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87-397: It was written in collaboration with Hanns Eisler , Slatan Dudow and Günther Weisenborn in 1930–31 in prose dialogue with unrhymed irregular free verse and ten initial songs in its score, with three more added later. Eisler rewrote the incidental music as a cantata , op. 25, for chorus, solo voices and two pianos for a 1935 New York stage production. The play's full German title

174-442: A Protestant wedding). The modest house where he was born is today preserved as a Brecht Museum. His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. At Augsburg, his maternal grandparents lived in the neighbouring house. They were Pietists and his grandmother influenced Bertolt Brecht and his brother Walter considerably during their childhood. Due to his grandmother's and his mother's influence, Brecht knew

261-446: A long and difficult road to liberation. The Mother is Brecht's most elaborate use of his radically experimental Lehrstücke , or "learning plays", which he describes as "a piece of anti- metaphysical , materialistic , non-Aristotelian drama ." The play suggests that to become a good mother involves more than just complaining about the price of soup; rather, one must struggle against it, not only for her and her family's sake, but for

348-650: A long trip eastward from Denmark across the Soviet Union and the Pacific Ocean. In the US, Eisler composed music for various documentary films and for eight Hollywood film scores, two of which – Hangmen Also Die! and None but the Lonely Heart – were nominated for Oscars in 1944 and 1945 respectively. Also working on Hangmen Also Die! was Bertolt Brecht, who wrote the story along with director Fritz Lang . From 1927 to

435-536: A medical course at Munich University , where he enrolled in 1917. There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher , who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret star Frank Wedekind . From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919). Brecht

522-458: A milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical development. Brecht's Edward II constituted his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he was to adapt. As his first solo directorial début, he later credited it as the germ of his conception of " epic theatre ". That September, a job as assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt 's Deutsches Theater —at

609-502: A music festival in July, as what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. From that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part of the collaborative effort, with words, music and visuals conceived in relation to one another from the start. The model for their mutual articulation lay in Brecht's newly formulated principle of the " separation of the elements ", which he first outlined in " The Modern Theatre Is

696-731: A number of agitprop plays, praising the bolshevik collectivism (replaceability of each member of the collective in Man Equals Man ) and the Red Terror ( The Decision ). For us, man portrayed on the stage is significant as a social function. It is not his relationship to himself, nor his relationship to God, but his relationship to society which is central. Whenever he appears, his class or social stratum appears with him. His moral, spiritual or sexual conflicts are conflicts with society. Erwin Piscator , 1929. In 1927 Brecht became part of

783-663: A play that would never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. Happy End' s score by Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny". The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ( Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny ), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting. The Mahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as

870-418: A popular militant anthem sung in street protests and public meetings throughout Europe, and their "Ballad of Paragraph 218" was the world's first song protesting laws against abortion. Brecht-Eisler songs of this period tended to look at life from "below"—from the perspective of prostitutes, hustlers, the unemployed and the working poor. From 1931 to 1932, he collaborated with Brecht and director Slatan Dudow on

957-553: A renegade and accused the work of being "a slap in the face of German national feeling" and of having "formalistically deformed one of the greatest works of our German poet Goethe" ( Ulbricht ). Eisler's opera project was discussed in three of the bi-weekly meetings "Mittwochsgesellschaft" [Wednesday club] of a circle of intellectuals under the auspices of the Berlin Academy of Arts beginning on 13 May 1953. The last of these meetings took place on Wednesday, 10 June 1953. A week later,

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1044-468: A script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human impact of mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow . This striking film is notable for its subversive humour, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf , and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin during the last years of the Weimar Republic . Unhappy

1131-499: A small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin . Brecht's diaries for the next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform. Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin , for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology". Writing in his Messingkauf Dialogues years later, Brecht identified Valentin, along with Wedekind and Büchner , as his "chief influences" at that time: But

1218-600: A song written by Brecht called the " United Front Song ". The song was simple to follow to allow workers with limited musical training to be able to sing it. In 1938, Eisler finally managed to emigrate to the United States with a permanent visa . In New York City , he taught composition at The New School for Social Research and wrote experimental chamber and documentary music. In 1942, he moved to Los Angeles where he joined Brecht, who had arrived in California in 1941 after

1305-447: A specific purpose") and arguing that only an empty-headed person could be persuaded to die for their country. His expulsion was only prevented by the intervention of Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute teacher at Brecht's school. On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought to avoid being conscripted into the army by exploiting a loophole which allowed for medical students to be deferred. He subsequently registered for

