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60 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
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About the author
Bertolt Brecht
1,605 books1,921 followersEugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. A seminal theatre practitioner of the twentieth century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble—the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife and long-time collaborator, the actress Helene Weigel—with its internationally acclaimed productions.
From his late twenties Brecht remained a life-long committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his 'epic theatre', synthesized and extended the experiments of Piscator and Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism. Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement of the 'epic form' of the drama (which constitutes that medium's rendering of 'autonomization' or the 'non-organic work of art'—related in kind to the strategy of divergent chapters in Joyce's novel Ulysses, to Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist 'montage' in the cinema, and to Picasso's introduction of cubist 'collage' in the visual arts). In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to 're-function' the apparatus of theatrical production to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the 'high art/popular culture' dichotomy—vying with the likes of Adorno, Lukács, Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger insists that he is "the most important materialist writer of our time."
As Jameson among others has stressed, "Brecht is also ‘Brecht’"—collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to his approach. This 'Brecht' was a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."
There are few areas of modern theatrical culture that have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices; dramatists and directors in whom one may trace a clear Brechtian legacy include: Dario Fo, Augusto Boal, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch, Tony Kushner and Caryl Churchill. In addition to the theatre, Brechtian theories and techniques have exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice; Brecht's influence may be detected in the films of Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsay Anderson, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, Ritwik Ghatak, Lars von Trier, Jan Bucquoy and Hal Hartley.
During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur. He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays.
From his late twenties Brecht remained a life-long committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his 'epic theatre', synthesized and extended the experiments of Piscator and Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism. Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement of the 'epic form' of the drama (which constitutes that medium's rendering of 'autonomization' or the 'non-organic work of art'—related in kind to the strategy of divergent chapters in Joyce's novel Ulysses, to Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist 'montage' in the cinema, and to Picasso's introduction of cubist 'collage' in the visual arts). In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to 're-function' the apparatus of theatrical production to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the 'high art/popular culture' dichotomy—vying with the likes of Adorno, Lukács, Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger insists that he is "the most important materialist writer of our time."
As Jameson among others has stressed, "Brecht is also ‘Brecht’"—collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to his approach. This 'Brecht' was a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."
There are few areas of modern theatrical culture that have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices; dramatists and directors in whom one may trace a clear Brechtian legacy include: Dario Fo, Augusto Boal, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch, Tony Kushner and Caryl Churchill. In addition to the theatre, Brechtian theories and techniques have exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice; Brecht's influence may be detected in the films of Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsay Anderson, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, Ritwik Ghatak, Lars von Trier, Jan Bucquoy and Hal Hartley.
During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur. He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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November 16, 2023I dont think I really understood this as much as I should have
July 4, 2024
Brecht wrote this fascinating play in the early 30s at the highpoint of his experimentalist phase, during the Weimar years when challenging works of art still commanded wide attention. It is a prime exemplar of his theory of drama, and exemplifies the ideas presented in works like Little Organon and Dialectical Theater.
This play consists of the report of four communist agitators from Moscow who were sent to China to foment revolution. During their time there, they enlisted a local agent to help spread propaganda and organize worker demonstrations, and at some point, the four agitators end up liquidating their agent, for reasons they explain over the course of the narrative.
When reporting to their comrades, the four agitators speak as one, and periodically reenact key events, and each time they do so, they shift roles, so that their agent is played by a different agitator each time. Periodically, a classical chorus comments on the action. According to Brecht's intentions, the audience is to collectively play the chorus, and they were expected to attend rehearsals for weeks.
All of the conventions of performance are therefore reconfigured in a series of extremely interesting ways, which have a direct relevance to the content of the play, which functions as a kind of social laboratory for considering the many deep questions raised by the events it describes. But in spite of all this adventurous formal experimentation, the play remains a deeply human and affective story at its core, and this is the miracle that Brecht somehow pulls off in his great works that nearly defies the imagination.
It's a short work, and well worth reading, especially if you have any interest at all in Brecht's theory. It's extremely illuminating with respect to his methods and ideas.
This play consists of the report of four communist agitators from Moscow who were sent to China to foment revolution. During their time there, they enlisted a local agent to help spread propaganda and organize worker demonstrations, and at some point, the four agitators end up liquidating their agent, for reasons they explain over the course of the narrative.
When reporting to their comrades, the four agitators speak as one, and periodically reenact key events, and each time they do so, they shift roles, so that their agent is played by a different agitator each time. Periodically, a classical chorus comments on the action. According to Brecht's intentions, the audience is to collectively play the chorus, and they were expected to attend rehearsals for weeks.
