Bertolt Brecht

German poet, playwright, and theatre director (1898–1956) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht,[lower-alpha 1] was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt.

Quick facts: Bertolt Brecht, Born, Died, Occupation, Natio...
Bertolt Brecht
Brecht in 1954
Brecht in 1954
BornEugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht
(1898-02-10)10 February 1898
Augsburg, Bavaria, German Empire
Died14 August 1956(1956-08-14) (aged 58)
East Berlin, East Germany
Occupation
  • Playwright
  • theatre director
  • poet
NationalityGerman
Genre
Literary movementNon-Aristotelian drama
Notable works
Spouses
(m. 1922; div. 1927)
(m. 1930)
Children
RelativesWalter Brecht (younger brother)
Signature
Bertolt_Brecht_signature.svg
Close

During the Nazi Germany period, Brecht fled his home country, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI.[3] After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.[4]