1392-560: A trend that persisted throughout his career of creative activity that was generated by a desire to counter another work (both others' and his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting other people that's a challenge." Brecht completed his second major play, Drums in the Night , in February 1919. Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht made acquaintance with many influential people in

1479-509: A triumphant sensation. Brecht spent the last years of the Weimar-era (1930–1933) in Berlin working with his "collective" on the Lehrstücke . These were a group of plays driven by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. The Lehrstücke often aimed at educating workers on Socialist issues. The Measures Taken ( Die Massnahme ) was scored by Hanns Eisler . In addition, Brecht worked on

1566-566: A two-story wooden bungalow in the Los Angeles beach suburb of Santa Monica . By the late 1930s, the West Side of Los Angeles had become a thriving expatriate colony of European intellectuals and artists. Because the colony included so many writers, directors, actors, and composers from German-speaking countries, it has been referred to as "Weimar on the Pacific". At the center of the émigré community

1653-658: A year. After Germany invaded Norway and Denmark , Brecht left Sweden for Helsinki, Finland, where he awaited a pending visa to the United States. During this time he co-wrote the play Mr Puntila and His Man Matti ( Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti ) with Hella Wuolijoki , with whom he lived in the Marlebäck manor house in Iitti . Upon receipt of the U.S. visa in May 1941, the Brecht family relocated to Southern California . They rented

1740-696: Is Die Mutter. Leben der Revolutionärin Pelagea Wlassowa aus Twer (The mother. Life of the Revolutionary Pelagea Vlassova from Tver ). It premièred on 17 January 1932 at the Komödienhaus am Schiffbauerdamm (near Theater am Schiffbauerdamm , but not the same) in Berlin. It was directed by Emil Burri and the scenic design was by Caspar Neher . Helene Weigel played the Mother and Ernst Busch played Pavel. Years later, Brecht directed

1827-501: Is named after him. Johannes Eisler was born in Leipzig in Saxony , the third child of Rudolf Eisler , a professor of philosophy, and Marie Ida Fischer. His father was an atheist of Jewish descent and his mother was Lutheran of Swabian descent. In 1901, the family moved to Vienna . His older brother Gerhart was a Communist journalist, and his older sister Elfriede was a leader of

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1914-905: The Verfremdungseffekt . When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled his home country, initially to Scandinavia. During World War II he moved to Southern California where he established himself as a screenwriter, and meanwhile was being surveilled by the FBI . In 1947, he was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for alleged Communist Party affiliations. The day after testifying, he returned to Europe, eventually settling in East Berlin where he co-founded

2001-507: The Communist Party of Germany in the 1920s. After emigrating to North America , she turned into an anti-Stalinist , his sister testified against him and his brother before the House Un-American Activities Committee . As his family couldn't afford music lessons nor a piano, Eisler had to teach himself music. At age 14, Eisler joined a socialist youth group. In 1917, one year after Eisler graduated high school, then 18-year-old Eisler

2088-515: The East German uprising of 1953 pushed those debates from the agenda. Eisler fell into a deep depression, and consequently did not write the music for the opera. In his last work, "Ernste Gesänge" ('Serious Songs'), written between spring 1961 and August 1962, Eisler attempted to work through his depression, taking up the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with its demise of

2175-559: The GULAG after being arrested during Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge , was harshly criticised by Russian émigrés living in the West. At the onset of the Cold War and " Second Red Scare " in the U.S., Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses and investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Along with more than 40 other Hollywood writers, directors, actors and producers, he

2262-566: The Neue Sachlichkeit movement. The collective's work "mirrored the artistic climate of the middle 1920s", Willett and Manheim argue: with their attitude of Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates Man Equals Man ) but also drawing those conclusions for

2349-501: The SS and a chief architect of the Holocaust ; he was known as "The Hangman of Prague" ( German : der Henker von Prag ). For this film, Brecht's fellow expatriate, composer Hanns Eisler , was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Music Score . The fact that three refugee artists from Nazi Germany – Lang, Brecht and Eisler – collaborated to make the film exemplified

2436-507: The Weimar Republic , he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler . Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and

2523-400: The copyrights of Brecht's work with her siblings. Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential. Elisabeth Hauptmann , Margarete Steffin , Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and others worked with Brecht and produced the multiple teaching plays , which attempted to create a new dramaturgy for participants rather than passive audiences. These addressed themselves to

