Creativity of B. Brecht. Epic Theater of Brecht. "Mother Courage".

Berthold Brecht(1898-1956) was born in Augsburg, in the family of a factory director, studied at the gymnasium, studied medicine in Munich and was drafted into the army as an orderly. The songs and poems of the young orderly attracted attention with a spirit of hatred for the war, for the Prussian military clique, and for German imperialism. In the revolutionary days of November 1918, Brecht was elected a member of the Augsburg Soldiers' Council, which testified to the authority of a still very young poet.

Already in the earliest poems of Brecht, we see a combination of catchy, instant memorization of slogans and complex imagery that evokes associations with classical German literature. These associations are not imitations, but an unexpected rethinking of old situations and techniques. Brecht seems to move them into modern life, makes them look at them in a new way, "alienated". So already in the earliest lyrics, Brecht gropes for his famous (* 224) dramatic device of "alienation". In the poem "The Legend of the Dead Soldier", satirical techniques are reminiscent of those of romanticism: a soldier going into battle against the enemy has long been only a ghost, the people accompanying him are philistines whom German literature has long portrayed in the guise of animals. And at the same time, Brecht's poem is topical - it contains intonation, pictures, and hatred of the First World War. German militarism, Brecht condemns the war, and in his 1924 poem "The Ballad of the Mother and the Soldier" the poet realizes that the Weimar Republic has far from eradicated militant Pan-Germanism.

During the years of the Weimar Republic, Brecht's poetic world expanded. Reality appears in the most acute class upheavals. But Brecht is not content with just recreating pictures of oppression. His poems are always a revolutionary appeal: such are the "Song of the United Front", "The Faded Glory of New York, the Giant City", "Song of the Class Enemy". These poems clearly show how, at the end of the 1920s, Brecht comes to a communist worldview, how his spontaneous youthful rebellion grows into proletarian revolutionism.

Brecht's lyrics are very wide in their range, a poet can capture a real picture of German life in all its historical and psychological concreteness, but he can also create a meditative poem, where the poetic effect is achieved not by description, but by the accuracy and depth of philosophical thought, combined with refined, by no means a far-fetched allegory. For Brecht, poetry is above all the accuracy of philosophical and civic thought. Brecht considered poetry even philosophical treatises or paragraphs of proletarian newspapers filled with civic pathos (for example, the style of the poem "A message to comrade Dimitrov, who fought in Leipzig with the fascist tribunal" - an attempt to bring the language of poetry and newspaper closer together). But these experiments in the end convinced Brecht that art should speak of everyday life by far from everyday language. In this sense, the lyricist Brecht helped the playwright Brecht.

In the 1920s, Brecht turned to theater. In Munich, he became a director and then a playwright of the city theater. In 1924 Brecht moved to Berlin, where he worked in the theater. He acts simultaneously as a playwright and as a theoretician - a reformer of the theater. Already during these years, Brecht's aesthetics, his innovative view of the tasks of drama and theater, took shape in their decisive features. Brecht outlined his theoretical views on art in the 1920s in separate articles and performances, later combined into the collection Against theatrical Routine and On the Way to Modern Theater. Later, in the 30s, Brecht systematized his theatrical theory, refining and developing (* 225) it, in the treatises On Non-Aristotelian Drama, New Principles of Acting, Small Organ for Theater, Purchase of Copper and some others.

Brecht calls his aesthetics and drama "epic", "non-Aristotelian" theater; By this name, he emphasizes his disagreement with the most important, according to Aristotle, principle of ancient tragedy, which was subsequently perceived to a greater or lesser extent by the entire world theatrical tradition. The playwright opposes the Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis. Catharsis is an extraordinary, highest emotional tension. This side of catharsis was recognized by Brecht and preserved for his theater; emotional strength, pathos, open manifestation of passions, we see in his plays. But the purification of feelings in catharsis, according to Brecht, led to reconciliation with tragedy, life's horror became theatrical and therefore attractive, the viewer would not even mind experiencing something similar. Brecht constantly tried to dispel the legends about the beauty of suffering and patience. In The Life of Galileo, he writes that a hungry person has no right to endure hunger, that “starving” is simply not eating, but not showing the patience pleasing to heaven. " he considered Shakespeare's flaw in the fact that in the performances of his tragedies it was inconceivable, for example, "a discussion about the behavior of King Lear" and the impression is created that Lear's grief is inevitable: "it has always been this way, it is natural."

The idea of ​​catharsis, generated by the ancient drama, was closely related to the concept of the fatal predetermination of human destiny. Playwrights by the power of their talent revealed all the motivations of human behavior, in moments of catharsis, like lightning, they illuminated all the reasons for human actions, and the power of these reasons turned out to be absolute. That is why Brecht called the Aristotelian theater fatalistic.

Brecht saw a contradiction between the principle of reincarnation in the theater, the principle of dissolving the author in heroes, and the need for a direct, agitationally visual identification of the writer's philosophical and political position. Even in the most successful and tendentious, in the best sense of the word, traditional dramas, the position of the author, in Brecht's opinion, was associated with the figures of reasoners. This was the case in the dramas of Schiller, whom Brecht highly valued for his civic spirit and ethical pathos. The playwright rightly believed that the characters of the heroes should not be "mouthpieces of ideas", that this reduces the artistic effectiveness of the play: "... on the stage of a realistic theater, only living people, people in flesh and blood, with all their contradictions, passions and actions, have a place. The stage is not a herbarium or a museum, where stuffed stuffed animals are exhibited ... "

Brecht finds his own solution to this controversial issue: theatrical performance, stage action do not coincide with the plot of the play. The plot, the story of the characters, is interrupted by direct author's comments, lyrical digressions, and sometimes even demonstration of physical experiments, reading newspapers and a kind of always topical entertainer. Brecht breaks the illusion of continuous development of events in the theater, destroys the magic of scrupulous reproduction of reality. Theater is genuine creativity, far beyond mere believability. Creativity for Brecht and the play of actors, for whom only "natural behavior in the proposed circumstances" is completely insufficient. Developing his aesthetics, Brecht uses traditions that have been forgotten in the everyday, psychological theater of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, he introduces choirs and zongs of contemporary political cabarets, lyrical digressions characteristic of poems, and philosophical treatises. Brecht allows for a change in the commentary beginning when his plays are resumed: he sometimes has two versions of zongs and choruses for the same plot (for example, the zongs are different in the productions of the Threepenny Opera in 1928 and 1946).

