Bertold Brecht (1898-1956) is one of the largest German theater figures, the most talented playwrights of his time, but his plays are still popular in many world theaters. This is a prose writer and poet, as well as the creator of the Berliner Ensemble Theater. The work of Bertold Brecht led him to create a new direction of "political theater." He was from the German city of Augsburg. From a young age, he was fond of theater, but his family insisted that he become a doctor, after the gymnasium he entered the University. Ludwig Maximilian in Munich.
Bertold Brecht: biography and creativity
However, serious changes occurred after a meeting with the famous German writer Leon Feichwanger. He immediately noticed a remarkable talent in the young man and recommended him to engage in close literature. By this time, Brecht had finished his play “Drums of the Night,” which was staged by one of the Munich theaters.
By 1924, after graduation, the young Berthold Brecht set off to conquer Berlin. His biography indicates that here he was waiting for another amazing meeting with the famous director Erwin Piskator. A year later, this tandem creates the "Proletarian Theater".
A brief biography of Bertold Brecht indicates that the playwright himself was not rich, and his own money would never have been enough to order and buy plays from famous playwrights. That is why Brecht decides to write independently.
But he began by redoing famous plays, and then went on to staging popular literary works for non-professional artists.
Theatrical work
Bertold Brecht’s career began with the play The Three-Penny Opera by John Gay, in his book The Beggars Opera, which was one of the first such debut experiments that were performed in 1928.
The plot tells the story of the life of several poor tramps who do not shun anything and seek any means of livelihood for themselves. The play almost immediately became popular, as beggar-tramps had not yet been the main characters on the stage.
Then Brecht, together with his partner Piskator, he staged at the Volkswagen Theater a second joint play based on the novel “Mother” by M. Gorky.
Spirit of revolution
In Germany at that time, the Germans were looking for new ways of development and arrangement of the state, and therefore there was some kind of ferment in the minds. And this revolutionary pathos of Bertold very much corresponded to the spirit of that mood in society.
This was followed by a new Brecht play on the adaptation of the novel by J. Hasek telling the adventures of the brave soldier Schweik. She attracted the attention of viewers by the fact that she was literally crammed with humorous everyday situations, and most importantly - with a bright anti-war theme.
But then the author was poured by the discontent of the Nazis, who came to power by this time. Therefore, by 1933, the working theaters of Germany were banned. Urgent was forced to leave the country and Bertold Brecht.
The biography indicates that at that time he was married to the famous actress Elena Weigel, and now with her he moved to Finland.
Work in Finland
There he begins to work on the play "Mother Courage and Her Children." He spied the plot in a German folk book, which described the adventures of a merchant woman during the Thirty Years War.
He could not leave the state of fascist Germany alone, so he gave him a political coloring in the play “Fear and Despair in the Third Empire” and showed in it the true reasons for the rise of the fascist Hitler party to power.
War
In World War II, Finland became an ally of Germany, and therefore Brecht again had to emigrate, but this time to America. He puts there his new plays: “The Life of Galileo” (1941), “The Good Man from Cesuan”, “Mr. Puntilla and His Servant Matti”.
The folklore stories and satire were taken as a basis. Everything seems to be simple and clear, but Brecht, having processed them with philosophical generalizations, turned them into parables. So the playwright sought new expressive means of his thoughts, ideas and beliefs.
Taganka Theater
His theatrical productions were in close contact with the audience. Songs were performed, sometimes spectators were invited to the stage and made them direct participants in the play. Such things acted in amazing ways on people. And Bertold Brecht knew this very well. His biography contains another very interesting detail: it turns out that the Moscow Taganka Theater also began with a play by Brecht. Director Y. Lyubimov made the play “The Good Man from Cezuan” a visiting card of his theater, though with several other performances.
When the war ended, Bertold Brecht also immediately returned to Europe. The biography has information that he settled in Austria. Benefits and ovations were on all of his plays, which he wrote back in America: “The Caucasian Cretaceous Circle”, “Career of Arturo Wu.” In the first play, he showed his attitude to Chaplin’s film “The Great Dictator” and tried to prove what Chaplin did not finish.
Theater "Berliner Ensemble"
In 1949, Bertold was invited to work in the GDR at the Berliner Ensemble Theater, where he became artistic director and director. He writes dramatizations on the largest works of world literature: “Vassa Zheleznova” and “Mother” Gorky, “Beaver Coat” and “Red Rooster” by G. Hauptman.
With his performances, he traveled half the world and, of course, visited the USSR, where in 1954 he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.
Bertold Brecht: biography, list of books
In mid-1955, at the age of 57, Brecht began to feel very bad, he was very old, he walked on a cane. He made a will, in which he indicated that the coffin with his body should not be put on public display and did not make farewell speeches.
Exactly one year in the spring, working in the theater on the production of "The Life of a Gadilei," Brech is suffering a microinfarction on his feet, then, by the end of the summer, his health worsens, and he dies from a massive heart attack on August 10, 1956.
This is where the topic “Brecht Bertold: Biography, Life Story” can be completed. It remains only to add that over the course of his life this amazing person wrote many literary creations. His most famous plays, besides the ones listed above, are “Baal” (1918), “Man is a man” (1920), “Life of Galileo” (1939), “Cretaceous Caucasus” and many, many others.