2610-724: The twelve-tone or serial technique. Eisler married Charlotte Demant in 1920; they separated in 1934. In 1925, he moved to Berlin, which was then a hothouse of experimentation in music, theater, film, art and politics. There he became an active supporter of the Communist Party of Germany and became involved with the November Group . In 1928, he taught at the Marxist Workers' School in Berlin and his son Georg Eislerwas born. His music became increasingly oriented towards political themes and, to Schoenberg's dismay, more "popular" in style with influences drawn from jazz and cabaret . At

2697-517: The " dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator 's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for its "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre". Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions, Hoppla, We're Alive! by Toller , Rasputin , The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik , and Konjunktur by Lania . Brecht's most significant contribution

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2784-480: The 1920s and a renewing influence on the musical worldwide. One of its most famous lines underscored the hypocrisy of conventional morality imposed by the Church, working in conjunction with the established order, in the face of working-class hunger and deprivation: Erst kommt das Fressen Dann kommt die Moral. First the grub (lit. "eating like animals, gorging") Then the morality. The success of The Threepenny Opera

2871-465: The 1930s and 1940s included Deutsche Sinfonie , a choral symphony in 11 movements based on poems by Brecht and Ignazio Silone , and a cycle of art songs published as the Hollywood Songbook . With lyrics by Brecht, Eduard Mörike , Friedrich Hölderlin , and Goethe , it established Eisler's reputation as one of the 20th century's great composers of German lieder . Eisler's promising career in

2958-577: The Berlin cultural scene. Amongst them was the playwright Arnolt Bronnen with whom he established a joint venture, the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company. Brecht changed the spelling of his first name to Bertolt to rhyme with Arnolt. In 1922 while still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering : "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced, Drums in

3045-512: The Bible, a familiarity that would have a life-long effect on his writing. From his mother came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama. Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied. At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher , with whom he formed a life-long creative partnership. Neher designed many of

3132-480: The Epic Theatre " (1930). The principle, a variety of montage , proposed by-passing the "great struggle for supremacy between words, music and production" as Brecht put it, by showing each as self-contained, independent works of art that adopt attitudes towards one another. In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding. She also became an actress and would later share

3219-460: The HUAC at that time, the so-called Hollywood Ten , declined on First Amendment grounds to answer about their Communist Party affiliations and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to be a "cooperative" witness—albeit in an evasive way and providing no useful information—led to criticism of him, including accusations of betrayal. The day after his testimony, Brecht fled to Europe and never returned to

3306-423: The HUAC that he had never been a member of the Communist Party . He made wry jokes throughout the proceedings, punctuating his inability to speak English well with continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for his cooperation. The remaining unfriendly witnesses who appeared before

3393-674: The Hitler bandits put a price on my head and drove me out. They were the evil of the period; I was proud at being driven out. But I feel heartbroken over being driven out of this beautiful country in this ridiculous way. Eisler returned to Austria , and later moved to East Berlin . In East Germany , he composed the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic , a cycle of cabaret -style songs to satirical poems by Kurt Tucholsky and incidental music for theater, films, television and party celebrations. His most ambitious project of

3480-476: The House Committee on Un-American Activities: "I don't know what I'll do / I don't know what I'll do / Eisler's on the come and go / and I don't know what I'll do." On 26 March 1948, Eisler and his wife Lou departed from LaGuardia Airport and flew to Prague . Before he left, he read the following statement: I leave this country not without bitterness and infuriation. I could well understand it when in 1933

3567-501: The Jungle premiered in Munich, also directed by Engel. Opening night proved to be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later productions during the Weimar Republic —in which Nazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage. In 1924 Brecht worked with the novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe 's Edward II that proved to be

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3654-541: The Night , but the productions did not materialize. The year 1927 also saw the first collaboration between Brecht and the young composer Kurt Weill . Together they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny project, along thematic lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered in terms of the Neue Sachlichkeit ' s Amerikanismus , which had informed Brecht's previous work. They produced The Little Mahagonny for

3741-533: The Night , and In the Jungle , although at that point only Drums had been produced). The citation for the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round." That year he married the Viennese opera singer Marianne Zoff . Their daughter, Hanne Hiob , born in March 1923,

3828-431: The Night —"[he] has given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new vision. [...] It is a language you can feel on your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column." In November it was announced that Brecht had been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and probably Germany's most significant literary award, until it was abolished in 1932) for his first three plays ( Baal , Drums in

