Berthold Brecht: Biography, Life Story, Creativity and Best Books

Berthold Brecht (1898-1956) - one of the greatest 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. Creativity of Berthold Brecht led him to create a new direction of "political theater". He was originally from the German city of Augsburg. From his youth he was fond of theater, but his family insisted on becoming a doctor, after the gymnasium he entered the University. Ludwig Maximilian in Munich.

Berthold Brecht: Biography and Creativity

However, serious changes occurred after a meeting with the famous in Germany writer Leon Fayhwanger. He immediately noticed in the young man an exceptional talent and recommended him to deal with 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 graduating from the university, the young Berthold Brecht was sent to conquer Berlin. Biography of his indicates that here he was waiting for another amazing meeting with the famous director Erwin Piscator. A year later, this tandem creates the "Proletarian Theater".

A brief biography of Berthold 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 with the reworking of famous plays, and then went the staging of popular literary works for non-professional artists.

Theatrical work

The creative path of Berthold Brecht began with the play "Threepenny Opera" by John Gay, according to his book "The Opera of the Poor", which was one of the first such debut experiments set in 1928.

The plot tells the story of the life of several beggars who do not shy away and seek their means of livelihood by any means. The performance almost immediately became popular, as beggars-vagabonds had not been the main characters on the stage before that.

Then Brecht, along with his partner Piscator, he puts in the theater "Volksbünne" the second joint play based on the novel by M. Gorky "Mother."

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 a certain ferment in the minds. And this revolutionary pathos of Berthold was very much in keeping with the spirit of that mood in society.

This was followed by a new play by Brecht on the staging of the novel by J. Hasek narrating about the adventures of the brave soldier Švejk. It attracted the attention of viewers by the fact that it was literally stuffed with humorous everyday situations, and most importantly - with a vivid anti-war theme.

But then the author rained dissatisfaction with the fascists, who came to power by this time. Therefore, by 1933 the workers' theaters in Germany were banned. Berthold Brecht was urgently forced to leave the country.

Biography indicates that at that time he was married to a famous actress Elena Vejgel, and now with it he moved to Finland.

Work in Finland

There he begins to work on the play "Mama Courage and Her Children." The plot he spied in the German folk book, which described the adventures of a huckster during the Thirty Years' War.

The state of fascist Germany, he could not leave 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 coming to power of Hitler's fascist party.

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 his new plays there: The Life of Galileo (1941), The Good Man from Sezuan, The Lord Puntilla and His Servant Matti.

Folklore subjects and satire were taken as a basis. It seems that everything is simple and understandable, but Brecht, having processed them with philosophical generalizations, turned them into parables. So the playwright sought new expressive means of his thoughts, ideas and convictions.

Theater on Taganka

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 on people in an astonishing way. And Berthold Brecht knew this very well. His biography contains another very interesting detail: it turns out that the Moscow theater on Taganka began also with the play of Brecht. Directed by Yu. Lyubimov, he made the play "The Good Man from Sezuan" a visiting card of his theater, though with several other performances.

When the war was over, Berthold Brecht immediately returned to Europe. Biography has information that he settled in Austria. Benefit performances and ovations were on all his plays, which he wrote back in America: "The Caucasian Chalk Circle", "Arturo Ui's Career". In the first play, he showed his attitude to Chaplin's film The Great Dictator and tried to tell what Chaplin did not finish.

Theater "Berliner Ensemble"

In 1949, Berthold 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" G. Hauptmann.

With his performances he traveled half the world and, of course, visited the USSR, where in 1954 he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

Berthold Brecht: biography, list of books

In the middle of 1955, at the age of 57, Brecht began to feel very ill, he became very old, he walked around leaning 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 say farewell speeches.

Exactly one year later in the spring, working at the theater on the production of "The Life of Gadilia," Brech on his feet suffers a microinfarction, then by the end of summer, his health worsens, and he himself dies from a massive heart attack on August 10,

This is where the topic "Brecht Berthold: The Biography of Life Story" can be concluded. It remains only to add that throughout his life this wonderful man has written many literary works. His most famous plays, besides those listed above, are "Baal" (1918), "Man is a Man" (1920), "Life of Galileo" (1939), "Caucasian Chalk" and many others.