Bertolt Brecht

The Threepenny Opera

The beggars' opera around Mack the Knife became the Weimar Republic's biggest theatre hit.

💡 Did you know? „The Threepenny Opera“, with its cheeky songs, became the biggest theatrical hit of the Weimar Republic.

Mack the Knife

'Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear...': covered by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Sinatra.

💡 Did you know? The „ballad of Mack the Knife“ became a jazz and pop standard: Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra turned it into a global hit.

epic theatre

Against 'culinary' illusion theatre: the spectator should judge, not sink into the story.

💡 Did you know? Brecht's „epic theatre“ sought not to wrap the audience in emotion but to force them into critical thought.

alienation effect

Songs, banners, direct address: the distance is meant to enable critical thought.

💡 Did you know? The „alienation effect“ deliberately breaks the stage illusion: actors step out of their roles to make the audience think.

Mother Courage

'Mother Courage and Her Children' (1939): her cart became one of the century's defining theatre images.

💡 Did you know? „Mother Courage“ (a canteen woman who lives off the war yet loses all her children to it) is one of literature's most powerful anti-war figures.

Galileo

'Unhappy the land that needs heroes': after Hiroshima Brecht sharpened the ending.

💡 Did you know? In „Life of Galileo“, Brecht examines the scientist's responsibility: rewritten after the dropping of the atomic bomb.

Food comes first, then morals

From 'The Threepenny Opera': one of the most quoted stage lines in the German language.

💡 Did you know? „First comes the eating, then the morality“: Brecht's cynical line on the material roots of morality.

1933

Prague, Vienna, Denmark, Finland, California: 'changing countries more often than shoes'.

💡 Did you know? As a committed Marxist and opponent of Hitler, Brecht fled Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire: 15 years of exile followed.

the House Un-American Activities Committee

He answered with cunning evasion and left for Europe the next day.

💡 Did you know? In 1947 the US House Un-American Activities Committee questioned him: Brecht dodged cleverly and left the USA the next day.

the Berliner Ensemble

Together with his wife Helene Weigel: tours made 'Brechtian theatre' a global concept.

💡 Did you know? With the „Berliner Ensemble“, Brecht created from 1949 in East Berlin one of the most influential theatres in the world.

Helene Weigel

Her silent scream in Courage entered theatre history: she led the Ensemble until 1971.

💡 Did you know? His wife Helene Weigel played Mother Courage: her silent scream in a key scene is legendary.

to dissolve the people and elect another

Written after the crushed uprising of 17 June 1953: published only after his death.

💡 Did you know? After the 1953 uprising, Brecht mocked that the government should simply „dissolve the people and elect another“.

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright and poet who revolutionised the stage with „epic theatre“, as in „The Threepenny Opera“.

💡 Did you know? His song „Mack the Knife“ became a worldwide jazz and pop standard.