Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brechtwas a German poet, playwright, and theatre director of the 20th century. He made contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter through the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble – the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife, long-time collaborator and actress Helene Weigel...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth10 February 1898
CityAugsburg, Germany
CountryGermany
Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must change.
For time flows on, and if it did not, it would be a bad prospect for those who do not sit at golden tables. Methods become exhausted; stimuli no longer work. New problems appear and demand new methods. Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must also change. Nothing comes from nothing; the new comes from the old, but that is why it is new.
Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.
It is not enough to demand insight and informative images of reality from the theater. Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality.
One forgets too easily the difference between a man and his image, and that there is none between the sound of his voice on the screen and in real life.
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.