Essay: Biography of Brecht

Biography of Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898, in Augsburg, in the Bavarian region of Germany. As a youth, he was drawn to the literary arts, and enjoyed writing poetry. In addition to his penchant for writing, he was already questioning social ideologies such as patriotism, authority, and bourgeoisie society. During university in which he was studying medicine, he wrote his first play, Baal, which was very anti-bourgeoisie, in response to an acclaimed theatre guru who was both patronising and somewhat of a windbag. His education was cut short when he conscripted into the army as a medic; here he witnessed the horrors of war at the tail end of WWI. After the war, Brecht began a period of prolific writings. During this period he also developed a violently antibourgeois attitude that reflected his strong disappointment in the German nation that had come crashing down at the end of World War I. In the late 1920s, Brecht became acquainted with the work of Karl Marx, and in 1929 Brecht began to identify himself with communism. From this period through to the 1930s, Brecht developed his theory of “epic theatre.” By 1933 Brecht was well into his dramatic career. He had written and produced several well received plays including The Threepenny Opera, won literary prizes for his poetry, and had written scripts for semi-documentary films. However 1933 also marked the year that the Nazis came to power. In Germany his books were banned and burned, productions of his plays were raided by the police, and his citizenship was withdrawn. He and his family escaped into exile into other parts of Europe, and by 1941 they were granted visas to the US. In the US, Brecht settled on the Los Angeles area, and worked as a screenwriter for Hollywood films— though none were particularly successful as Hollywood wasn’t able to comprehend Brecht’s ideas. Although Brecht was cut off from the German theatre, between 1937 and 1941 he wrote most of his great plays, his major theoretical essays and dialogues. The plays he wrote during his exile became his most famous: notable among them are Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Life of Galileo, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. In 1947, fearing the irrational and anti-communist political climate driven by US senator McCarthy, Brecht left the United States and moved to Switzerland. Before he left, he was called to testify about his political affiliations and associations before the House Un-American Activities Committee–— a committee that investigated individuals with communist ties. Brecht saw this as extremely ironic, as this was the same sort of fearmongering and restriction of speech and thought that he had escaped from when he fled Germany. A year after his return to Europe Brecht returned to Germany and settled in communist east Berlin, where he was welcomed and able to set up his own theatre company: The Berliner Ensemble. Brecht wrote very few plays in his last years, and died in 1956. His fame and influence on western theatre soared after his death; James K. Lyon points out in Brecht Unbound, “Brecht appears to have been someone whose death did more to advance his career than any single act of his life.” As such, Brecht became one of the most important influences on German theatre and literature for the next 25 years to come.
The Socio-Political Environment and Influences on Brecht
Brecht went through his young adulthood in Germany and experienced WWI in his teens. He was witness to Germany’s loss in WWI, and to Hitler’s rise to power thereafter. Before the war, in 1914, an enthusiastic and patriotic fervour for war swept across the country, now called the “spirit of 1914.” Germans saw it as an opportunity to finally settle disputes with the “entente” powers, and to secure Germany’s place in Europe.
This “spirit” was described by one historian in Leipzig as a “soaring of an entire people to the heights.” The greater German Empire had only been formed in 1871, a mere two and half decades before the birth of Brecht, and so the concept of a united and powerful Germany was, to many, still relatively new and fresh; there were new “heights” still to be explored. This would have been the general socio-political atmosphere that Brecht experienced as a child and young teenager.
When Brecht was in his mid to late teens, he was exposed to four years of bitter fighting. Because he was conscripted in the final stage of the war as a medic, Brecht witnessed first hand, the grim reality and suffering of soldiers and civilians in war. These images from the war stuck with him, and resurfaced in his plays. In the end, Germany was declared to have lost the war in an armistice signed in November 1918, leaving German national pride in tatters. In addition to their loss, other allies quickly left them creating a sense of abandonment in the national psyche. This sense of loss and abandonment is a theme that reoccurs in several of Brecht’s works.
