Brecht, A Biography

by Klaus Völker

German

412 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Differengenera · Rating 4 out of 5]

'He vehemently upbraided the half-hearted comrades, gave them political tuition and provoked them with extremist slogans...He told the Marxist intellectual Sidney Hook that the American communists were 'lousy' and ought to model themselves on the Russian ones. When Hook reminded him of the murder of Kirov and spoke of other arrests in Russia Brecht is said to have retorted: 'The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to die'.

[...]


'For his production of the Baden-Baden Didactic Play on Acquiescence...Brecht made use of films and projections, which he subsequently incorporated into the play. In an interlude he introduced three clowns one of whom gradually had every limb of his body sawed off by the other two. At this point some members of the audience are said to have fainted. Gerhart Hauptmann, who was present, walked out in disgust. The author and composer remained on the stage during the performance and issued instructions to the actor and musicians in order to provoke the audience and challenge them to comment. When pictures of dead people were shown and the audience became very restive Brecht told the announcer to call out, the moment the projection was finished: 'Repeat showing of the ill-received portrayal of death'. And the pictures were shown a second time'.