The art of reincarnation Brecht considered necessary, but completely insufficient for the actor. Much more important, he considered the ability to show, to demonstrate on stage his personality - both in civil and in creative terms. In the game, reincarnation must necessarily alternate, be combined with the demonstration of artistic data (recitation, plastics, singing), which are interesting precisely for their uniqueness, and, most importantly, with the demonstration of the actor's personal civic position, his human credo.

Brecht believed that a person retains the ability of free choice and responsible decision in the most difficult circumstances. In this conviction of the playwright, faith in man was manifested, a deep conviction that bourgeois society, with all the power of its corrupting influence, cannot reshape humanity in the spirit of its principles. Brecht writes that the task of the "epic theater" is to make the audience "abandon ... the illusion that everyone in the place of the hero being portrayed would act in the same way." The playwright deeply comprehends the dialectics of the development of society and therefore crushingly smashes the vulgar sociology associated with positivism. Brecht always chooses complex, "imperfect" ways to expose capitalist society. "Political primitive", according to the playwright, is unacceptable on stage. Brecht wanted the life and actions of the characters in the plays from the life (* 227) of a possessive society to always give the impression of unnaturalness. He poses a very difficult task for theatrical performance: he compares the viewer with a hydro-builder who "is able to see the river simultaneously both in its actual channel and in the imaginary one along which it could flow if the slope of the plateau and the water level were different" ...

Brecht believed that a true depiction of reality is not limited only to the reproduction of the social circumstances of life, that there are universal categories that social determinism cannot fully explain (the love of the heroine of the "Caucasian Chalk Circle" Grusha for a defenseless abandoned child, Shen De's irresistible impulse for good) ... Their depiction is possible in the form of a myth, a symbol, in the genre of parable plays or parabolic plays. But in terms of social and psychological realism, Brecht's dramaturgy can be put on a par with the greatest achievements of world theater. The playwright carefully observed the basic law of 19th century realism. - the historical concreteness of social and psychological motivations. Comprehension of the qualitative diversity of the world has always been a primary task for him. Summing up his path as a playwright, Brecht wrote: "We must strive for an ever more accurate description of reality, and this, from an aesthetic point of view, is an ever more subtle and more effective understanding of description."

Brecht's innovation manifested itself in the fact that he was able to fuse into an indissoluble harmonious whole traditional, mediated methods of revealing aesthetic content (characters, conflicts, plot) with an abstract reflective beginning. What gives the amazing artistic integrity to the seemingly contradictory combination of plot and commentary? The famous Brechtian principle of "alienation" - it permeates not only the commentary itself, but the entire plot. Brecht's "alienation" is both an instrument of logic and poetry itself, full of surprises and brilliance. Brecht makes "alienation" the most important principle of philosophical knowledge of the world, the most important condition for realistic creativity. Living in the role, in the circumstances does not break through the "objective appearance" and therefore less serves realism than "alienation". Brecht did not agree that living in and reincarnating is the path to truth. KS Stanislavsky, who asserted this, was, in his opinion, "impatient." For getting used to it does not distinguish between truth and "objective appearance".

Epic theater is a story, puts the viewer in the position of an observer, stimulates the viewer's activity, forces the viewer to make decisions, shows the viewer another stop, arouses the viewer's interest in the course of the action, appeals to the viewer's mind, and not to the heart and feelings !!!

In emigration, in the struggle against fascism, Brecht's dramatic creativity flourished. It was exceptionally rich in content and varied in form. Among the most famous plays of the emigration - "Mother Courage and her children" (1939). The sharper and more tragic the conflict, the more critical, according to Brecht, a person's thought should be. Under the conditions of the 1930s, "Mother Courage" sounded, of course, like a protest against the demagogic propaganda of war by the fascists and was addressed to that part of the German population that succumbed to this demagogy. War is depicted in the play as an element organically hostile to human existence.

The essence of "epic theater" becomes especially clear in connection with "Mother Courage". The play combines theoretical commenting with a realistic manner that is merciless in its consistency. Brecht believes that it is realism that is the most reliable way of influence. That is why in "Mother Courage" there is such a consistent and consistent "true" face of life even in small details. But we should bear in mind the two-pronged nature of this play - the aesthetic content of the characters, that is, the reproduction of life, where good and evil are mixed regardless of our desires, and the voice of Brecht himself, not satisfied with such a picture, trying to affirm the good. Brecht's position is directly manifested in the Zongs. In addition, as follows from Brecht's directors' instructions to the play, the playwright provides theaters with ample opportunities to demonstrate the author's thought with the help of various "alienations" (photography, film projection, direct appeal of actors to the audience).

The characters of the heroes in "Mother Courage" are outlined in all their complex contradictions. The most interesting is the image of Anna Fierling, nicknamed Mother Courage. The versatility of this character evokes a variety of feelings in the audience. The heroine attracts with a sober understanding of life. But she is a product of the mercantile, cruel and cynical spirit of the Thirty Years' War. Courage is indifferent to the reasons for this war. Depending on the vicissitudes of fate, she erects either a Lutheran or a Catholic banner over her van. Courage goes to war hoping for big profits.

Brecht's thrilling conflict between practical wisdom and ethical impulses infects the entire play with the passion of argument and the energy of preaching. In the image of Catherine, the playwright drew the antipode of Mother Courage. Neither threats, nor promises, nor death forced Katrin to abandon the decision dictated by her desire to help people in any way. Talkative Courage is opposed by mute Katrin, the girl's silent feat, as it were, crosses out all the lengthy arguments of her mother.

Brecht's realism manifests itself in the play not only in the portrayal of the main characters and in the historicism of the conflict, but also in the vital reliability of episodic persons, in Shakespeare's multicolor, reminiscent of the "Falstaffian background". Each character, being drawn into the dramatic conflict of the play, lives his own life, we guess about his fate, about his past and future life, and as if we hear every voice in the discordant chorus of war.

In addition to revealing the conflict through the clash of characters, Brecht complements the picture of life in the play with zones, in which a direct understanding of the conflict is given. The most significant zong is the Song of Great Humility. This is a complex kind of "alienation", when the author acts as if on behalf of his heroine, sharpens her erroneous positions and thus argues with her, inspiring the reader to doubt the wisdom of "great humility." Courage Brecht responds to mother's cynical irony with his own irony. And Brecht's irony leads the viewer, who has completely succumbed to the philosophy of accepting life as it is, to a completely different view of the world, to an understanding of the vulnerability and fatality of compromises. The song about humility is a kind of foreign counterpart, which makes it possible to understand the true, opposite wisdom of Brecht. The entire play, which critically portrays the heroine's practical, compromising "wisdom", is an ongoing debate with the "Song of Great Humility." Mother Courage does not see the light in the play, having survived the shock, she learns "about its nature no more than a guinea pig about the law of biology." The tragic (personal and historical) experience, having enriched the viewer, did not teach Mother Courage anything and did not enrich her in the least. The catharsis she experienced turned out to be completely fruitless. So Brecht asserts that the perception of the tragedy of reality only at the level of emotional reactions in itself is not knowledge of the world, it is not much different from complete ignorance.

Berthold Brecht was an outstanding reformer of Western theater, he created a new type of drama and a new theory, which he called "epic".

What was the essence of Brecht's theory? According to the author's idea, it was supposed to be a drama in which the main role was assigned not to the action, which was the basis of the "classical" theater, but the story (hence the name "epic"). In the process of such a story, the scene had to remain just a scene, and not a "believable" imitation of life, the character - the role played by the actor (as opposed to the traditional practice of "reincarnation" of an actor into a hero), depicted - exclusively a stage sketch, a special free from illusion "Likeness" of life.

In an effort to recreate the "story", Brecht replaced the classical division of drama into actions and acts with a chronicle composition, according to which the plot of the play created chronologically related pictures. In addition, various comments were introduced into the "epic drama", which also brought it closer to the "story": titles that described the content of the paintings; songs ("zongs"), which additionally explained what was happening on stage; appeals of actors to the public; inscriptions projected onto the screen, etc.

Traditional theater ("dramatic" or "Aristotelian", as its laws were formulated by Aristotle) ​​enslaves the viewer, according to Brecht, with the illusion of plausibility, completely immerses him in empathy, not giving the opportunity to see what is happening from the outside. Brecht, who has a heightened sense of sociality, considered the main task of the theater to educate the audience in class consciousness and readiness for political struggle. Such a task, in his opinion, could be performed by an "epic theater", which, as opposed to traditional theater, addresses not the spectator's feelings, but his mind. Representing not an embodiment of events on the stage, but a story about what has already happened, he maintains an emotional distance between the stage and the audience, forcing him not so much to empathize with what is happening as to analyze it.

The main principle of the epic theater is the "alienation effect", a set of techniques by which a familiar and familiar phenomenon is "alienated", "removed", that is, unexpectedly appears from an unfamiliar, new side, position in relation to the events depicted ”, prompting for social action. The "effect of alienation" in plays (and later in Brecht's performances) was achieved by a complex of expressive means. One of them is an appeal to already known plots ("Threepenny Opera", "Mother Courage and Her Children", "The Caucasian Chalk Circle", etc.), focusing the viewer's attention not on what will happen, but on how it will be take place. The other is zongs, songs introduced into the fabric of the play, but which are not a continuation of the action, but stop it. Zong creates a distance between the actor and the character, since it expresses the attitude of not the character to what is happening, but the author and performer of the role. Hence the special, "according to Brecht", way of the actor's existence in the role, always reminding the viewer that in front of him is a theater, and not a "piece of life."

Brecht emphasized that the "effect of alienation" is not a feature of his aesthetics only, but is originally characteristic of art, which is always not identical with life. In developing the theory of epic theater, he relied on many provisions of the aesthetics of the Enlightenment and the experience of oriental theater, in particular Chinese. The main theses of this theory were finally formulated by Brecht in the works of the 1940s: "Purchase of copper", "Street scene" (1940), "Small organon" for theater "(1948).

The “alienation effect” was a pivot that permeated all levels of the “epic drama”: plot, system of images, artistic details, language, etc., right down to the scenery, features of the acting technique and stage lighting.

Berliner Ensemble

The Berliner Ensemble was actually created by Bertolt Brecht in the late autumn of 1948. After his return to Europe from the United States, Brecht and his wife, actress Helena Weigel, were warmly received in the eastern sector of Berlin after their return to Europe from the United States. Theater on Schiffbauerdamm, which Brecht and his associate Erich Engel settled in at the end of the 1920s (in this theater, in particular, in August 1928, Engel staged the first production of Brecht and K. Weill's Threepenny Opera, was occupied by the Volksbühne ", Whose building was completely destroyed, Brecht did not consider it possible to survive from the Theater on Schiffbauerdam, headed by Fritz Wistenom, and for the next five years, his troupe was sheltered by the German Theater.

The Berliner Ensemble was created as a studio theater at the German Theater, which shortly before was headed by Wolfgang Langhof, who had returned from emigration. The Studio Theater Project, developed by Brecht and Langhof, envisioned, in the first season, attracting eminent actors from emigration “through short tours”, including Theresa Giese, Leonard Steckel and Peter Lorre. In the future, it was supposed to "create on this basis their own ensemble."

To work in the new theater, Brecht recruited his longtime associates - director Erich Engel, artist Kaspar Neer, composers Hans Eisler and Paul Dessau.

About the then German theater Brecht spoke impartially: “... External effects and false sensitivity became the main trump card of the actor. Models worthy of imitation were replaced by underlined splendor, and genuine passion - by feigned temperament. " Brecht considered the struggle to preserve peace to be the most important task for any artist, and the dove of peace, Pablo Picasso, became the emblem of the theater, placed on its curtain.

In January 1949, the premiere of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children, a joint production by Erich Engel and the author; Helena Weigel acted as Courage, Angelica Hurwitz played Catherine, Paul Bildt played the Cook. ". Brecht began work on the play in exile on the eve of World War II. “When I was writing,” he later admitted, “it seemed to me that from the scenes of several big cities there would be a warning from the playwright, a warning that anyone who wants to have breakfast with the devil should stock up on a long spoon. Maybe I was naive at the same time ... The performances I dreamed about did not take place. Writers cannot write as fast as governments unleash wars: after all, in order to compose, you have to think ... "Mother Courage and her children" - was late. " Started in Denmark, which Brecht was forced to leave in April 1939, the play was completed in Sweden in the fall of the same year, when the war was already on. But, despite the opinion of the author himself, the performance was an exceptional success, its creators and performers of the main roles were awarded the National Prize; in 1954, "Mother Courage", already with a renewed cast (Ernst Busch played the cook, Erwin Geschonnek as the Priest) was presented at the World Theater Festival in Paris and received the 1st prize for the best play and the best production (Brecht and Engel).