3915-618: The Stalin cult, as a sign of hope for a future enabling to "live without fear". Although he continued to work as a composer and to teach at the East Berlin conservatory , the gap between Eisler and the cultural functionaries of East Germany grew wider in the last decade of his life. During this period, he befriended musician Wolf Biermann and tried to promote him, but in 1976, Biermann would be stripped of his GDR citizenship while on concert tour in West Germany . Eisler collaborated with Brecht until

4002-654: The U.S. was interrupted by the Cold War . He was one of the first artists placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the film studio bosses. In two interrogations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities , the composer was accused of being "the Karl Marx of music" and the chief Soviet agent in Hollywood . Among his accusers was his sister Ruth Fischer , who also testified before the Committee that her other brother, Gerhart,

4089-497: The book Composing for the Films which was published in 1947, with Theodor W. Adorno as co-author. In several chamber and choral compositions of this period, Eisler returned to the twelve-tone method he had abandoned in Berlin. His Fourteen Ways of Describing the Rain , composed for Arnold Schoenberg 's 70th birthday celebration, is considered a masterpiece of the genre. Eisler's works of

4176-532: The end of his life, Eisler wrote the music for 40 films, making film music the largest part of his compositions after vocal music for chorus and/or solo voices. On 1 February 1940, he began work on the "Research Program on the Relation between Music and Films" funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation , which he got with the help of film director Joseph Losey and The New School. This work resulted in

4263-420: The experiences of those obliged, as Brecht saw it, to live beneath that system's crushing weight. Hanns Eisler Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was a German-Austrian composer. He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany , for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht , and for the scores he wrote for films. The Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin

4350-494: The forerunner of a musical art style later known as "News Items" (or perhaps better characterized as "news clippings") – musical compositions that parodied a newspaper's content and style, or that included lyrics lifted directly from newspapers, leaflets, magazines or other written media of the day. The cycle parodies a newspaper's layout and content, with the songs comprising it given titles similar to headlines. Its content reflects Eisler's socialist leanings, with lyrics memorializing

4437-525: The improvisational approach of the commedia dell'arte in which the actors chatted with the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello 's Six Characters in Search of an Author in his group of Berlin theatres. A new version of Brecht's third play, now entitled Jungle: Decline of a Family , opened at the Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success. In the asphalt city I'm at home. From

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4524-515: The influence this generation of German exiles had on American culture. Hangmen Also Die! turned out to be Brecht's only script that became a Hollywood film. The money he earned from selling the script enabled him to write The Visions of Simone Machard , Schweik in the Second World War and an adaptation of Webster 's The Duchess of Malfi . During the reign of the Third Reich , Brecht

4611-502: The land where heroes are needed. Galileo , in Brecht's Life of Galileo ( 1943 ) Fearing persecution, Brecht fled Nazi Germany in February 1933, just after Hitler took power. Following brief spells in Prague, Zurich and Paris, he and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and author Karin Michaëlis to move to Denmark. The Brechts first stayed with Michaëlis at her house on

4698-472: The last Tramp movie, which Chaplin had requested. Eisler turned the score in the 1950s into concert music, which would be performed. Folksinger Woody Guthrie protested the composer's deportation in his lyrics for " Eisler on the Go "—recorded 50 years later by Billy Bragg and Wilco in the 1998 album Mermaid Avenue . In the song, an introspective Guthrie asked himself what he would do if called to testify before

4785-527: The latter's death in 1956. He never recovered completely from his friend's demise, and his remaining years were marred by depression and declining health. On 6 September 1962, he died of a fatal heart attack in East Berlin at the age of 64, and is buried near Brecht in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery . Previously, he had been bedridden for 3 months after his first heart attack. He had been a heavy smoker since he

4872-525: The man he learnt most from was the clown Valentin , who performed in a beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice. Brecht's first full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating

4959-479: The massive worker arts organisation that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s. So did Brecht's first great play, Saint Joan of the Stockyards , which attempts to portray the drama in financial transactions. This collective adapted John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , with Brecht's lyrics set to music by Kurt Weill . Retitled The Threepenny Opera ( Die Dreigroschenoper ) it was the biggest hit in Berlin of

