The first single-volume anthology of Brecht's writings on both art and politics This volume contains new translations to extend our image of one of the twentieth century's most entertaining and thought provoking writers on culture, aesthetics and politics. Here are a cross-section of Brecht's wide-ranging thoughts which offer us an extraordinary window onto the concerns of a modern world in four decades of economic and political disorder. The book is designed to give wider access to the experience of a dynamic intellect, radically engaged with social, political and cultural processes. Each section begins with a short essay by the editors introducing and summarising Brecht's thought in the relevant year.

Is postdramatic theatre political and if so how? How does it relate to Brecht's ideas of political theatre, for example? How can we account for the relationship between aesthetics and politics in new forms of theatre, playwriting, and performance? The chapters in this book discuss crucial aspects of the issues raised by the postdramatic turn in theatre in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: the status of the audience and modes of spectatorship in postdramatic theatre; the political claims of postdramatic theatre; postdramatic theatre's ongoing relationship with the dramatic tradition; its dialectical qualities, or its eschewing of the dialectic; questions of representation and the real in theatre; the role of bodies, perception, appearance and theatricality in postdramatic theatre; as well as subjectivity and agency in postdramatic theatre, dance and performance. Offering analyses of a wide range of international performance examples, scholars in this volume engage with Hans-Thies Lehmann's theoretical positions both affirmatively and critically, relating them to other approaches by thinkers ranging from early theorists such as Brecht, Adorno and Benjamin, to contemporary thinkers such as Fischer-Lichte, Ranciere and others

"Brecht on Performance: Messingkauf and Modelbooks" presents a selection of Brecht's principal writings for directors and theatre practitioners, and is suitable for acting schools, directors, actors, students and teachers of Theatre Studies. Through these texts Brecht provides a general practical approach to acting and to realising texts for the stage that crystallises and makes concrete many of the more theoretical aspects of his other writing.The volume is in two parts. The first features an entirely new commentated edition of Brecht's dialogues and essays about the practice of theatre, known as the "Messingkauf," or "Buying Brass," including the 'Practice Pieces' for actors (rehearsal scenes for classics by Shakespeare and Schiller). The second contains rehearsal and production records from Brecht's work on productions of" Life of Galileo," "Antigone," "Mother Courage" and others.Edited by an international team of Brecht scholars and including an essay by director and teacher Di Trevis examining the practical application of these texts for theatres and actors today, "Brecht on Performance" is a wonderfully rich resource. The text is illustrated with over 30 photographs from the "Modelbooks."

At a time when postmodernism seems to have achieved a dominant position in cultural and critical theory, the contributors to this volume present a much needed corrective to the misleading images of modernism which have dominated recent debate.
Theorizing Modernisms includes an account of European modernism, and analysis of the work of Apollinaire and Aberti, Wyndham Lewis and Mike Johnson, and Kert Schwitters. Steve Giles provides a much needed overview of the relationship between modernism and the avant-garde, postmodernism and modernity.

Contents: Steve Giles: Introduction: Culture as Counter-Culture - Gustav Frank: Sturm und Drang: Towards a New Logic of Passion and the Logic of German Counter-Cultures - Nicholas Saul/Susan Tebbutt: Gypsies, Utopias and Counter-Cultures in Modern German Cultural History - Maike Oergel: Revolutionaries, Traditionalists, Terrorists? The Burschenschaften and the German Counter-Cultural Tradition - Carl Weber: Performing Counter-Culture in the Vorstadt: Nestroy's Theatre in Times of Reaction and Revolt - Malcolm Humble: Das Reich der Erfullung: A Theme in Wilhelmine Counter-Culture - David Midgley: 'Los von Berlin ' Anti-Urbanism as Counter-Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Germany - Margarete Kohlenbach: Walter Benjamin, Gustav Wyneken and the Jugendkulturbewegung - Colin Riordan: The Green Alternative in Germany 1900-1930 - Sabine Egger: The Roots of the East German 'Green' Movement in the 1950s - Stefan Busch: Bluthochzeit mit Mutter Erde: Repression und Regression in der Blut-und-Boden-Literatur - Steve Giles: Limits of the Visible: Kracauer's Photographic Dystopia - Jerome Carroll: The Art of the Imperceptible: A Discussion of the Aesthetics of Wolfgang Welsch - Carmel Finnan: The Challenges of Zurich's Autonomous Youth Movement - Matthias Uecker: Aufrufe, Bekenntnisse, Analysen: Zur Politisierung der westdeutschen Literatur in den sechziger Jahren - Ingo Cornils: Writing the Revolution: the Literary Representation of the German Student Movement as Counter-Culture - Jamie Trnka: The West German Red Army Faction and its Appropriation of Latin American Urban Guerilla Struggles - Gerrit-Jan Berendse: Aesthetics of (Self-)Destruction: Melville's Moby Dick, Brecht's The Measures Taken andthe Red Army Faction - Uwe Schutte: 'Heilige, die im Dunkel leuchten': Der Mythos der RAF im Spiegel der Literatur nachgeborener Autoren - Moray McGowan: Ulrike Meinhof im Deutschen Drama der Neunziger Jahre: Drei Beispiele.