On April 1, 1949, the SED Politburo made a decision: “To create a new theater group under the leadership of Elena Veigel. This ensemble will begin its activity on September 1, 1949 and will play three progressive plays during the 1949-1950 season. The performances will be performed on the stage of the German Theater or the Chamber Theater in Berlin and will be included in the repertoire of these theaters for six months. " September 1 became the official birthday of the Berliner Ensemble; "Three plays of a progressive character", staged in 1949, were "Mother Courage" and "Mr. Puntila" by Brecht and "Vassa Zheleznova" by AM Gorky, with Giese in the title role. The Brecht troupe gave performances on the stage of the German Theater, toured extensively in the GDR and in other countries. In 1954, the collective took over the building of the Theater on Schiffbauerdam.

List of used literature

http://goldlit.ru/bertolt-brecht/83-brecht-epic-teatr

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht

http://to-name.ru/biography/bertold-breht.htm

http://lib.ru/INPROZ/BREHT/breht5_2_1.txt_with-big-pictures.html

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamasha_Kurazh_and_ her_children

http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/bse/68831/Berliner

Berthold Brecht and his "epic theater"

Bertolt Brecht is the largest representative of German literature of the 20th century, an artist of a large and multifaceted talent. Plays, poems, short stories belong to him. He is a theatrical figure, director and theorist of the art of socialist realism. Brecht's plays, truly innovative in their content and form, have gone around theaters in many countries of the world, and everywhere they find recognition among the widest circles of spectators.

Brecht was born in Augsburg to a wealthy family of a paper mill director. Here he studied at the gymnasium, then studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Munich. Brecht began to write while still at the gymnasium. Beginning in 1914, his poems, stories, and theatrical reviews began to appear in the Augsburg newspaper Volkswile.

In 1918, Brecht was drafted into the army and for about a year served as an orderly in a military hospital. In the hospital, Brecht heard stories of the horrors of war and wrote his first anti-war poems and songs. He himself composed simple melodies for them and, with a guitar, clearly pronouncing the words, performed in the wards in front of the wounded. Among these works, especially stood out "Ball-fret about a dead soldier "condemning the German military, which imposed a war on the working people.

When the revolution began in Germany in 1918, Brecht took an active part in it, although still and did not quite clearly imagine its goals and objectives. He was elected a member of the Augsburg Soldiers' Council. But the greatest impression on the poet was made by the news of the proletarian revolution. v Russia, about the formation of the world's first state of workers and peasants.

It was during this period that the young poet finally broke with his family, with to their class and "joined the ranks of the poor."

The result of the first decade of poetry was Brecht's collection of poems "Home Sermons" (1926). For most of the collection's poems, deliberate rudeness in the depiction of the ugly morality of the bourgeoisie is characteristic, as well as the hopelessness and pessimism caused by the defeat of the November Revolution of 1918

These ideological and political features of Brecht's early poetry characteristic and for his first dramatic works - "Baal","Drums in the Night" and others. The strength of these plays lies in sincere contempt and condemnation of bourgeois society. Recalling these plays in his mature years, Brecht wrote that in them he “without regrets showed how the great flood fills the bourgeois peace".

In 1924 the famous director Max Reinhardt invites Brecht as a playwright to his theater in Berlin. Here Brecht draws closer with progressive writers F. Wolf, I. Becher, with the creator of the revolutionary workers theater E. Piscator, actor E. Bush, composer G. Eisler and others close to him on spirit by artists. In this setting, Brecht gradually overcomes his pessimism, more masculine intonations appear in his works. The young drama-writer creates satirical topical works in which he sharply criticizes the social and political practice of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Such is the anti-war comedy "What is this soldier, what is this" (1926). She written at a time when German imperialism, after the suppression of the revolution, began to vigorously restore industry with the help of American bankers. Reactionary elements Together with the Nazis, they united in various "Bunds" and "Fereins", propagated revanchist ideas. The theatrical stage was more and more filled with sugary edifying dramas and action films.

Under these conditions, Brecht deliberately strives for art that is close to the people, art that awakens the consciousness of people, activates their will. Rejecting decadent drama that takes the viewer away from the most important problems of our time, Brecht stands for a new theater, designed to become an educator of the people, a conductor of advanced ideas.

In the works "On the Way to Contemporary Theater", "Dialectics in the Theater", "On the Non-Aristotelian Drama" and others, published in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Brecht criticizes contemporary modernist art and sets out the main provisions of his theory "Epic theater ". These provisions relate to acting, building dramatic works, theatrical music, scenery, the use of cinema, etc. Brecht calls his drama "non-Aristotelian", "epic". This name is due to the fact that an ordinary drama is built according to the laws formulated by Aristotle in his work "Poetics" and requiring the obligatory emotional adaptation of the actor to the image.

The cornerstone of Brecht's theory is reason. "Epic theater," says Brecht, "appeals not so much to feeling as to the mind of the viewer." The theater should become a school of thought, show life from a truly scientific point of view, in a broad historical perspective, promote advanced ideas, help the viewer understand the changing world and change himself. Brecht emphasized that his theater should become a theater “for people who decided to take their fate into their own hands,” that he should not only display events, but also actively influence them, stimulate, awaken the viewer's activity, force him not to empathize, but argue, take a critical position in a dispute. At the same time, Brecht does not at all give up the desire to influence feelings and emotions as well.

To implement the provisions of the "epic theater", Brecht uses in his creative practice the "effect of alienation", that is, an artistic device, the purpose of which is to show the phenomena of life from an unusual side, to force in a different way look at them, critically evaluate everything that happens on stage. To this end, Brecht often introduces choirs and solo songs into his plays, explaining and evaluating the events of the performance, revealing the usual from an unexpected angle. The “alienation effect” is also achieved by the system of acting skills, stage design, and music. However, Brecht never considered his theory finally formulated and until the end of his life worked on improving it.

A bold innovator, Brecht also used all the best that was created by the German and world theater in the past.

Despite the controversy of some of his theoretical propositions, Brecht created a truly innovative, combat drama, with a sharp ideological focus and great artistic merit. By means of art, Brecht fought for the liberation of his homeland, for its socialist future, and in his best works he acted as the largest representative of socialist realism in German and world literature.

In the late 20s - early 30s. Brecht created a series of "instructive plays" that continued the best traditions of the working theater and were intended for agitation and propaganda of advanced ideas. These include the "Baden Teaching Play", "The Highest Measure", "Saying" Yes "and Saying" Pet "and others. The most successful of them are" St. John of the Slaughterhouse "and the re-enactment of Gorky's" Mother ".

During the years of emigration, Brecht's artistic skill reached its peak. He creates his best works, which were a great contribution to the development of German and world literature of socialist realism.

The satirical play-pamphlet "Roundheads and Sharpheads" is a wicked parody of the Hitlerite Reich; it exposes nationalist de-magic. Brecht does not spare the German inhabitants, who allowed the Nazis to fool themselves with false promises.

