Bertolt Brecht's Adaptations for the Berliner Ensemble

Abstract

It is wrong to see Brecht as the gratuitous literary firebrand and revolutionary iconoclast of the popular image; a feature of his work, from the first to the last plays and theoretical writings, is his concern with a literary tradition; many of his own dramas are stimulated by existing models or are counterpoints to them. Brecht's quarrel is seldom with his literary ancestors, but he does not spare his scorn for the traditional ways of performing the classics and makes virulent attacks on the misappropriation of past drama by society. This book, originally published in paperback in 1975 under the ISBN 978-0-900547-37-9, was made Open Access in 2024 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.