At a time when postmodernism seems to have achieved a dominant position in cultural and critical theory, the contributors to this volume present a much needed corrective to the misleading images of modernism which have dominated recent debate. Theorizing Modernisms includes an account of European modernism, and analysis of the work of Apollinaire and Aberti, Wyndham Lewis and Mike Johnson, and Kert Schwitters. Steve Giles provides a much needed overview of the relationship between modernism and the avant-garde, postmodernism and modernity.

"Brecht on Performance: Messingkauf and Modelbooks" presents a selection of Brecht's principal writings for directors and theatre practitioners, and is suitable for acting schools, directors, actors, students and teachers of Theatre Studies. Through these texts Brecht provides a general practical approach to acting and to realising texts for the stage that crystallises and makes concrete many of the more theoretical aspects of his other writing.The volume is in two parts. The first features an entirely new commentated edition of Brecht's dialogues and essays about the practice of theatre, known as the "Messingkauf," or "Buying Brass," including the 'Practice Pieces' for actors (rehearsal scenes for classics by Shakespeare and Schiller). The second contains rehearsal and production records from Brecht's work on productions of" Life of Galileo," "Antigone," "Mother Courage" and others.Edited by an international team of Brecht scholars and including an essay by director and teacher Di Trevis examining the practical application of these texts for theatres and actors today, "Brecht on Performance" is a wonderfully rich resource. The text is illustrated with over 30 photographs from the "Modelbooks."

Is postdramatic theatre political and if so how? How does it relate to Brecht's ideas of political theatre, for example? How can we account for the relationship between aesthetics and politics in new forms of theatre, playwriting, and performance? The chapters in this book discuss crucial aspects of the issues raised by the postdramatic turn in theatre in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century: the status of the audience and modes of spectatorship in postdramatic theatre; the political claims of postdramatic theatre; postdramatic theatre's ongoing relationship with the dramatic tradition; its dialectical qualities, or its eschewing of the dialectic; questions of representation and the real in theatre; the role of bodies, perception, appearance and theatricality in postdramatic theatre; as well as subjectivity and agency in postdramatic theatre, dance and performance. Offering analyses of a wide range of international performance examples, scholars in this volume engage with Hans-Thies Lehmann's theoretical positions both affirmatively and critically, relating them to other approaches by thinkers ranging from early theorists such as Brecht, Adorno and Benjamin, to contemporary thinkers such as Fischer-Lichte, Ranciere and others

This volume offers a major selection of Bertolt Brecht's groundbreaking critical writing. Here, arranged in chronological order, are essays from 1918 to 1956, in which Brecht explores his definition of the Epic Theatre and his theory of alienation-effects in directing, acting, and writing, and discusses, among other works, The Threepenny Opera, Mahagonny, Mother Courage, Puntila, and Galileo. Also included is "A Short Organum for the Theatre," Brecht's most complete exposition of his revolutionary philosophy of drama.

Translated and edited by John Willett, Brecht on Theater is essential to an understanding of one of the twentieth century's most influential dramatists.

Brecht on Theatre is a seminal work that has remained the classic text for readers and students wanting a rich appreciation of the development of Brecht's thinking on theatre and aesthetics. First published in 1964 and on reading lists ever since, Brecht's writings are presented in this definitive edition featuring the wholly revised, re-edited and expanded text produced for the 50th anniversary of the first English publication. With additional texts, illustrations and editorial material, and with almost half the material newly translated, this edition provides a far fuller and more accurate account of the development of Brecht's work and writings. This edition features: * Clearer layout and organisation of the text * New translations of many of the Brechtian texts featured * Over 40 new, previously untranslated essays * Essay titles now correspond to the German originals * A revised selection of illustrations This selection of Bertolt Brecht's critical writing charts the development of his thinking on theatre and aesthetics over four decades. The volume demonstrates how the theories of Epic Theatre and Verfremdung evolved, and contains notes and essays on the staging of The Threepenny Opera, Mahagonny, Mother Courage, Puntila, Galileoand many others of his plays. Also included is 'Short Organon for the Theatre', Brecht's most complete statement of his revolutionary philosophy of the theatre.

