Bertolt Brecht: The Man, The Myth, The Communist

Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, poet, and insufferable know-it-all who lived from 1898 to 1956. He is perhaps best known for his revolutionary approach to theater, which involved alienation techniques, Marxist leanings, and a healthy dose of pretentiousness.

Early Life

Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany, which is just a fancy way of saying he was born in a city nobody has ever heard of. He was a precocious child, which is a nice way of saying he was an insufferable know-it-all even from a young age. He showed early promise as a writer, which is a nice way of saying he started writing poems before he hit puberty.

Career Beginnings

Brecht’s career really took off when he moved to Berlin in the 1920s, where he began writing plays that were at once politically radical and emotionally manipulative. His early plays, such as Drums in the Night and The Threepenny Opera, were hits with audiences who were bored of traditional theater and looking for something more biting and subversive.

The Epic Theater

Brecht’s most important contribution to theater was his theory of the epic theater, which used techniques such as narration, direct address to the audience, and the aforementioned alienation techniques to distance the audience from the emotions of the characters onstage. Brecht believed that theater should not just entertain, but educate and inspire social change.

Of course, it’s hard to inspire social change when half the audience has fallen asleep, which is what often happened during Brecht’s long-winded, didactic plays.

Later Career and Death

Brecht continued writing plays, poems, and essays throughout his life, many of them championing the cause of communism. He even helped found the Berliner Ensemble, a theater company known for staging his plays and for being a hotbed of leftist activism.

Brecht died in 1956, leaving behind a body of work that was both influential and highly polarizing. Some saw him as a revolutionary genius; others saw him as a pretentious blowhard who took himself way too seriously.

Legacy