In the same sharply satirical manner, the play "The Career of Arthur Wee, Which Could Not Be" was written

The play allegorically recreates the history of the emergence of the fascist dictatorship. Both plays composed a kind of anti-fascist dilogy. They were replete with techniques of the "alienation effect", fantasy and grotesque in the spirit of the theoretical provisions of the "epic theater".

It should be noted that, in opposing the traditional "Aristotelian" drama, Brecht in his practice did not completely deny it. Thus, in the spirit of traditional drama, 24 one-act anti-fascist plays were written, which were included in the collection Fear and Despair in the Third Empire (1935-1938). In them, Brecht abandons his favorite conventional background and in the most direct, realistic ma-nere paints a tragic picture of the life of the German people in a country enslaved by the Nazis.

A play in this collection "Rifles Teresa Carrar "in the ideological respect continues the line outlined in staging"Mothers" of Gorky. In the center of the play are the current events of the civil war in Spain and the debunking of the pernicious illusions of apoliticality and non-interference at the time of the nation's historical trials. Simple Spanish woman from Andalusia fish tank Carrar lost her husband in the war and now, fearing to lose her son, in every possible way prevents him from volunteering to fight against the fascists. She naively believes in the assurances of the rebellious generals, What do you want not touched by neutral civilians. She even refuses to hand over to the Republicans rifles, hidden by the dog. Meanwhile, the son, who was peacefully fishing, is being shot by the fascists from the ship with a machine gun. It is then in the consciousness of Carrar that enlightenment occurs. The heroine is freed from the pernicious principle: "my hut is on the edge" - and comes to the conclusion about the need to defend the happiness of the people with arms in hand.

Brecht distinguishes between two types of theater: dramatic (or "Aristotelian") and epic. The dramatic seeks to conquer the emotions of the viewer, so that he experiences catharsis through fear and compassion, so that he surrenders with all his being to what is happening on the stage, empathizes, worries, having lost the feeling of the difference between theatrical action and real life, and would feel like not a spectator of the play , but by a person involved in actual events. Epic theater, on the other hand, must appeal to reason and teach, must, while telling the viewer about certain life situations and problems, observe the conditions under which he would remain, if not calm, then in any case control over his feelings and fully armed with clear awareness and critical thought, not succumbing to the illusions of stage action, I would observe, think, define my principled position and make decisions.

To illustrate the differences between dramatic and epic theater, Brecht outlined two sets of features.

No less expressive is the comparative characteristic of dramatic and epic theater, formulated by Brecht in 1936: “The spectator of the drama theater says: yes, I already have this feeling too. there will always be. '' The suffering of this man shakes me, for there is no way out for him. '' This is a great art: everything in it goes without saying. '' I cry with the crying, I laugh with the laughing.

The spectator of the epic theater says: I would not have thought that at all - It should not be done - It is extremely startling, almost impossible - This must be put to an end - The suffering of this man shakes me, for a way out is still possible for him. - This is a great art: nothing is self-evident in it. - I laugh at the crying, I cry at the laughing. "

Create a distance between the viewer and the stage, which is necessary so that the viewer can, as it were, "from the outside" observe and conclude that he "laughs at the crying and cries at the laughing", that is, so that he can see further and understand more, than the stage characters, so that his position in relation to the action was a position of spiritual superiority and active decisions - this is the task that, according to the theory of epic theater, the playwright, director and actor must jointly solve. For the latter, this requirement is especially binding. Therefore, the actor must show a certain person in certain circumstances, and not just be him. At some moments of his stay on the stage, he must stand next to the image he creates, that is, he must be not only its incarnator, but also its judge. This does not mean that Brecht completely denies in theatrical practice "feeling", that is, the fusion of the actor with the image. But he believes that such a state can occur only in moments and, in general, should be subordinated to a reasonably thought out and consciously determined interpretation of the role.

Brecht theoretically substantiates and introduces the so-called "alienation effect" into his creative practice as a fundamentally obligatory moment. He regards it as the main way of creating a distance between the spectator and the stage, creating the atmosphere envisaged by the theory of epic theater in relation to the audience to the stage action; In essence, the "alienation effect" is a certain form of objectification of the depicted phenomena; it is designed to disenchant the mindless automatism of the viewer's perception. The viewer recognizes the subject of the image, but at the same time perceives its image as something unusual, "alienated" ... In other words, with the help of the "alienation effect" the playwright, director, actor show certain life phenomena and human types not in their usual, familiar and familiar form, and from any unexpected and new side, which makes the viewer wonder, take a fresh look at, it would seem. old and already known things, more actively interested in them. to understand and understand them more deeply. "The meaning of this technique of" alienation effect "- explains Brecht - is to instill an analytical, critical position in the viewer in relation to the depicted events" 19> /

In the Art of Brecht in all its spheres (drama, directing, etc.), "alienation" is used extremely widely and in the most diverse forms.

The chieftain of the bandit gang - a traditional romantic figure of old literature - is depicted bent over the income and expense book, in which, according to all the rules of Italian accounting, the financial transactions of his "company" are written. Even in the last hours before the execution, he brings debit to credit. Such an unexpected and unusually "alienated" perspective in the depiction of the underworld rapidly activates the viewer's consciousness, brings him to a thought that might not have occurred to him before: a bandit is the same bourgeois, so who is a bourgeois not a bandit is it?

In the stage embodiment of his plays, Brecht also resorts to "alienation effects". He introduces, for example, choirs and solo songs, the so-called "songs", into plays. These songs are not always performed as if "in the course of the action", naturally fitting into what is happening on stage. On the contrary, they often emphatically drop out of the action, interrupt and "alienate" it, being performed on the stage and facing directly into the audience. Brecht even specifically accentuates this moment of breaking the action and transferring the performance to another plane: during the performance of songs, a special emblem descends from the grate bars, or special "cellular" lighting is not turned on on the stage. Songs, on the one hand, are designed to destroy the hypnotic effect of the theater, to prevent the emergence of stage illusions, and, on the other hand, they comment on events on the stage, evaluate them, contribute to the development of critical judgments of the public.

All staging techniques in Brecht's theater are replete with “alienation effects”. Reconstructions on stage are often made with a parted curtain; the design is "hinting" in nature - it is extremely sparse, contains "only necessary", that is, a minimum of decorations that convey the characteristic features of the place and time, and minimum requisite used and involved in the action; masks are applied; the action is sometimes accompanied by captions projected onto the curtain or backdrop and transmitting in an extremely acute aphoristic or paradoxical form social meaning plots, etc.