Now available in Bloomsbury Revelations series, Brecht on Performance: Messingkauf and Modelbooks presents a selection of Brecht's principal writings about the craft of acting and realising texts for the stage. It crystallises and makes concrete many of the more theoretical aspects of his other writing and illuminates the practice of this hugely influential director and dramatist. The volume is in two parts. The first features an entirely new commentated edition of Brecht's dialogues and essays about the practice of theatre, known as the Messingkauf, or Buying Brass, including the 'Practice Pieces' for actors (rehearsal scenes for classics by Shakespeare and Schiller). The second contains rehearsal and production records from Brecht's work on productions of Life of Galileo, Antigone, Mother Courage and others. Edited by an international team of Brecht scholars and including an essay by director and teacher Di Trevis examining the practical application of these texts for theatres and actors today, Brecht on Performance is a wonderfully rich resource. The text is illustrated with over 30 photographs from the Modelbooks.

Brecht's operatic play produced with Hauptmann, Neher and Weill was first staged in 1930. The story is that three criminals create the city of Mahagonny. Drinking, gambling, prize-fights and similar activities are the sole occupation of the inhabitants, and money rules. Mahagonny is threatened by a hurricane at the end of Act 1, which despite much anticipation and causing much distress simply bypasses the city. In Act 2 following the hurricane nothing is forbidden and various scenes of debauchery occur. Jenny and Jim try to leave but Jim cannot pay his debts and is arrested. Another character arraigned for murder, bribes his way out of it, but Jim has no money and is condemned to death for not paying for his whisky. The opera ends with discontent destroying the city, which burns as the inhabitants march away. Translated and with commentary by Steve Giles, this critical edition is the first translation into English of the approved Versuche text of 1930/1. An important addition to Brecht scholarship, this edition contains a full introduction to the play, Brecht's writing and notes on the work, editorial notes and variants, and a study of contemporary productions and responses.

Contents: Steve Giles: Introduction: Culture as Counter-Culture - Gustav Frank: Sturm und Drang: Towards a New Logic of Passion and the Logic of German Counter-Cultures - Nicholas Saul/Susan Tebbutt: Gypsies, Utopias and Counter-Cultures in Modern German Cultural History - Maike Oergel: Revolutionaries, Traditionalists, Terrorists? The Burschenschaften and the German Counter-Cultural Tradition - Carl Weber: Performing Counter-Culture in the Vorstadt: Nestroy's Theatre in Times of Reaction and Revolt - Malcolm Humble: Das Reich der Erfullung: A Theme in Wilhelmine Counter-Culture - David Midgley: 'Los von Berlin!' Anti-Urbanism as Counter-Culture in Early Twentieth-Century Germany - Margarete Kohlenbach: Walter Benjamin, Gustav Wyneken and the Jugendkulturbewegung - Colin Riordan: The Green Alternative in Germany 1900-1930 - Sabine Egger: The Roots of the East German 'Green' Movement in the 1950s - Stefan Busch: Bluthochzeit mit Mutter Erde: Repression und Regression in der Blut-und-Boden-Literatur - Steve Giles: Limits of the Visible: Kracauer's Photographic Dystopia - Jerome Carroll: The Art of the Imperceptible: A Discussion of the Aesthetics of Wolfgang Welsch - Carmel Finnan: The Challenges of Zurich's Autonomous Youth Movement - Matthias Uecker: Aufrufe, Bekenntnisse, Analysen: Zur Politisierung der westdeutschen Literatur in den sechziger Jahren - Ingo Cornils: Writing the Revolution: the Literary Representation of the German Student Movement as Counter-Culture - Jamie Trnka: The West German Red Army Faction and its Appropriation of Latin American Urban Guerilla Struggles - Gerrit-Jan Berendse: Aesthetics of (Self-)Destruction: Melville's Moby Dick, Brecht's The Measures Taken andthe Red Army Faction - Uwe Schutte: 'Heilige, die im Dunkel leuchten': Der Mythos der RAF im Spiegel der Literatur nachgeborener Autoren - Moray McGowan: Ulrike Meinhof im Deutschen Drama der Neunziger Jahre: Drei Beispiele.