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Bertolt Brecht: Difference between revisions
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Bertolt <ref>He was born as Eugen Berthold Friedrich, but he adopted "Bertolt", or "Bert" for short, as the one name he actually used. He thought "Berthold" sounded too soft.</ref> Brecht (1898 - 1956) was a [[Dichter and Denker|German poet, playwright, novelist and director]]. He was possibly the most influential force in early 20th century political art, with a strong focus on communism (''not'' Stalinism) and anti-fascism -- and probably most famous for ''[[The Threepenny Opera (Theatre)|The Threepenny Opera]]''. He was a major figure in the art scene of the [[Weimar Republic]] and post-war Germany. Like many German artists, he fled Germany during [[World War Two]]. When he returned to communist East [[Berlin]], he was granted his own theatre, where the current ensemble still performs his plays daily.
One of his most important principles was the ''Verfremdungseffekt'', or "effect of alienation". This was a method which discouraged immersion and escapism, and encouraged critical reception. He alienated his audience to make them more curious and attentive. The goal of each of his works was to make the audience politically engaged, by encouraging them to apply the play's lessons to their own reality. His stories were not meant as escapist fiction, but as scathing caricatures of what was wrong in society. For this reason, he developed certain tricks to prevent escapism: he encouraged his audience to smoke while watching each play, discouraged method acting in his ensemble (he preferred using the classic, basic characters of the [[Commedia Dell
Very few of his works have an explicit moral, instead relying on [[Applicability]]. His characters typically don't learn a thing, and end up perpetuating social repression and/or dying miserably. If a moral is stated at all, it's usually blatantly wrong. This way, Brecht encouraged his audience to make their own reality better than that of the characters, by learning from each story what the characters refuse to learn.
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