Brecht did not view the "alienation effect" as a feature unique to his creative method. On the contrary, he proceeds from the fact that this technique, to a greater or lesser extent, is generally inherent in the nature of all art, since it is not reality itself, but only its image, which, no matter how close to life, still cannot to be identical to her and, therefore, it contains one or other measure conventions, that is, remoteness, "alienation" from the subject of the image. Brecht found and demonstrated various “effects of alienation” in ancient and Asian theater, in the painting of Bruegel the Elder and Cézanne, in the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Feuchtwanger, Joyce, etc. But unlike other artists who "Alienation" may be present spontaneously Brecht, an artist of socialist realism, deliberately brought this technique into close connection with the social tasks that he pursued with his work.

To copy reality in order to achieve the greatest external similarity, in order to preserve as close as possible its immediate-sensory appearance, or to "organize" reality in the process of its artistic depiction in order to fully and truthfully convey its essential features (of course, in a concrete-figurative incarnation) - these are the two poles in the aesthetic problems of contemporary world art. Brecht takes a very definite, clear-cut position in relation to this alternative. “The usual opinion is,” he writes in one of his notes, “that the more realistic a work of art is, the easier it is to recognize reality in it. I contrast this with the definition that the more realistic a work of art is, the more convenient it is to learn reality. " The most convenient for cognition of reality Brecht considered conventional, "alienated", containing a high degree of generalization of the forms of realistic art.

Being artist thoughts and attaching exceptional importance to the rationalistic principle in the creative process, Brecht, however, always rejected schematic, resonant, insensitive art. He is a mighty poet of the stage, referring to reason viewer, simultaneously looking for and finds an echo in his feelings. The impression produced by Brecht's plays and productions can be defined as "intellectual excitement," that is, a state of the human soul in which the sharp and intense work of thought evokes, as it were, by induction, an equally strong emotional reaction.

The theory of "epic theater" and the theory of "alienation" are the key to all of Brecht's literary work in all genres. They help to understand and explain the most essential and fundamentally important features of both his poetry and prose, not to mention the drama.

If the individual originality of Brecht's early work was largely reflected in his attitude to expressionism, then in the second half of the 1920s, many of the most important features of Brecht's worldview and style acquire particular clarity and definiteness, confronting the "new efficiency". Much undoubtedly connected the writer with this direction - a greedy addiction to the signs of the modern in life, an active interest in sports, the denial of sentimental dreaminess, archaic "beauty" and psychological "depths" in the name of the principles of practicality, concreteness, organization, etc. And at the same time, much separated Brecht from the "new efficiency", starting with his sharply critical attitude to the American way of life. More and more imbued with a Marxist worldview, the writer entered into an inevitable conflict with one from the main philosophical postulates of the "new efficiency" - with the religion of technicism. He rebelled against the tendency to assert the primacy of technology fell social and humanistic principles life: the perfection of modern technology did not dazzle him so much that he did not intertwine the imperfections of modern society was written on the eve of the Second World War. The ominous outlines of the impending kata strophe were already looming before the writer's mind's eye.

Epic Theater

brecht drama epic theater

In his works On the Way to Contemporary Theater, Dialectics in the Theater, On Non-Aristotelian Drama and others, published in the late 1920s and early 1920s, Brecht criticized contemporary modernist art and outlined the main provisions of his theory of “epic theater” ... Certain provisions relate to acting, the construction of a dramatic work, theatrical music, scenery, the use of cinema, etc. Brecht called his drama "non-Aristotelian", "epic". This name is due to the fact that the traditional drama is built according to the laws formulated by Aristotle in his work "Poetics". They demanded the obligatory emotional adaptation of the actor to the character.

Brecht based his theory on reason. "Epic theater appeals not so much to the feeling as to the mind of the viewer," wrote Bertold Brecht. In his opinion, the theater was supposed to become a school of thought, show life from a truly scientific standpoint, in a broad historical perspective, promote progressive ideas, help the viewer understand the changing world and change himself. Brecht emphasized that his theater should become a theater “for people who decided to take their fate into their own hands,” that he should not only display events, but also actively influence them, stimulate, awaken the viewer's activity, make him not empathize, but argue , take a critical position, take an active part. At the same time, the writer himself did not at all find himself from the desire to influence both feelings and emotions.

If the drama presupposes active action and a passive spectator, then the epic, on the contrary, presupposes an active listener or reader. It was from this understanding of the theater that Brecht's idea of ​​an active spectator, ready to think, was formed. And thinking, as Brecht said, is something that precedes action.

However, with the help of aesthetics alone, the existing theater was impossible. Brecht wrote: “To liquidate this theater, that is, to abolish it, remove it, get rid of it, it is already necessary to involve science, just as we also involved science to eliminate all sorts of superstitions” B. Brecht “Conversation on Cologne Radio”. And such a science, according to the writer, was supposed to be sociology, that is, the doctrine of the relationship of man to man. She had to prove that Shakespeare's drama, which is the basis of all drama, no longer has a right to exist. This is due to the fact that the relationship that made it possible for the drama to appear has historically outlived its usefulness. In the article "Should we eliminate aesthetics?" Brecht directly pointed out that capitalism itself destroys drama and thus creates the preconditions for a new theater. "The theater must be revised as a whole - not only the texts, not only the actors or even the entire character of the production, this restructuring must involve the viewer, must change his position," Brecht writes in his article "Dialectical Drama". In the epic theater, the individual ceases to be the center of the performance, so groups of people appear on the stage, within which the individual takes a certain position. At the same time, Brecht emphasizes that not only the theater should become collectivist, but also the spectator himself. In other words, the epic theater must involve whole masses of people in its action. “So,” Brecht continues, “an individual person, and as a spectator, ceases to be the center of the theater. He is no longer a private person who "honors" the theater with his visit, allowing the actors to act out in front of him, consuming the work of the theater; he is no longer a consumer, no, he has to produce himself. "

To implement the provisions of the "epic theater", Brecht used in his work the "effect of alienation", that is, an artistic device, the purpose of which is to show the phenomena of life from an unusual perspective, make them look at them in a different way, critically evaluate everything that happens on the stage. To this end, Brecht often introduces choirs and solo songs into his plays, explaining and evaluating the events of the performance, revealing the usual from an unexpected angle. The “alienation effect” is also achieved by the acting system. With the help of this effect, the actor presents the so-called “social gesture” in an “alienated” form. By "social gesture" Brecht understands the expression in facial expressions and gesture of social relations that exist between people of a certain era. To do this, it is necessary to portray every event as historical. “A historical event is a transitory, unique event associated with a certain era. In the course of it, relationships between people are formed, and these relationships are not just universal, eternal in nature, they are distinguished by their specificity, and they are criticized from the point of view of the subsequent era. Continuous development alienates us from the actions of people who lived before us. ”B. Brecht “A brief description of the new technique of acting, causing the so-called“ alienation effect ”. This effect, according to Brecht, makes it possible to catch those events of everyday life that seem natural and familiar to the viewer.