All of the conventions of performance are therefore reconfigured in a series of extremely interesting ways, which have a direct relevance to the content of the play, which functions as a kind of social laboratory for considering the many deep questions raised by the events it describes. But in spite of all this adventurous formal experimentation, the play remains a deeply human and affective story at its core, and this is the miracle that Brecht somehow pulls off in his great works that nearly defies the imagination.
It's a short work, and well worth reading, especially if you have any interest at all in Brecht's theory. It's extremely illuminating with respect to his methods and ideas.
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October 17, 2014These comrades ain't loyal.
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June 19, 2024uff. immerhin ehrlich i guess...
March 2, 2022
if you know you know. This play is now more important than ever and is easily among Brecht's most powerful plays. It stands in the tradition of dialectical-materialism that serves as the basis of marxist science and impressively shows how a revolution without theoretical ground will never be fruitful
October 5, 2019
Also ich finde das Buch cool, auch wenn mein Umfeld das vermutlich seltsam findet, weil der Text "alt" und "ein Reclam" ist... Ich kann es auch nicht genau festmachen, aber mich erinnert die Geschichte und der Schreibstil ein wenig an Kafka. Sehr unemotional, keine unnötigen Beschreibungen von Landschaft, Personen oder Gefühlen, alles recht trocken! Dazu dann noch diese höhere Macht, die so zu sagen die ganze Zeit über der Figur/den Figuren hängt und im Endeffekt dann bestimmt wer untergeht und wär nicht.
Obwohl ich Theaterstücke normalerweise nicht wirklich gern lese, fand ich Brechts Lehrstück, nicht nur sehr angenehm und einfach zu lesen, sondern wirklich interessant und zu Nachdenken anregend.
Kann es mur weiterempfehlen!
Obwohl ich Theaterstücke normalerweise nicht wirklich gern lese, fand ich Brechts Lehrstück, nicht nur sehr angenehm und einfach zu lesen, sondern wirklich interessant und zu Nachdenken anregend.
Kann es mur weiterempfehlen!
September 6, 2025
3,75/5- Das Buch regt definitiv zum Überlegen an. In Situationen der Agitation sollte man im Sinne der Partei agieren und nicht aufgrund individualistischer Moral handeln, aber rechtfertigt das einen Mord? Spannende Frage, aber gleichzeitig weiß ich auch nicht, ob ich’s so zu 100% verstanden habe, aber das ist glaube ich auch Teil des Werks und des Erlebnisses, weitere, offene Fragen zu haben.
August 28, 2021
A fine example of how the left in the 20th century alienated the very working-class people it should have attracted. Perhaps Brecht should have taken the advice of the Young Comrade and killed this play rather than distributing it, since it led to far more damage than anything else.
February 7, 2025
This play stands out, as it is the most ambiguous of Brecht‘s plays. While in most of his other work he proposes an answer to human suffering, this one only asks a question and does so in the most radical manner possible.
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August 20, 2021Alfred Kurella didn't liked it
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February 28, 2023Currently in an operatic production of this, so been reading it a LOT
March 18, 2023
Przewidział leftbook
September 3, 2015
True, being a piece of the epic theatre, it is rather different to the usual drama that I would read or in fact go and see a production of. But what I find excellent about this play is the diverse opinions of the same subject matter, "Die Maßnahme" each different character has to offer.
The control chorus' role is of vital significance, one that stirs the thinking of the audience and the reader. The speeches given by the agitators are so engaging whether you agree with the philosophy of Marxism or not. And the mannerisms of the young comrade, being so easily persuaded: could that be Brecht's way of presenting to us a specimen of the "ignorant"?
Above all, Brecht does not in anyway lose the aesthetic quality of what is expected from a piece of celebrated literature; the imagery and language choices in this piece are beautiful and could not be better put!
Overall, I think Brecht wants to create a situation and invite his audience to make a "Maßnahme" for themselves, rather than merely presenting his own beliefs and trying to seek the audience's agreement or otherwise. Definitely recommend this!
Mx
The control chorus' role is of vital significance, one that stirs the thinking of the audience and the reader. The speeches given by the agitators are so engaging whether you agree with the philosophy of Marxism or not. And the mannerisms of the young comrade, being so easily persuaded: could that be Brecht's way of presenting to us a specimen of the "ignorant"?
Above all, Brecht does not in anyway lose the aesthetic quality of what is expected from a piece of celebrated literature; the imagery and language choices in this piece are beautiful and could not be better put!
Overall, I think Brecht wants to create a situation and invite his audience to make a "Maßnahme" for themselves, rather than merely presenting his own beliefs and trying to seek the audience's agreement or otherwise. Definitely recommend this!
Mx
January 11, 2009
Sorry, but Brecht just didn't do it for me!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews