Table of Contents

General Introduction and Acknowledgements

Part One – The Messingkauf, or Buying Brass

Introduction to Buying Brass
Preamble
First Night
(i) Setting the Scene
(ii) Naturalism, Realism, Empathy
(iii) Tragedy; Learning, Science, Marxism
Second Night
(i) Intoxication, Empathy, V-effect
(ii) Acting, Performance
(iii) Science, Social Class, Learning
(iv) Elizabethan Theatre, Shakespeare
(v) The Augsburger, Piscator
Third Night
(i) The Fourth Wall, Emotion; V-effect, Acting
(ii) The Augsburger, Piscator, Weigel
(iii) Social Science and Art
(iv) ‘Extreme Situations’
Fourth Night
(i) The Nature of Art
(ii) Emotion, Critique, Representation
(iii) The Augsburger
(iv) Shakespeare
(v) Finale
Miscellaneous Texts
(i) Illusionism, Realism, Naturalism; Social Function of Theatre; Empathy
(ii) Acting
(iii) Thaëter, Piscator, Neher
Plans and Appendices
(i) Plans
(ii) Appendices
Practice Pieces for Actors
(i) Parallel Scenes
The Murder in the Porter’s Lodge
(Parallel Scene to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2)
The Battle of the Fishwives
(Parallel to Schiller’s Maria Stuart, Act 3)
(ii) Intercalary Scenes
Ferry Scene
(To be played between Scenes 3 and 4, Act 4 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet)
The Servants
(To be played between Scenes 1 and 2, Act 2 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet)
(iii) Circular Poems


Part Two – Modelbooks

Introduction to the Modelbooks

On Life of Galileo (1947/48) from Constructing a Role: Laughton’s Galileo
Foreword
A Sequence from Scene One: Rotation of the Earth and Rotation of the Brain
Background to the Performance

On The Antigone of Sophocles (1947/48) from Antigone Model 1948
Foreword
Ruth Berlau’s Prefatory Note
Prelude and Bridge to Scene One
Neher’s Second Design for the Antigone Stage

On Mother Courage and Her Children (1949/50/51) from Courage Model 1949
Opening Remarks
Notes and Scene-Photos for the Prologue, Scenes One and Two
Details from Scene Three
Variations in Berlin and Munich
Concluding Texts from the Model: Scene Twelve

From Theatre Work (1952)
Some Remarks on My Discipline
Bertolt Brecht’s Stage Direction
Phases of a Stage Direction
Five Notes on Acting
The Berliner Ensemble Models
Theatre Photography
Does Use of the Model Restrict Artistic Freedom
How Erich Engel Uses the Model
How the Director Brecht Uses His Own Model
From the Correspondence of the Berliner Ensemble about the Model
Creative Evaluation of Models

From Katzgraben Notes 1953
Epic Theatre
Rehearsal Methods
Scenery
Crises and Conflicts
Politics in the Theatre
III,2 Constructing a Hero
Is Katzgraben a Proselytizing Play?
The Verse Form
Verfremdung
II, 3 [Revelation and Justification]
Empathy
The New Farmer, the Medium Farmer, the Big Farmer
What Are Our Actors Actually Doing?
The Positive Hero
Second Dress Rehearsal
Criticism of Elli and Criticism of Elli 2
New Content – New Form

Di Trevis: “Acting is Not Theoretical”

Select Bibliography

Index of Names and Key Terms

Promotional Information

The volume presents a selection of Brecht's principal writings for directors and theatre practitioners, including an entirely new commentated edition of Brecht’s dialogues and essays about the practice of theatre, known as the Messingkauf, or Buying Brass, as well as rehearsal and production records from Brecht's work on productions of Life of Galileo, Antigone, Mother Courage and others.

About the Author

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose plays, work with the Berliner Ensemble and writing have had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera and, while exiled from Germany and living in the USA, such masterpieces as The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
Editors: Tom Kuhn is Professor of 20th century German Literature at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, UK, and General Editor of Methuen Drama's Brecht publications. Steve Giles is Emeritus Professor of German Studies and Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham, UK. Marc Silberman is Professor of German at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA.

Reviews

Brecht on Performance is a vital aid to English speakers in understanding Brecht as a theatre practitioner as well as what constitutes Brechtian performance. For the first time, a full edition of the unfinished Messingkauf — translated as Buying Brass — is available in English. [This book] will allow Anglophone scholars and performance practitioners to revisit Brecht’s influence as a writer, theoretician, and theatre maker specifically, but also — more generally — the relationship between political thought and aesthetics, and between the theory and the practice of making art.
*TDR: The Drama Review*

These two volumes represent an excellent extension of Brecht’s writings in English. The editors draw on contemporary scholarship, apply high editorial standards, and offer a readability that opens up Brecht’s theories and practices for a new generation.
*New Theatre Quarterly*