10. "Epic Theater" B. Brecht.

Bertolt Brecht is another German. He simultaneously wrote and directed his plays. And he called the whole set of his plays and most importantly called his theory epic theater. The most important thing is to understand how the epic theater differs from the traditional one. The traditional theater dates back to Ancient Greece, and Aristotle said it best, so Brecht himself calls the traditional theater " Aristotelian theater". If we talk about the representatives of the traditional theater Brecht's contemporaries, then this, of course, Stanislavsky. The development of the European theater begins in antiquity, in ancient times, and from the very beginning, in the ancient theater, a sense of belonging is very important, i.e. any theatrical action is created in order for the viewer fully immersed in the action and felt involved in this action. For what? It is quite clear why, if we remember that the first genre of theater was tragedy. Because it gave a person a sense of moral cathartic purification. Those. a person experienced, experienced the most nervous tension, sympathy for what was happening, and then came the emotional purification of the soul. Those. they went to the theater, in fact, for what many people go to the temple for. Since then, the theater has always worked in this direction. From the end of the 19th century the art of directing. And here the pinnacle of the theory of traditional theater is Stanislavsky, because the Stanislavsky theater is made in such a way as to involve us as much as possible in the action. So, there are some laws in the theater - while people in the hall are sneezing, rustling papers, coughing, it means that the performance didn’t go so-so. When at some point we notice that we have not heard anything in the hall for a long time, there is no movement, it means that the performance has drawn into itself - and this is the most important thing in the theater. Yes, today there are a lot of means - musical accompaniment that gives rhythm, for example (well, here is the music at the end of the performance, when we clap; the music is over - stop clapping and go), but a real theater that draws in should not do this - we must clap heartily. So Brecht in his epic theater, in his theory, he says that that people come to the theater not to sympathize. Therefore, the tradition of the theater to draw into action does not suit the new theater. The viewer comes not to sympathize, he comes to think. He has a very good phrase that makes it clear what he means: if we see a hungry person on the stage, then in the traditional theater the viewer comes to sympathize with this person, and if he dies, then sympathize with him and cleanse himself with this compassion and leave beautifully. And you have to come to the theater to think about how to feed him. This is a time of transformation, the whole world is raving about the socialist revolution. The basic principle of epic theater is not to involve the viewer in the action, but to remove from the action- that's the main thing in this theater. Therefore, the theater is ambiguous, although very interesting in itself. Brecht takes the very word "removal" from the Russians. Russian theorists in St. Petersburg coined the word "alienation": at the level of our everyday consciousness - see an ordinary thing from an unusual perspective. Those. there were two words "alienation" and "removal". And in order to show the peculiarity of this term, these theorists remove the letter “t” from the Russian language in the middle and call it “alienation” and “estrangement”, i.e. to make the ordinary strange, strange. Actually, Brecht is just about this.

In order to create the effect of alienation, Brecht uses different techniques. Firstly, this is the conditional design of the stage: Brecht's theater is often called the "poor theater" - there are very few objects on the stage, a very high degree of conventionality. If an army should appear on the stage, then in a traditional theater, for example, 200 extras appear, and even a horse can be carried out, and here a person comes out with a sign “people”, or “army”, or “forest”. After all, this is a convention - 200 people still won’t hand over the entire army in the same way as 1. But the basic principle of Brecht’s theater is break the illusion. An illusion is when we come to the theater and agree that what is happening on the stage is true, we believe in it, this is an illusion of reality. You can break the illusion by direct appeal of the actor to the audience. For example, there is an actor D’Artagnan, he dartagnanizes himself on stage, and then he says: “I’m Vasya Pupkin in general, I’m playing D’Artagnan here and I want you, the audience, to say this about this ...”. Those. the effect of the illusion is completely broken. But Brecht doesn't do it this way - by direct appeals - he uses a technique that is actually very simple - introduces songs into dramatic text, "songs" in German. But since the time of Brecht, the term "zong" in all European countries means Brecht's reception. It was thanks to Brecht that the dramatic actors sang. Zong is different in that this song does not correspond to the content of the literal plot, it corresponds to the idea. In this sense, zongs, of course, become the most important and most memorable means of the alienation effect.. Brecht also allows the use of slogans. We can put on an old Brechtian performance today, but the slogans on the stage that correspond to the idea of ​​the performance can be very modern.

The Threepenny Opera is a play staged in the late 1920s. and actually with this play the real Brechtian theater begins. The basis for this play is a play by a completely different author in another country of another era. It was an English playwright who, in the 18th century. wrote "The Beggar's Opera" - his surname is Gay. In this opera, he talked about the fact that there is a certain concern of these beggars - they are organized into an enterprise, i.e. exactly the same business as everyone else. And everything that is in this Beggar's Opera is taken by Brecht in his Threepenny Opera. The action takes place in some remote space and time. The play begins with the fact that one person comes to be hired by a beggar in an office, he is hired, given a role, a place where he will collect alms, a salary is assigned (in short, everything is as it is now). And the most interesting thing is that the laws of this bottom are shown further. And of course, the main people in this lower social space are the people of the criminal world, i.e. those who commit crimes. And the main meaning of the play is that, it turns out, the laws of the criminal world are no different from the laws of the upper world. Those. politicians and the economic elite live by the same laws. Therefore, civilization is flawed at its very core.. There, by the way, there is a curious moment when a completely inconsolable young wife, because her husband is arrested, placed in prison, finds out that he can be redeemed! And suddenly, when she hears the price, the inconsolable wife says “Something is expensive”, although it is not her money, but his. And while she huddles and spins, the situation gets out of control, but it’s more tragic for her just to lose money. Husbands come and go, but money stays. By the way, the play is very replete with zongs, which are interesting both in their text and especially in the music of K. Weyl. It was believed that the play would not be successful. But when it was put on, the next day Brecht, as they say, woke up famous. Only in the 30s. (the beginning of the cinematic) it will be filmed 11 times! This play is interesting because in every single era it is shown in theaters and every time it seems that it is about us today.

"Mother Courage and her children" - mid-30s, anti-war play. The idea is very simple - war is always beneficial to someone, it always feeds someone. In this case, she feeds not a big person, but a small one - the canteen Mama Courage, who sells something to the soldiers. If there is a war, it thrives; if there is no war, it does not. But, in the end, the war takes away all her children, and Brecht really hoped that the politicians of the world would somehow think about it. But, of course, the play did not have such an impact.

The English director, artist, theater theorist Henry Edward Gordon Craig became the last theorist and critic, researcher of the traditional conventionally realistic theater and the first theorist of the philosophical and metaphorical theater (although, by the way, he never used these terms). The psychological theater did not arouse a deep interest in him, he did not know it, did not feel its possibilities, and therefore did not guess its future heyday. Craig's thought stepped from the theater of the past directly to the theater of the future.

Following Craig, two or three decades later, B. Brecht came forward with a detailed program of philosophical and metaphorical theater, who gave this art his own definition, calling it the art of alienation or epic theater. We will not dwell on terminological research, especially since all terms are generally quite conventional. We will try to agree that all these three names contain a certain identity, as all of them, in essence, continue in many respects, clarifying, developing, concretizing G. Craig's theory.

This fantastic character appeared relatively recently. Betman came to us from the TV screen and took a firm place in the hearts of boys and girls, leaving far behind the cute funny Carlson with his naive miracles and flights to the roof from the window of a city apartment.

Bertolt Brecht became an outstanding theorist of the epic theater, the largest and most consistent. We refer his theory to the sections devoted to this art. Of great interest is the comparison of Craig's views with B. Brecht's concept of the theater - together they form a fairly coherent theoretical system of this new art.

Craig sparked a spark - many were fascinated by his super-puppet theory. Art, which can rise above the limitations of the moment, operate with categories of high generalizations, has become a passionate dream of the outstanding theatrical figures of the century. And in this sense - the theater's solution to complex problems - there is no fundamental difference between Brecht's theory of epic theater and Craig's dream. Moreover, both of them, in their reflections on the future of the theater, were guided by the same idea of ​​the search for objectivity, the desire to get away from the “hypnosis of getting used to”, as Bertolt Brecht also called it, the ability to equally evoke compassion for the process, both progressive and regressive, to be a harbinger of humanism. and a mouthpiece of obscurantism, a tool for discovering philosophical truth and depicting "vulgar pleasures". The puppet theater reacted deeply and with interest to both Craig's idea and Brecht's theory. Over the course of the century, a number of groups have been created that use these views, forming theaters that are amazing in their capabilities.

