Bertolt Brecht was born in Germany and studied medicine and philosophy at the University of Munich, where he increasingly devoted himself to writing poetry and plays, presenting his first successful drama in 1922. It was in Bavaria that he served as a medical orderly and developed his antipathy to war and his interest in communism. It was also at this time that he began to crystallize his ideas for “epic theater.” He theorized that the audience should not believe in the reality of the characters but should view the play in a detached manner. His staging and his characters were stylized so as to promote his didactic themes.

In 1924 he went to Berlin where he soon began his collaboration with composer Kurt Weill. Their 1928 production for which Brecht wrote the book and lyrics, The Threepenny Opera (adapted from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera), was cynical, highly stylized, and wildly successful. It also produced a song that would become part of the jazz standards repertoire, “Mack the Knife,” with English lyrics by Marc Blitzstein. Their 1930 production, Mahagonny, was a satire of capitalism set in a mythical American city. Their relationship outside of the theater was not cordial, and their final collaboration was on The Seven Deadly Sins in 1933 after which they both fled Nazi Germany.

Brecht lived temporarily in Scandanavia and the U.S. and it was during this time that he produced some of his finest works: Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), The Good Woman of Setzuan (1943), and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1945). Brecht left the U.S. in 1947 after being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He returned permanently to Germany in 1949 to establish and direct East Berlin’s Berliner Ensemble. Although a controversial figure, Brecht unquestionably influenced 20th Century theater.

- Sandra Burlingame