Bertolt Brecht: Performance and Philosopy

Table of Contents

In this unique collaborative anthology international Bertolt Brecht experts, philosophy scholars, and researchers from the field of theatre studies join forces to illuminate a hitherto rarely discussed aspect of this revolutionary German playwright and director: Brecht as the Socratic philosopher who is involved in life, and whose philosophy-like that of his characters Azdak, Schweyk, Galileo, Matti, or Courage-reflects life's open-ended possibilities and endless contradictions.
 

The articles offer unprecedented comparative insights into the influences of Kafka's works and Walter Benjamin's philosophy on Brecht's themes and aesthetics; they revisit and critically revise apparently self-evident Brechtian terms such as the V-effect, alienation, gestus, and hiatus; present post-Marxist opinions on the non-dogmatic, open-ended, and paradoxical nature of Brecht's philosophy based on the belief in the alterability of human nature; discuss the problem of Brechtian ethos in view of his characters' morality; modify the image of the ideologically dogmatic Brecht and of his "mobilized" plays, while historically contextualizing and problematizing this image on the basis of Brecht's correspondence with the practical philosophy of his time and the preceding tradition of German drama.
 

One of the most exciting contributions of this important anthology is the surprising and novel interpretations of his epic masterpieces such as The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, The Flight over the Ocean, The Exception and the Rule, Mother Courage and her Children, The Life of Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Trial ofLucullus, and other works, as well as analyses of the music-text relations in the music-theatre work of Brecht and his colleague-composers. A final exploration of post-Brechtian German apocalyptical dramaturgy proposes an initial retrospective of Brecht's artistic and philosophical German heritage and heirs.