Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory and Performance

by David Barnett, Enoch Brater (Editor), Mark Taylor-Batty (Editor)

Overview

David Barnett invites readers, students and theatre-makers to discover new ways of apprehending and making use of Brecht in this clear and accessible study of Brecht's theories and practices. The book analyses how Brecht's ideas can come alive in rehearsal and performance, and reveals just how carefully Brecht realized his vision of a politicized, interventionist theatre.
What emerges is a nuanced understanding of Brecht's concepts, his work with actors and his approaches to directing. The reader is encouraged to engage with his method which sought to 'make theatre politically', in order to appreciate the innovations he introduced into his stagecraft. Barnett provides many examples of how Brecht's ideas can be staged, and the final chapter takes a closer look at two very different plays: one written by Brecht and one by a playwright with no acknowledged connection to Brecht. Through an interrogation of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Patrick Marber's Closer, Barnett asks how a Brechtian approach can enliven and illuminate production.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408185032
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Series:	Engage
Edition description:	UK ed.
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

David Barnett is Professor of Theatre at the University of York, UK. He has published monographs on Heiner Müller (1998) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (2005, paperback 2009), and co-edited a volume and edited a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review on contemporary German theatre. His history of the Berliner Ensemble was published in 2015, and he edited the anthology of Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble Adaptations (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2014).

Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature, Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan and the series editor of Methuen Drama's Miller scholarly editions. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.

Enoch Brater is the Kenneth T. Rowe Collegiate Professor of Dramatic Literature, Professor of English and Theater at the University of Michigan. He is series editor of Methuen Drama's Arthur Miller scholarly editions, and with Mark Taylor-Batty of Methuen Drama's Engage series. He has written extensively on the work of Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.

Mark Taylor-Batty is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Deputy Head of School in the School of English at the University of Leeds, UK. His previous publications include The Theatre of Harold Pinter (Bloomsbury, 2014), About Pinter: The Playwright and the Work (Faber and Faber, 2005), Roger Blin: Collaborations and Methodologies (Peter Lang, 2007) and, he co-authored with his wife, Juliette Taylor-Batty, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (Continuum, 2009).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
One: Revealing the Radical Theorist
Two: The Messingkauf as Performative Thinking
Three: Brecht and Difference
Four: Method Trumps Means
Five: Brecht and the Actor
Six: Brecht and the Director
Seven: Brecht, Documentation and the Art of Copying
Eight: Brecht's Method in Action: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Closer by Patrick Marber
Epilogue
Endnotes
Index

Editorial Reviews

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2015

“The theater of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) has long suffered lamentable neglect in the US and the UK ... Fortunately, Barnett champions Brecht's cause with clarity and authority in this slim volume, which this reviewer predicts will soon prove indispensable to any serious Anglophone student of Brecht. ... The author draws on profound knowledge of the material, including Brecht's drama, the crucial Messingkauf fragments, and the history of the Berliner Ensemble. At the heart of the book is the chapter 'Brecht and the Actor,' which elegantly dispatches the fallacy of a Brechtian 'style' and should be required reading in any acting class. Later chapters offer excellent illustrative readings of the application of Brecht's principles to both Brechtian and non-Brechtian drama. Barnett has delivered a vital corrective to the misapprehension of Brecht's theater. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.” — R. Remshardt, University of Florida, CHOICE

“Barnett’s jargon-free study, accessible to students and enjoyable for specialists, effectively re-introduces Brecht’s performance theory, charts its evolution during the exile years, and demonstrates its application through Brecht’s formation of the Berliner Ensemble, when his long-simmering ideas could at last be put into practice.” – Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism

“Barnett has done meticulous research and presents a very engaging scholarly argument.” – Nathaniel Nesmith, American Theatre

From the Publisher