Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht.

Brecht was born Augsburg, Germany in 1898. He then attended university

in Munich in 1917. It was while he was at university that he witnessed

the Bolshevik Revolution which was the first event to influence him.

Brecht wanted what had occurred in Russia to repeat itself in Germany

as he saw all there was to gain from a Revolution. This was the first

influence that gave Brecht his voice in social and political issues.

In 1918 Brecht was called up for World War 1 as a medical orderly.

Here he witnessed some of the worst medical injuries created by the

war. This experience made him an extreme pacifist. This was the second

most influential event that took place which in turn caused him to be

in opposition to those international opinionated political powers. He

saw them as being capitalist populations, sending innocent men to be

murdered meaninglessly, for their own efficient profitable gain. He

felt misery as the human potential completely contradicted its entire

meaning by the brute actions of humans around the world.

Marxism was the influence that gave Brecht hope that there was good

within humans although some needed re-awakening. He had seen the

Russian Revolution and witnessed the collapse of Germany after World

War 1 and the fall of the Royal Family of Europe. This all influenced

Brecht to write his first play Baal in 1918. This raw play and

episodic structure was the youth of Brecht’s later well-known work,

which inhabited a more grotesque quality. His work looks at the

incapability one has to have power over the lust and greed in the

world. He uses the element of shock in his plays as he relates to his

yearning for change and fury at his experiences. It was this yearning

to bring change via the use of shock that bought us epic theatre.

In 1922 Brecht went to Berlin and this experienced gave him the

influence for all his later work. Here he observed real theatre and

the cabaret, parts of theatre he never knew existed. This influence

made him more culturally aware and gave him the knowledge to develop

his work.

Aesthetic theatre was influenced by expressionalism, the use of

various scenes without any rational order. He discarded ‘Drawing room

comedy’, realism and naturalism. Instead he took influences from Edwin

Piscator whom considered theatre as a device for political education.

Edwin Piscator used different means in which to convey his political

message. He used news-real, projections and captions to portray the

background knowledge of the play. He also used great chorus scenes,

perceived in traditional Broadway or West- End performances, to

demonstrate the significance of the play.