Bertolt Brecht - Education Scotland

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CRITICAL STUDIES
Stevenson, R, and Wallace, G (eds.), Scottish Theatre Since the Seventies,
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996
Olga Taxidou’s ‘Epic Theatre in Scotland’ is clearly the most obvious choice of
reading from this wide-ranging book: there are other moments with
interesting passages concerning Brecht in Scotland.
Styan, J L, Modern Drama in Theory and Practice: Volume 3. Expressionism
and Epic Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983
Last of a three-part survey of modern theatre that is as lucid and engaging as
the other two volumes. Highly recommended.
Thomson, P (with a conclusion by Gardner, V), Mother Courage and Her
Children, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997
A whole study devoted to the production history of a single play. Outstanding.
Thoss, M, Brecht for Beginners, London: Writers and Readers Ltd, 1994
This is Brecht’s entire life and work drawn as a comic book, with text, line
drawings and photographs. It is highly entertaining but the title ‘for
Beginners’ is extremely misleading.
Völker, K, Brecht: A Biography, trans. Nowell, J, London: Marion Boyars, 1979
Charts Brecht’s early development and influences – Rimbaud, Wedekind,
Shakespeare, Kipling, and others – his long association with Caspar Neher and
his penchant for collaboration.
A chapter on Baal (pp44–50) also looks at Brecht’s perpetual revisions of the
play over the years, due mostly to the fact that it was originally written before
he became a Marxist and later Brecht wanted to introduce elements of his
Marxist beliefs into the play.
An analysis of In The Jungle of the Cities (pp75–83) deals with Brecht’s use of
Chicago as a distancing effect, to be used in later years, most particularly in
Arturo Ui (the collaboration of Margarete Steffin on Ui is dealt with on p271).
Volker also looks at Man is Man (pp118–124), Round Heads and Pointed
Heads (pp227–229) – which Völker believes to be a much neglected parable –
and the debt Brecht owed to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
There is a great series of twenty-four photographs of the didactic play What is
the Price of Iron? that clearly emphasise its anti-naturalist staging and design,
its early Epic techniques and Brecht’s collaboration with Ruth Berlau.
Völker goes on to look at Saint Joan of the Stockyards (yet again set in
Chicago) on pp152–159; Elisabeth Hauptmann’s collaboration, its drawing on
his earlier In the Jungle of the Cities and the influence of Shakespeare on this
play. Herr Puntila and his Servant Matti is considered on pp273–281.
DRAMA