstrating how feminist criticism of The Taming of the Shrew shaped and informed a production of the play staged on the London ...Fringe in 2017. With reference to the production's editing, casting, and staging choices, the article foregrounds how scholarship supported the process of textual interpretation and feminist elucidation of the play's taming plot in performance. Highlighting the opportunity provided by Shakespeare's plays for 'covert activism', this article suggests that bringing feminist scholarship into conversation with Brechtian performance methods can radicalise Shakespeare-in-action and contribute to a wider social justice agenda.
Ascesa e caduta della città di Mahagonny con la regia di Alessio Pizzech e videofondali di Giacomo Verde: Progetto L.T.L. (Laboratorio Toscano per la Lirica) Opera Studio in coproduzione con il ...Teatro Verdi di Pisa, Giglio di Lucca e Alighieri di Ravenna (2009), direzione Jonathan Webb
Brecht Sourcebook Henry Bial, Carol Martin / Henry Bial, Carol Martin
2000, 20050808, 2005, 2005-08-08
eBook
Bertolt Brecht is one of the most prolific and influential writer-directors of the twentieth century. This fascinating anthology brings together in one volume many of the most important articles ...written about Brecht between 1957 and 1997. The collection explores a wide range of viewpoints about Brecht's theatre theories and practice, as well as including three plays not otherwise available in English: The Beggar or The Dead Dog, Baden Lehrstuck and The Seven Deadly Sins of the Lower Middle Class. Editors Martin and Bial have brought together a unique compendium which covers all the key areas including: * the development of Brecht's aesthetic theories * the relationship of Epic theatre to orthodox dramatic theatre * Brecht's collaboration with Kurt Weill, Paul Dessau and Max Frisch * Brecht's influence on a variety of cultures and contexts including England, Italy , Moscow and Japan. Together these essays are an ideal companion to Brecht's plays, and provide an invaluable reconsideration of Brecht's work. Contributors include: Werner Hecht, Mordecai Gorelik, Eric Bentley, Jean-Paul Sartre, Kurt Weill, Ernst Bloch, Darko Suvin, Carl Weber, Paul Dessau, Denis Calandra, W. Stuart McDowell, Ernst Schmacher, Hans-Joachim Bunge, Martin Esslin, Artuto Lazzari, Tadashi Uchino, Diana Taylor, Elin Diamond, and Lee Baxandall.
Carol Martin is Associate Professor of Drama at New York University. Her books include Dance Marathons and A Sourcebook of Feminist Theatre and Performance. Henry Bial is an Instructor of Drama at New York University. He is currently writing his dissertation on Jewish culture in American Theatre, Film and Television.
Este artigo apresenta um estudo de caso sobre cenas específicas da peça A Ópera dos Três Vinténs de Bertold Brecht, encenadas em um espetáculo de teatro estudantil de Moscou, na antiga URSS, em 1982. ...O trabalho coletivo sob as condições de um teatro laboratório engendraram uma nova abordagem referente a outro formato brechtiano, a peça didática. O artigo problematiza a aprendizagem autorreflexiva dos estudantes e de seu professor ao trabalharem sob condições de teatro laboratório em um texto brechtiano. As práticas autorreflexivas foram descobertas pelos atores amadores por intermédio do súbito, embora inevitável, efeito de distanciamento de Brecht no formato da peça didática emergente.
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