Loss of national pride and a sense of abandonment were accompanied by a sense of betrayal; the Weimar Republic, which constituted German leadership who signed the Treaty of Versailles had accepted the punitive terms of the treaty, and this didn’t sit well with many German nationalists. By this time, Brecht was disillusioned with German civilisation and become firmly anti-bourgeoisie in his outlook. Thereafter, the Weimar Republic was subjected to right-wing propaganda that painted them as betraying the country. This sense of being wounded, abandoned, and betrayed gave Hitler and his party a platform to cater to all those people who felt this way. Again, these political machinations with Hitler’s rise to fascism and subsequent social attitudes of fear of the “other”— those of different race and religion, fear of those mandated to enforce the law, and fear of the law itself, are all represented in Brecht’s works.
By the end of WWI, Germany’s economy was stretched to breaking. The war had cost them almost $110 billion, and industrial output had fallen by 40%. Returning soldiers needed pensions, widows needed compensation, France and Britain demanded reparations payments, and food shortages extremised people’s views. These conditions worsened during the great depression, and as it was the second economic crisis Germany experienced in six years, it became a crucial condition in the rise of fascism, and the rise of Hitler. Again Brecht’s critical awareness of the economic disparities between the few rich and the overwhelming numbers of poor, and the desperate conditions that the poor suffered, became a recurring theme in his works.
As historian Harold James observes “a clear link between economic downturn and people turning to extremist politics,” the Nazi party continued to gain popularity and power. This follows a socioeconomic theory, that the greater the disparity between the former living conditions and economic downturn conditions, the more dissatisfied the people will be. Germany’s large middle class found themselves struggling, suddenly without work and unable to pay for the many comforts of life they were used to.
Hitler and his Nazi party filled this political void with promises of “making Germany great again.” They also promised wealth and the removal of all who were to blame for Germany’s dire situation. Hitler unequivocally placed the blame for Germany’s woes on the Jews, other ethnic minorities, gays, and handicapped, creating a fervent social atmosphere of fear, hatred, and divisiveness that allowed for  a fascist government. While Brecht’s view forced hum to flee into exile so he did not directly experience the fighting, destruction, and genocide of the war, he remained fully informed of the catastrophe effects of the war and this continued to fuel his personal alignment with communism and marxism.
Influences from Arts and Humanities: Drama, Literature and Philosophy
Brecht was influenced by a wide variety of sources. From eastern theatre, he borrowed from the great Indian epics of The Mahabharata, and The Ramayana. Likewise, he borrowed ideas and form from the ancient Greek epics such as The Iliad, and The Odyssey. From Japanese and Chinese theatre, Brecht borrowed ideas about gesture and movement. From Greek theatre, ideas such as the Greek chorus the narrate the play were absorbed into his style. Brecht also absorbed Elizabethan theatre, but most notably, Shakespeare, who’s works were full of astute commentary. Other influences included contemporary German playwrights such as Büchner, and Wedekind, who shared Brecht’s anti-bourgeois ideas. Finally, fair-ground entertainments and Bavarian folk plays also added to his vast basket of theatrical ideas. Such a wide variety of sources might have proven overwhelming, but Brecht had the extraordinary talent to take elements from seemingly incompatible sources, combine them, and transform them into his own.
Brecht detested “Aristotelian Theatre” and dramatic plays that appealed to the bourgeoisie audiences who would identify with the hero and respond with emotion to the characters and events.  Brecht wanted his audience to remain detached and critical of what the were viewing.
Brecht in his early years experimented with dada and expressionism. Dadaism was an early 20th century avant-garde art movement that developed in Europe in reaction to WWI. Dadaists were anti-bourgeoisie, rejected capitalist societies,  and expressed their discontent with war, violence, and nationalism.
Brecht admired Charlie Chaplin films for their combination of fun and social satire, and likewise, Brecht admired the “Charlie Chaplin of Germany,” Karl Valentin, a Bavarian comedian, cabaret performer, clown, author and film producer. Brecht wrote that Valentin’s live comedic sketches about the downtrodden employee who makes his despised employer look ridiculous, significantly affected the portrayal of Brecht’s characters.
Marxism
One of the Most significant influences on Brecht’s writings and thinking, was the work of Karl Marx. In the late 1920s, Brecht first read Marx’s seminal work, Das Kapital. This book fired his interest in both the Marxian theory of society and the dialectical method of analyzing society and history. In Das Kapital, Marx argued that, in modern industry, commodities seemed alien because capitalistic production hid the process in which the product is created. Consumer only see the final product without knowing where it came from. For Marx, the notion of capitalism, where products are presented as something entirely separate from the proletariat, or the workers who made the product, was wrong, and only gave political and economic advantage to the wealthy ruling bourgeoisie class.