5046-446: The original script. In the play, Brecht utilizes narrative, irony, the juxtaposition of self-proclaimed "truths" to reveal their flaws, the concretizing of complex ideas into dramatic events, an understanding and simple presentation of human behaviour, and a comedic optimism that things can be changed and that reason and common sense will overcome fear and superstition . Vlassov is Brecht's entirely positive major character, who endures

5133-641: The period was the opera Johannes Faustus on the Faust theme. The libretto , written by Eisler himself, was published in the fall of 1952. It portrayed Faust as an indecisive man who betrayed the cause of the working class by not joining the German Peasants' War . In May 1953, Eisler's libretto was attacked by a major article in Neues Deutschland , the SED organ, which disapproved of the negative depiction of Faust as

5220-571: The play with the Berliner Ensemble at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in a production that opened on 10 January 1951. Neher also designed the sets for this production and Helene Weigel recreated the lead role, with Ernst Kahler playing Pavel and Busch as Lapkin. After Brecht's death, Manfred Wekwerth revised that production at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm with a changed cast; this production

5307-733: The publisher's commission ran out. In 1925 in Mannheim the artistic exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit (" New Objectivity ") had given its name to the new post- Expressionist movement in the German arts. With little to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to develop his Man Equals Man project, which was to become the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended." This collaborative approach to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style of theatrical production, mark Brecht's work from this period as part of

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5394-436: The question of how to dramatize the complex economic relationships of modern capitalism in his unfinished project Joe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in its programme for the 1927–28 season). It wasn't until his Saint Joan of the Stockyards (written between 1929 and 1931) that Brecht solved it. In 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare 's Julius Caesar and Brecht's own Drums in

5481-542: The sake of all working families. The title character, the mother Pelagea Vlassova, journeys through the play's fourteen scenes, the death of her son, and her own impending illness, fighting illiteracy while constantly filled with good humor and wily activism . The moment in October 1917 when she becomes free to carry and raise her own Red Flag on the eve of the czar's overthrow proves momentous. The play has garnered continued recognition for its forensic, witty and, some would say, humanist critique of capitalism seen through

5568-401: The same time, he became close with Bertolt Brecht , whose own turn towards Marxism happened at about the same time. The collaboration between the two artists lasted for the rest of Brecht's life. In 1929, Eisler composed the song cycle Zeitungsausschnitte , Op. 11. The work is dedicated to the singer Margot Hinnenberg-Lefebre. Though not written in the twelve-tone technique, it was perhaps

5655-411: The sense that the new subject matter demanded a new dramatic form , the use of songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Piscatorial examples as the step-by-step narrative technique of Schweik and the oil interests handled in Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form'). Brecht was struggling at the time with

5742-474: The sets for Brecht's dramas and helped to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre . When Brecht was 16, World War I broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army". Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 for writing an essay in response to the line Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori from the Roman poet Horace , calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap propaganda for

5829-527: The small island of Thurø close to the island of Funen . They later bought their own house in Svendborg on Funen. This Svendborg house at Skovsbo Strand 8 became the Brecht family residence for the next six years. They often received guests there including Walter Benjamin , Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau . Brecht also travelled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London for various projects and collaborations. When war seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, where he remained for

5916-412: The struggles of ordinary Germans subject to post–World War I hardships. Eisler wrote music for several Brecht plays, including The Decision (Die Maßnahme) (1930), The Mother (1932) and Schweik in the Second World War (1957). They also collaborated on protest songs that celebrated, and contributed to, the political turmoil of Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Their " Solidarity Song " became

6003-447: The theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions. In 1925, Brecht saw two films that had a significant influence on him: Chaplin 's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein 's Battleship Potemkin . Brecht had compared Valentin to Chaplin, and

6090-425: The theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel . Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as a child known as Eugen) was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg , Germany, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) and his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920). Brecht's mother was a devout Protestant and his father a Roman Catholic (who had been persuaded to have

6177-504: The time one of the leading three or four theatres in the world—brought him to Berlin. In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927). Brecht had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel. Brecht and Weigel's son, Stefan , was born in October 1924. In his role as dramaturg, Brecht had much to stimulate him but little work of his own. Reinhardt staged Shaw 's Saint Joan , Goldoni 's Servant of Two Masters (with

6264-440: The two of them provided models for Galy Gay in Man Equals Man . Brecht later wrote that Chaplin "would in many ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre's requirements." They met several times during Brecht's time in the United States, and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux project, which it is possible Brecht influenced. In 1926 a series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann

6351-596: The very start Provided with every last sacrament: With newspapers. And tobacco. And brandy To the end mistrustful, lazy and content. Bertolt Brecht, "Of Poor BB" At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB". In 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home ( Hauspostille , eventually published in January 1927). She continued to work with him after

6438-678: The working-class film Kuhle Wampe . After 1933, Eisler's music and Brecht's poetry were banned by the Nazi Party . Both artists went into exile. While Brecht settled in Svendborg , Denmark, Eisler traveled for a number of years, working in Prague , Vienna , Paris , London , and Moscow , and living briefly in Spain , Mexico , and Denmark . He made two visits to the United States, with speaking tours from coast to coast . In 1934, Eisler composed music for

6525-477: Was drafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic ; the war ended a month later. In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship in 1917) had a son, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother died. Frank died in 1943, fighting for Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front . Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took

6612-557: Was Brecht's old friend Salka Viertel , whom he had known in the Berlin theatre world of the 1920s. From her house in Santa Monica Canyon, Viertel hosted frequent tea parties and salons where European intellectuals could mingle with Hollywood luminaries. Brecht first met actor Charles Laughton at a Viertel party, and it led to the two men collaborating on the English-language version of Life of Galileo . Although Brecht

6699-402: Was a Communist agent. Eisler's supporters—including his friend Charlie Chaplin and the composers Igor Stravinsky , Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein —organized benefit concerts to raise money for his defense fund, but to no avail. Eisler was deported early in 1948. His deportation disrupted a number of collaborations, such as composing a new film score for Chaplin's 1928 The Circus ,

6786-472: Was a child, smoking up to 100 cigarettes a day on occasion. He became a heavy drinker later in life and developed alcoholism . He had slept very little and ate poorly, and as a result he also suffered from chronic fatigue and malnutrition . Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht , was a German theatre practitioner , playwright, and poet. Coming of age during

6873-612: Was a prominent practitioner of the Exilliteratur . He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his famous plays: Life of Galileo , Mother Courage and Her Children , The Good Person of Szechwan , The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui , The Caucasian Chalk Circle , Fear and Misery of the Third Reich , and many others. However, his refusal to speak in support of Carola Neher , who died in

6960-506: Was a successful German actress. In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a short slapstick film, Mysteries of a Barbershop , directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin. Despite a lack of success at the time, its experimental inventiveness and the subsequent success of many of its contributors have meant that it is now considered one of the most important films in German film history . In May of that year, Brecht's In

7047-525: Was closely associated with writing them. Following the production of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Marxism and socialism in earnest, under the supervision of Hauptmann. "When I read Marx 's Capital ", a note by Brecht reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across." Inspired by the developments in USSR , Brecht wrote

7134-463: Was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army to fight during World War I , where served as a front-line soldier. He found this time physically demanding, due to his poor health and small stature, and was injured several times in combat. Returning to Vienna after Austria's defeat, he studied from 1919 to 1923 under Arnold Schoenberg . Eisler was the first of Schoenberg's disciples to compose in

7221-502: Was filmed. Brecht wrote The Mother at a time when Hitler was gaining power in Germany. During a performance the Nazis arrested the leading actor to prevent the public from seeing the play. Between 1973 and 1975, placards quoting Richard Nixon and George Jackson were hung on the set of the San Francisco Mime Troupe 's production of The Mother , rather than the quotes by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin called for in

7308-403: Was followed by the quickly thrown together Happy End . It was a personal and a commercial failure. At the time the book was purported to be by the mysterious Dorothy Lane (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Brecht only claimed authorship of the song texts. Brecht would later use elements of Happy End as the germ for his Saint Joan of the Stockyards ,

7395-619: Was not enamored of life in the movie capital, he worked hard to find a place for himself as a screenwriter. He co-wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang -directed film Hangmen Also Die! (1943) which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich , the Nazi Deputy Reich Protector of the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Heydrich had been Heinrich Himmler 's right-hand man in

7482-516: Was subpoenaed in September 1947 by the HUAC. Although he was one of the 19 "unfriendly" witnesses who had declared ahead of time they would not cooperate with the House investigation, Brecht eventually decided to go before the committee and answer questions. He later explained he was following the advice of attorneys and did not want to delay his planned trip to Europe. On 30 October 1947, Brecht testified to

7569-483: Was to the adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic novel Schweik , which he later described as a "montage from the novel". The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the " epic " playwright by the development of stage technology (particularly projections). What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests: The emphasis on Reason and didacticism,

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