Bertolt Brecht was right when he said: "Only a new goal gives birth to a new art." This new art of the 20th century was born not without the participation of the passion for dolls. Craig's idea, quite unexpectedly, was combined with another idea - the construction of a theater-tribune - for which Brecht stood up.

“In stylistic terms, the epic theater is not anything particularly new,” B. Brecht wrote. “The emphasis on the moment of acting, characteristic of it, and the fact that it is a theater of performance, makes it related to the most ancient Asian theater. Instructive tendencies were characteristic of the medieval mysteries, as well as the classical Spanish theater and the theater of the Jesuits.

Epic theater cannot be created everywhere. Most of the great nations these days are not inclined to solve their problems on the stage. London, Paris, Tokyo and Rome contain theaters for very different purposes. Until now, the conditions for the emergence of epic instructive theater have existed only in very few places and for a very short time. In Berlin, fascism decisively stopped the development of such a theater.

In addition to a certain technical level, the epic theater requires a powerful movement in the field of public life, the purpose of which is to arouse interest in the free discussion of life issues in order to resolve these issues in the future; movements that can defend this interest against all hostile tendencies.

The epic theater is the broadest and most far-reaching experience of creating a large modern theater, and this theater must overcome those grandiose obstacles in the field of politics, philosophy, science, art that stand in the way of all living forces.

The theory and practice of the great proletarian writer B. Brecht are inseparable. With his plays and work in the theater, he achieved the approval of the ideas of the epic theater, capable of awakening a broad social movement.
Henry Craig did not have such a clear socio-philosophical position as Bertolt Brecht had. It is all the more important to note that the logic of criticism of the bourgeois theater led Craig to criticize bourgeois society, he became one of those who approached the satirical mockery of the norms of bourgeois life, the government of England in the turning period of history - 1917-1918.

In the preface to the extensive collection "Puppet Theater of Foreign Countries", published in the USSR in 1959, we read: Gordon Craig, 84, has completed a new book, A Drama for Madmen, which includes three hundred and sixty-five puppet plays he wrote, with sketches of costumes and scenery made by Craig himself.

This is not Craig's first appeal to the dramaturgy of the puppet theatre. In 1918, in Florence, where at that time he headed the experimental theater studio (Goldoni Arena), Craig undertook the publication of the journal The Puppet Today, in which, under the pseudonym Tom Fool (Tom the Fool), he published five plays for puppets. The play “School, or Don’t Assume Commitments”, which is part of this cycle, is interesting not only as a work by a well-known figure in a foreign theater who had a great influence on the development of modern theatrical art, but also as an example of a political satirical miniature written with specific means in mind. puppet theater and thus reaffirming the grateful possibilities of puppet theater in this genre...

In a peculiar artistic form, "School" clearly ridicules the psychology and "code of conduct" of bourgeois statesmen, who at a crucial historical moment "evade responsibility". But no matter how much these figures try to close their eyes to reality, faced with it, they endure the same embarrassment that the teacher endures at the end of the play.

In our country, the play "School, or Do Not Assume Commitments" was published in translation from English by I. M. Barkhash, edited by K. I. Chukovsky. This is a sharp satirical miniature of a political nature.

The play is metaphorical. The teacher, students and the school itself, where the action takes place, are a kind of fragment of English society. The students ask questions. Just as it happens in the English Parliament, the teacher gives philistine, evasive answers. He teaches: “You come here to prepare for the difficult task of living in England. I have already said: to evade duties - that is what the duty of an Englishman, his life, his behavior in everyday life comes down to. Speaking about the principles of life, the teacher explains: “The most reliable are the following: to mumble and stutter, to hesitate forever, to doubt, to answer a question with a question ... Needless to say, one should never give a direct answer. An unanswered answer is good in any case, and the more you use it, the fresher it becomes.

