Bertolt Brecht Part 1
Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898 in Augsburg- Germany and died in 1956. He used to serve in the medical service during the First World War then after he went to Munich and then Berlin to join the Theatre industry. Years before the Second World War, when the Nazis came into power, Bertolt Brecht fled Germany and had his citizenship taken away from him.
Brecht’s work was influenced by a range of writers and practitioners including Chinese theatre and Karl Marx. He developed a strong political voice; due to this he faced people that were in protest to his courage to express personal voice in the world of theatre. He is an important person in the world of theatre because of his views and ideas of the world and how he shows to develop these things into his work. He is also known as a theatre practitioner. Without his input, modern theatre wouldn't be how it is today.
Bertolt used theatre as a force for change. Naturalistic or dramatic theatre was used to help the audience escape their reality and only concentrate on the lives of the characters. The audience would get mentally and emotionally attached to the performance that it didn't encourage the audience to think for themselves. Brecht was against that because he didn't agree with the techniques some writers used to grab the audience's attention. He believed that by making the play different- yet interesting enough that the audience would pay attention, it would make them feel a bit distant with the characters and stimulate their minds into thinking that it is just a play they are watching and that there are very important views/ opinions to think about. This type of theatre, he has called this is:’Epic theatre’.
*Some of this information I found from the websites wikipedia or bbc bitesize.
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