According to Brecht's theory, epic theater should tell the viewer about certain life situations and problems, while observing the conditions under which the viewer would maintain, if not calmness, then control over his feelings. So that the viewer does not succumb to the illusions of stage action, he would observe, think, define his principled position and make decisions.

In 1936, Brecht formulated a comparative description of dramatic and epic theater: “Spectator of a drama theater say: yes, I already felt that too. That's what I am. This is quite natural. It'll be this way forever. The suffering of this man amazes me, for there is no way out for him. This is a great art: everything goes without saying in it. I cry with crying, I laugh with laughing. A spectator of an epic theater says this I would never have thought. This should not be done. This is supremely astonishing, almost unbelievable. This must end. The suffering of this man amazes me, for there is still a way out for him. This is a great art: nothing is self-evident in it. I laugh at those who cry, I cry at those who laugh ”B. Brecht“ Theory of Epic Theater ”. To create such a theater requires the joint efforts of a playwright, director and actor. Moreover, for an actor, this requirement is of a special nature. An actor has to portray a certain person in certain circumstances, and not just be him. At some moments of his stay on the stage, he must stand next to the image he creates, that is, be not only its incarnator, but also its judge.

This does not mean that Berthold Brecht completely denied feelings in theatrical practice, that is, the fusion of the actor with the image. However, he believed that such a state can occur only in moments and, in general, should be subordinated to a reasonably thought out and consciously determined interpretation of the role.

Berthold Brecht paid much attention to the scenery. He required the stage builder to thoroughly study the plays, take into account the wishes of the actors and constantly experiment. All this served as the key to creative success. “The stage builder should not put anything on a once and for all fixed place,” Brecht believes, “but he should not change or move anything for no reason, because he gives a reflection of the world, and the world changes according to laws that are far from fully open” B. Brecht "On stage design in a non-Aristotelian theater." At the same time, the stage builder must remember the critical gaze of the viewer. And if the viewer does not possess such a gaze, then the task of the stage builder is to endow the viewer with it.

Music is also of great importance in the theater. Brecht believed that in the era of the struggle for socialism, its social significance increases significantly: did not understand one very important side of this struggle. However, it is clear that the impact of such music largely depends on how it is performed "B. Brecht" On the use of music in "epic theater". Therefore, the performer must comprehend the social meaning of the music, which will allow the viewer to evoke an appropriate attitude towards the action on the stage.

Another feature of Brecht's works is that they have a rather frank subtext. So, one of the most famous plays "Mother Courage and Her Children" was created at the time when Hitler unleashed the Second World War. And although the events of the Thirty Years' War became the historical basis of this work, the play itself, and especially the image of its main character, acquire a timeless sound. In fact, this is a work about life and death, about the impact of historical events on human life.

In the center of the play is Anna Fierling, who is better known as mother Courage. For her, war is a way of existence: she pulls her van after the army, where everyone can buy the necessary goods. The war brought her three children, who were born from different soldiers from different armies, the war became the norm for Mamasha Courage. For her, the reasons for the war are indifferent. She doesn't care who will be the winner. However, the same war takes away everything from mother Courage: one after one her three children die, and she herself remains alone. Brecht's play ends with a scene in which mother Courage is already pulling her van herself after the army. But even in the finale, my mother did not change her thoughts about the war. What is important for Brecht is that the epiphany came not to the hero, but to the viewer. This is the meaning of "epic theater": the viewer himself must condemn or support the hero. So, in the play "Mother Courage and Her Children" the author leads the main character to condemn the war, to understand in the end that war is destructive and merciless to everyone and everything. But Courage never gets the "epiphany". Moreover, the cause of mother Courage itself cannot exist without war. And therefore, despite the fact that the war took her children, mother Courage needs war, war is the only way of her existence.

The term "epic theater" was first introduced by E. Piscator, but it gained wide aesthetic distribution thanks to the directorial and theoretical works of Bertolt Brecht. Brecht reinterpreted the term "epic theater".

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) - German playwright, poet, publicist, director, theater theorist. He is a participant in the German revolution of 1918. The first play was written by him in 1918. Brecht has always taken an active social position, which manifested itself in his plays, filled with an anti-bourgeois spirit. "Mother Courage and Her Children", "The Life of Galileo", "The Rise of Arthur Ui", "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" are his most famous and repertoire plays. After Hitler came to power, Brecht emigrated from the country. He lived in many countries, including Finland, Denmark, the USA, creating his anti-fascist works at this time.

Brecht's theoretical views are set out in the articles: "The breadth and variety of realistic manner of writing", "Nationality and Realism", "Small Organ for the Theater", "Dialectics at the Theater", "Round Heads and Sharp Heads" and others. Brecht called his theory "epic theater". The main task of the theater Brecht saw the ability to convey to the public the laws of the development of human society. In his opinion, the previous drama, which he called "Aristotelian", cultivated feelings of pity and compassion for people. In return for these feelings, Brecht calls on the theater to evoke emotions of a social order - anger against the enslavers and admiration for the heroism of the fighters. Instead of drama, which counted on the empathy of the audience, Brecht puts forward principles for constructing plays that would cause surprise and effectiveness in the public, and awareness of social problems. Brecht introduces a technique he calls the “alienation effect,” which means that the well-known is presented to the public from an unexpected angle. To do this, he resorts to breaking the stage illusion of "authenticity." He achieves fixing the viewer's attention on the author's most important thoughts by introducing a song (zong), a chorus into the performance. Brecht believed that the main task of the actor is public. He recommends that the actor approach the image created by the playwright from the standpoint of a witness in court, passionately interested in finding out the truth (the "from the witness" method), that is, to comprehensively analyze the actions of the actor and their motives. Brecht allows for the actor's reincarnation, but only during the rehearsal period, while the image is "shown" on the stage. Mise-en-scenes should be extremely expressive and saturated - right down to metaphor, symbol. Brecht, while working on the play, built it on the principle of a film frame. To this end, he used the "model" method, that is, fixing the brightest mise-en-scenes and individual poses of the actor on film in order to fix them. Brecht was opposed to the illusory nature reproduced on the stage, an opponent to the "atmosphere of mood".