Craig’s civic courage and sharpness of position are manifested not only in the fact that the cowardly teacher trembles from the “Bolshevik danger”, from the need to solve the most complex political problems (the play also mentions the “Commission to Investigate the Bread Panama” and the moral “code” of a member of the House of Commons) , but above all - at the very end of the play. The matter ends with the fact that a bull bursts into the classroom and “like a hurricane, throws the teacher and students” (compare with the finale of the best folk plays for the puppet theater, which ended in reprisals against injustice, a dream that metaphorically expressed the hope for justice).

Thus, the logic of the development of life convinced Craig, who at the dawn of the century stood on the positions of pure art, that the struggle for the justice of ideological and aesthetic positions is primarily a struggle for the purity of social ideals, philosophical and political ideals.

The puppet theater of the 20th century, in its most striking, lofty and significant manifestations, made the same choice as Henry Craig. The best from a professional, aesthetic point of view, puppeteers are distinguished by the maturity and accuracy of their political positions. The puppet theater of the 20th century managed to take a worthy place in the struggle of progressive mankind for justice, high moral ideals, and proved that even at a new stage it is inseparable from life, its development, from the struggle for progress.

"Epic Theater"

brecht drama epic theater

In the works "Towards a Modern Theatre", "Dialectics in the Theatre", "On Non-Aristotelian Drama" and others published in the late 1920s and early 1920s, Brecht criticized contemporary modernist art and outlined the main provisions of his theory of the "epic theater" . Certain provisions relate to acting, the construction of a dramatic work, theatrical music, scenery, the use of cinema, etc. Brecht called his dramaturgy "non-Aristotelian", "epic". This name is due to the fact that the traditional drama is built according to the laws formulated by Aristotle in his work "Poetics". They demanded the actor's obligatory emotional getting used to the character.

Brecht based his theory on reason. “The epic theater appeals not so much to the feeling as to the mind of the viewer,” wrote Bertolt Brecht. In his opinion, the theater was supposed to become a school of thought, to show life from a truly scientific standpoint, in a broad historical perspective, to promote advanced ideas, to help the viewer understand the changing world and change himself. Brecht emphasized that his theater should become a theater “for people who have decided to take their fate into their own hands”, that he should not only reflect events, but also actively influence them, stimulate, awaken the viewer’s activity, make him not empathize, but argue take a critical position, take a lively part. At the same time, the writer himself did not at all give up the desire to influence both feelings and emotions.

If the drama presupposes active action and a passive viewer, then the epic, on the contrary, presupposes an active listener or reader. It was precisely from this understanding of the theater that Brecht's idea of ​​an active spectator, ready to think, was formed. And thinking, as Brecht said, is something that precedes action.

However, with the help of aesthetics alone, the existing theater was impossible. Brecht wrote: “In order to eliminate this theater, that is, to abolish it, remove it, sell it off, it is already necessary to involve science, just as we also attracted science to eliminate all kinds of superstitions” B. Brecht “Conversation on the Cologne Radio”. And such a science, according to the writer, was to become sociology, that is, the doctrine of the relationship of man to man. She had to prove that the Shakespearean drama, which is the basis of all drama, no longer has the right to exist. This is explained by the fact that those relationships that made it possible for the drama to appear have historically outlived themselves. In the article “Should We Eliminate Aesthetics?” Brecht directly pointed out that capitalism itself destroys the drama and thereby gives rise to the preconditions for a new theater. "The theater must be revised as a whole - not only the texts, not only the actors or even the whole character of the production, this restructuring must involve the viewer, must change his position," writes Brecht in the article "Dialectical Dramaturgy". In the epic theatre, the individual ceases to be the center of the performance, so groups of people appear on the stage, within which the individual takes a certain position. At the same time, Brecht emphasizes that not only the theater, but also the spectator must become collectivist. In other words, epic theater must involve whole masses of people in its action. “That means,” Brecht continues, “that the individual as a spectator ceases to be the center of the theatre. He is no longer a private individual who "dignifies" the theater with his visit, allowing the actors to act out something in front of him, consuming the performance of the theatre; he is no longer a consumer, no, he himself must produce.