Similarly, Brecht argued that dramatic theatre presented a view of society as the product of evolution and history, and therefore unchangeable. But Brecht felt this was a biased representation of reality. So Brecht reinterpreted Marx’s concept of alienation and applied it to his own theatrical ideology, in order to shatter the illusion of realism, and to destroy the bourgeois consumption of theatre as a product.
Brecht also believed, as Marx did, that as the disparity between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie increased, it would give rise to social revolution, in which the outcome was a just and fair egalitarian society; this egalitarian society would become a socialist society, that would eventually become a communist one.
For Brecht, Marx’s theories became a pillar for his theatrical ideologies. In fact, much later, Brecht wrote that when he read Marx’s Das Kapital, “[he] understood [his] plays” and that Marx was “the only spectator for [his] plays.”
Brecht rejected Richard Wagner, and his idea of gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art.” This synthesis of all art forms meant Wagner oversaw all aspects of the performances of his operas, in order to create the harmonious combination of music, poetry, dance, mime and scenic effects. Brecht detested this, and instead emphasized the separation of the components: he juxtaposed music, lyrics, dialogue, dance, and visual affects in ways that interrupted the dramatic flow, and “literarised” the performance by exposing the mechanics of the production to the audience.
The result of these historical, social, economic, artistic, and literary influences on Brecht coalesced into the three main principles that defined his theatrical style.
Firstly, Verfremdungseffekt, or v-effekt, is often translated into English as the alienation effect, but this can be misleading, as it is not about “alienating” the audience and making them feel distant, but it is technique of writing and performance that makes everyday familiar actions seem unfamiliar or surprising. Thus, the audience is able to question each moment of the drama and remain in a critical frame of mind, rather than the typical empathetic involvement that occurs with dramatic theatre. While some critics saw his productions as cold and detached, this stems from their ignorance on Brecht’s own writings about his theory of v-effekt. Brecht’s main theory behind v-effekt, was breaking the fourth wall, as to continuously remind the audience that they are watching a play, and that the play is an illustration of the author’s beliefs rather than a slice of reality. To do this Brecht not only employed numerous techniques in acting, costuming, staging, set, lighting, and sound, but the play itself was constructed to create a montage of events, parables, scenes, songs, narrations, and interruptions, much like the dadaist artists created in their expressionist paintings. Thus, rather than distancing the audience, spectators are invited to participate actively in questioning how and why a change in society should be effected.
Brecht also developed his “alienation” theory for theatre based on Marx’s ideas about production. Under capitalism, Marx suggested that since everything is a product for sale, all human lives, values and relationships become products. The workers become de-humanized and are incorporated into the machinery of production. Brecht applied this idea to theatre, such that his plays dealt with issues of capitalism and power, but he also wanted audiences to see the literal production process of the play. Brecht would expose the technology of theatre that makes the illusions possible, such as the lighting grid, fly systems, actors’ costume changes, and other action backstage. The result of this was twofold. First, it would remind the audience that they are watching a play by shattering the illusion of realism, therefore forcing them to think about the message behind the play, and second, it would force the audience to think about the process that goes into creating theatre, and not become passive in watching the final product on stage.
Secondly, Historicisation was Brecht’s technique to contrast the past with the present in order for the audience to view the performance with an objective lens, and in order for them to apply the cause and effect factors in history to their present condition. Brecht did not want human nature to seem universal and unchanging, so he insisted that the actors portray each event in a play as a unique response to a given historical situation.
Thirdly, The Gestus is a piece of physical action performed by the actor to convey a social meaning. Gestus as a theatrical construction was one of Brecht’s most original ideas, and has contributed much to the development of modern theatre. Gestus allows the actor to demonstrate the social attitudes of one’s character or a relationship to another. Movements were a mixture of realistic and non-realistic, graceful and forceful, or employing the juxtaposition of other contrasting movements.
In total, his ideas of v-effekt, historicisation, and gestus blended together to create what he termed “Epic Theatre.” This entailed loosely connected scenes to avoid illusion and maintain critical detachment in the audience, so they are continuously reminded that they are being presented with portrayals of human behavior, rather than an illusion of reality, in short, that the theatre is only a theatre, and not the world itself.