In the Brecht theater of the first period, the main method of work was the method of induction. In 1924, Brecht acted as a director for the first time, staging the play Life of Edward II of England at the Munich Chamber Theater. Here he completely deprived his performance of the pomp and extrahistoricity, which is customary for staging such classics. Discussion about the staging of classical plays at that time in the German theater was in full swing. The Expressionists advocated radical reworking of the plays, because they were written in a different historical era. Brecht also believed that the modernization of the classics could not be avoided, but believed that the play should not be completely deprived of historicism. He paid much attention to the elements of the areal, folklore theater, with their help he revived his performances.

In the play "The Life of Edward ..." Brecht creates a rather harsh and prosaic atmosphere on the stage. All the characters were dressed in canvas costumes. Together with the throne on the scaffold was a roughly knitted chair, and next to it was a hastily constructed tribune for the speakers of the English parliament. King Edward was somehow awkward and uncomfortable in his chair, and around him stood the lords, huddled in a heap. The struggle of these statesmen in the play turned into scandals and bickering, while the motives and thoughts of the actors were not at all noble. Each of them wanted to snatch their tidbit. Brecht, an inveterate materialist, believed that modern directors do not always take into account material incentives in the behavior of the characters. On the contrary, he focused on them. In this first Brechtian production, the realism of the performance was born from a detailed, close examination of the smallest and most insignificant (at first glance) events and details. The main design element of the performance was a wall with many windows, placed in the background of the stage. When, in the course of the play, the indignation of the people reached its climax, all the window shutters were opened, angry faces appeared in them, screams and remarks of indignation were heard. And all this merged into a general roar of indignation. A popular uprising was approaching. But how could the battle scenes be solved? This was suggested to Brecht by a well-known clown of his time. Brecht asked Valentine - what is the soldier during the battle? And the clown answered him: "White is like chalk, they will not kill - it will be whole." All the soldiers of the performance performed in solid white make-up. Brech will repeat this successful technique he has found many times in different variations.

After moving to Berlin in 1924, Brecht worked for some time in the literary section of the Deutsches Theater, dreaming of opening his own theater. In the meantime, in 1926, he staged his early play Baal with the young actors of the Deutsches Theater. In 1931 he worked on the stage of the "State Steater", where he produced a play based on his play "What is the soldier, what is this", and in 1932, on the stage of the Theater am Schiffbau-erdamm, he staged the play "Mother".

The building of the theater on the Schiffbauerdamm embankment went to Brecht quite by accident. In 1928, the young actor Ernst Aufricht rented it and began to gather his troupe. The artist Kaspar Neer introduces Brecht to the tenant of the theater, and they start working together. Brecht, in turn, invites the theater director Erich Engel (1891-1966), with whom he worked together in Munich and who, together with Brecht, developed the style of the epic theater.

The Theater am Schiffbauerdam opened with Brecht's Threepenny Opera directed by Erich Engel. The performance, in the description of Yurecht, had the following appearance: "... In the back of the stage there was a large fairground organ, jazz was located on the steps. Neer's paintings. During the performance of the songs, their names appeared in large letters and lamps came down from the grates. To mix decay with novelty, luxury with squalor, the curtain was a small, not very clean piece of coarse calico moving along a wire. " The director found a fairly accurate theatrical form for each episode. He made extensive use of the editing method. But still, Egnel brought to the stage not only social masks and ideas, but behind simple human actions he saw psychological motives of behavior, and not just social ones. In this performance, the music written by Kurt Weil was essential. These were zongs, each of which was a separate number and was a "detaching monologue" by the author of the play and the director of the play.

During the performance of the zong, the actor spoke on his own behalf, and not on behalf of his character. The performance turned out to be sharp, paradoxical, bright.

The theater troupe was rather heterogeneous. It included actors from different backgrounds and schools. Some were just starting their artistic careers, others were already accustomed to fame and popularity. Nevertheless, the director created a single acting ensemble in his performance. Brecht highly appreciated this work of Engel and considered The Threepenny Opera an important practical embodiment of the idea of ​​an epic theater.

Simultaneously with work in this theater, Brecht tries his hand at other stages, with other actors. In the aforementioned 1931 staging of his play "What is the soldier that this" Brecht arranged a booth on the stage - with disguises, masks, circus performances. He openly uses the techniques of a fairground theater, unfolding a parable in front of the public. "Giant soldiers, hung with weapons, in tunics, stained with lime, blood, and excrement, walking around the stage, holding onto the wire so as not to fall off the stilts hidden in their trousers, depicted an elephant ... The last scene of the play - from the parting crowd to the foreground, with a knife in his teeth, hung with grenades, in a uniform that stinks of trench mud, yesterday's timid and well-meaning philistine, today's machine for killing people, runs out of the crowd to the foreground, "- this is how the critic told about the play. Brecht portrayed the soldiers as a non-judgmental gang. They, with the course of the performance, lost their human appearance, turned into ugly monsters, with disproportionate body proportions (long arms). According to Brecht, the inability to think and evaluate their actions turned them into this semblance of animals. Such was the time - the Weimar Republic was dying in front of everyone. Fascism was ahead. Brecht said that he retained in his performance the signs of the times, born of the 20s, but strengthened them by comparing them with the present.

Brecht's last directorial work of this period was a play-adaptation of Gorky's novel "Mother" (1932). It was an attempt to once again embody the principles of epic theater on stage. The inscriptions, posters that commented on the course of events, the analysis of the depicted, the refusal to get used to the images, the rational construction of the entire performance, spoke of its direction - the performance appealed not to the feelings, but to the mind of the viewer. The performance was ascetic in the pictorial sense, the director did not seem to want anything to prevent the audience from thinking. Brecht taught - taught with the help of his revolutionary pedagogy. This performance was banned by the police after several performances. The censorship was outraged by the final scene of the play, when Mother with a red flag in her hand walked in the ranks of her fellow wrestlers. The column of demonstrators literally moved towards the public ... and stopped at the very line of the ramp. It was the last revolutionary performance shown on the eve of Hitler's rise to power. In the period from 1933 to 1945, there were essentially two theaters in Germany: one was the propaganda organ of Hitler's regime, the other was the theater of exiles living in the thoughts, projects and designs of all those who were cut off from their soil. Nevertheless, the experience of Brecht's epic theater entered the treasury of theatrical ideas of the 20th century. They will be used more than once, including on our stage, especially at the Taganka Theater.

B. Brecht will return to East Germany and create there one of the largest theaters of the GDR - "Berliner Ensemble".