To implement the provisions of the "epic theater", Brecht used in his work the "alienation effect", that is, an artistic technique, the purpose of which is to show the phenomena of life from an unusual side, to make them look at them in a different way, to critically evaluate everything that happens on the stage. To this end, Brecht often introduces choirs and solo songs into his plays, explaining and evaluating the events of the performance, revealing the ordinary from an unexpected side. The "alienation effect" is also achieved by the acting system. With the help of this effect, the actor presents the so-called "social gesture" in a "alienated" form. By "social gesture" Brecht understands the expression in facial expressions and gestures of social relations that exist between people of a certain era. To do this, it is necessary to depict every event as historical. “A historical event is a transient, unique event associated with a certain era. In the course of it, relationships between people are formed, and these relationships are not just universal, eternal in nature, they are specific, and they are criticized from the point of view of the next era. Continuous development alienates us from the actions of people who lived before us. Brecht, Brief description of a new acting technique that causes the so-called "alienation effect". Such an effect, according to Brecht, makes it possible to make those events of everyday life that seem natural and familiar to the viewer catchy.

According to Brecht's theory, the epic theater should tell the viewer about certain life situations and problems, while observing the conditions under which the viewer would maintain, if not calmness, then control over his feelings. So that the viewer would not succumb to the illusions of stage action, he would observe, think, determine his principled position and make decisions.

In 1936, Brecht formulated a comparative description of the dramatic and epic theater: “The spectator of the drama theater say: yes, I already felt it too. That's me. This is quite natural. It'll be this way forever. The suffering of this man shocks me, for there is no way out for him. This is great art: everything goes without saying in it. I cry with the one who weeps, I laugh with the one who laughs. The spectator of the epic theater says I would never have thought of this. That should not be done. This is extremely amazing, almost unbelievable. This must be ended. The suffering of this man shocks me, for a way out is still possible for him. This is a great art: nothing in it goes without saying. I laugh at those who cry, I cry at those who laugh” B. Brecht “The Theory of the Epic Theatre”. To create such a theater requires the joint efforts of a playwright, director and actor. Moreover, for the actor this requirement is of a special nature. An actor should show a certain person in certain circumstances, and not just be him. At some moments of his stay on the stage, he must stand next to the image he creates, that is, be not only its embodiment, but also its judge.

This does not mean that Bertolt Brecht completely denied feelings in theatrical practice, that is, the merging of the actor with the image. However, he believed that such a state could only occur in moments and, in general, should be subject to a rationally thought-out and consciousness-defined interpretation of the role.

Bertolt Brecht paid much attention to the scenery. From the stage builder, he demanded a thorough study of the plays, taking into account the wishes of the actors and constantly experimenting. All this was the key to creative success. “The builder of the stage should not put anything on a once and for all fixed place,” Brecht believes, “but he should not change or move anything for no reason, because he gives a reflection of the world, and the world changes according to laws that are far from completely open” B. Brecht, On Stage Design in the Non-Aristotelian Theatre. At the same time, the scene builder needs to remember the viewer's critical eye. And if the viewer does not have such a look, then the task of the stage builder is to give it to the viewer.

Music plays an important role in the theatre. Brecht believed that in the era of the struggle for socialism, its social significance increases significantly: “Whoever believes that the masses, who have risen to fight unbridled violence, oppression and exploitation, are alien to serious and at the same time pleasant and rational music as a means of propagating social ideas, he did not understand one very important aspect of this struggle. However, it is clear that the impact of such music largely depends on how it is performed” B. Brecht “On the use of music in the “epic theater”. Therefore, the performer must comprehend the social meaning of music, which will allow the viewer to evoke an appropriate attitude towards the action on stage.

Another feature of Brecht's works is that they have a fairly explicit overtones. So, one of the most famous plays "Mother Courage and Her Children" was created at the time when Hitler unleashed the Second World War. And although the events of the Thirty Years' War became the historical basis of this work, the play itself, and especially the image of its main character, acquire a timeless sound. In fact, this is a work about life and death, about the impact of historical events on human life.

In the center of the play is Anna Fierling, who is better known as Mother Courage. For her, war is a way of existence: she pulls her wagon after the army, where everyone can buy the necessary goods. The war brought her three children, who were born from different soldiers from different armies, the war became the norm for Mother Courage. For her, the causes of the war are indifferent. She doesn't care who wins. However, the same war takes away everything from Mother Courage: one by one, her three children die, and she herself remains alone. Brecht's play ends with a scene in which Mother Courage is already pulling her wagon after the army. But even in the finale, mother did not change her thoughts about the war. For Brecht, the important thing is that insight came not to the hero, but to the spectator. This is the meaning of the "epic theater": the viewer himself must condemn or support the hero. So, in the play “Mother Courage and Her Children”, the author leads the main character to condemn the war, to understand in the end that the war is destructive and merciless to everyone and everything. But Courage never gets the "epiphany". Moreover, the very cause of Mother Courage cannot exist without war. And therefore, despite the fact that the war took her children, mother Courage needs war, war is the only way for her to exist.

Bertolt Brecht was an outstanding reformer of the Western theater, he created a new type of drama and a new theory, which he called "epic".

What was the essence of Brecht's theory? According to the author's idea, it was supposed to be a drama in which the main role was assigned not to the action, which was the basis of the "classical" theater, but to the story (hence the name "epic"). In the process of such a story, the scene had to remain just a scene, and not a "believable" imitation of life, a character - a role played by an actor (in contrast to the traditional practice of "reincarnating" an actor into a hero), depicted - exclusively as a stage sketch, specially freed from illusion "similarity" of life.

In an effort to recreate the "story", Brecht replaced the classical division of the drama into actions and acts with a chronicle composition, according to which the plot of the play was created by chronologically interconnected paintings. In addition, a variety of comments were introduced into the "epic drama", which also brought it closer to the "story": headlines that described the content of the paintings; songs ("zongs"), which additionally explained what was happening on stage; actors' appeals to the public; inscriptions designed on the screen, etc.

The traditional theater (“dramatic” or “Aristotelian”, since its laws were formulated by Aristotle) ​​enslaves the viewer, according to Brecht, with the illusion of plausibility, completely immerses him in empathy, not giving him the opportunity to see what is happening from the outside. Brecht, who has a heightened sense of sociality, considered the main task of the theater to educate the audience in class consciousness and readiness for political struggle. Such a task, in his opinion, could be performed by the “epic theater”, which, in contrast to the traditional theater, addresses not the feelings of the viewer, but his mind. Representing not the embodiment of events on the stage, but a story about what has already happened, he maintains an emotional distance between the stage and the audience, forcing not so much to empathize with what is happening as to analyze it.

The main principle of the epic theater is the “alienation effect”, a set of techniques by which a familiar and familiar phenomenon is “alienated”, “detached”, that is, it suddenly appears from an unfamiliar, new side, causing the viewer “surprise and curiosity”, stimulating “critical position in relation to the events depicted”, prompting social action. The "alienation effect" in plays (and later in Brecht's performances) was achieved by a complex of expressive means. One of them is an appeal to already known plots (“The Threepenny Opera”, “Mother Courage and Her Children”, “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”, etc.), focusing the viewer's attention not on what will happen, but on how it will be take place. The other is zongs, songs introduced into the fabric of the play, but not continuing the action, but stopping it. Zong creates a distance between the actor and the character, since it expresses the attitude of the author and the performer of the role, not the character, to what is happening. Hence the special, "according to Brecht", way of the actor's existence in the role, which always reminds the viewer that in front of him is a theater, and not a "piece of life."

Brecht emphasized that the “alienation effect” is not only a feature of his aesthetics, but is inherent in art, which is always not identical with life. In developing the theory of the epic theater, he relied on many provisions of the aesthetics of the Enlightenment and the experience of oriental theater, in particular Chinese. The main theses of this theory were finally formulated by Brecht in the works of the 1940s: "Purchase of Copper", "Street Stage" (1940), "Small Organon" for the Theater (1948).

The “alienation effect” was the core that permeated all levels of the “epic drama”: the plot, the system of images, artistic details, language, etc., down to the scenery, the features of the acting technique and stage lighting.

"Berliner Ensemble"

The Berliner Ensemble Theater was actually created by Bertolt Brecht in the late autumn of 1948. After his return to Europe from the United States, a stateless person and without permanent residence, Brecht and his wife, actress Helena Weigel, were warmly welcomed in the eastern sector of Berlin in October 1948. The theater on the Schiffbauerdamm, which Brecht and his colleague Erich Engel settled back in the late 1920s (in this theater, in particular, in August 1928, Engel staged the first production of the Threepenny Opera by Brecht and K. Weill, was occupied by the Volksbühne troupe ”, whose building was completely destroyed; Brecht did not find it possible to survive from the Theater on Schiffbauerdamm led by Fritz Wisten, and for the next five years his troupe was sheltered by the German Theater.

The Berliner Ensemble was created as a studio theater at the German Theatre, which shortly before was headed by Wolfgang Langhof, who had returned from exile. The “Studio Theater Project” developed by Brecht and Langhoff involved in the first season attracting eminent actors from emigration “through short-term tours”, including Teresa Giese, Leonard Steckel and Peter Lorre. In the future, it was supposed to "create your own ensemble on this basis."

To work in the new theater, Brecht attracted his longtime associates - director Erich Engel, artist Caspar Neher, composers Hans Eisler and Paul Dessau.

Brecht spoke impartially about the then German theater: “... External effects and false sensitivity became the main trump card of the actor. Models worthy of imitation were replaced by underlined pomp, and genuine passion - by a simulated temperament. Brecht considered the struggle for the preservation of peace the most important task for any artist, and Pablo Picasso's dove of peace became the emblem of the theater placed on his curtain.

In January 1949, Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children, a joint production by Erich Engel and the author, premiered; Helena Weigel acted as Courage, Angelika Hurwitz played Catherine, Paul Bildt played the Cook. ". Brecht began work on the play in exile on the eve of World War II. “When I wrote,” he admitted later, “it seemed to me that from the stages of several large cities a playwright’s warning would sound, a warning that whoever wants to have breakfast with the devil should stock up on a long spoon. Maybe I was naive at the same time ... The performances that I dreamed about did not take place. Writers cannot write as quickly as governments unleash wars: after all, in order to compose, you have to think ... "Mother Courage and her children" - late. Started in Denmark, which Brecht was forced to leave in April 1939, the play was completed in Sweden in the autumn of that year, when the war was already underway. But, despite the opinion of the author himself, the performance was an exceptional success, its creators and performers of the main roles were awarded the National Prize; in 1954, "Mother Courage", already with an updated cast (Ernst Busch played the Cook, Erwin Geschonnek played the Priest) was presented at the World Theater Festival in Paris and received the 1st prize - for the best play and best production (Brecht and Engel).

On April 1, 1949, the SED Politburo decided: “Create a new theater group under the direction of Helen Weigel. This ensemble will begin its activities on September 1, 1949 and will play three pieces of a progressive nature during the 1949-1950 season. The performances will be played on the stage of the German Theater or the Chamber Theater in Berlin and will be included in the repertoire of these theaters for six months. September 1 became the official birthday of the Berliner Ensemble; The "three plays of a progressive character" staged in 1949 were Brecht's "Mother Courage" and "Mr. Puntila" and A. M. Gorky's "Vassa Zheleznov", with Giese in the title role. Brecht's troupe gave performances on the stage of the German Theater, toured extensively in the GDR and in other countries. In 1954, the team received at its disposal the building of the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

List of used literature

http://goldlit.ru/bertolt-brecht/83-brecht-epic-teatr

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brecht,_Bertholt

http://to-name.ru/biography/bertold-breht.htm

http://lib.ru/INPROZ/BREHT/breht5_2_1.txt_with-big-pictures.html

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Courage_and_her_children

http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/bse/68831/Berliner

The Berlin Opera is the largest concert hall in the city. This elegant minimalist building appeared in 1962 and was designed by Fritz Bornemann. The previous opera building was completely destroyed during World War II. About 70 operas are staged here every year. I usually go to all productions of Wagner, whose extravagant mythical dimension is fully revealed on the stage of the theater.

When I first moved to Berlin, my friends gave me a ticket to one of the performances at the Deutsches Theatre. Since then it has been one of my favorite drama theatres. Two halls, a varied repertoire and one of the best acting troupes in Europe. Each season the theater shows 20 new performances.

Hebbel am Ufer is the most avant-garde theater where you can see everything except classical productions. Here, the audience is involved in the action: they are spontaneously invited to weave lines into dialogue on stage or to scratch on turntables. Sometimes the actors don't take the stage, and then the audience is invited to go through a list of addresses in Berlin to catch the action there. HAU has three venues (each with its own program, focus and dynamics) and is one of the most dynamic contemporary theaters in Germany.