Engaging with Brecht

This book provides readers with a practical examination of the work of theorist, playwright, director, and poet, Bertolt Brecht. It offers fresh approaches to theatre professionals seeking new tools for analysis, staging methods, means of collaborating with production teams and ways of politically engaging with society. Engaging with Brecht: Making Theatre in the 21st Century is an essential volume for instructors, scholars and theatre artists, containing lucid explanations and modern examples of Brecht’s concepts. Featuring a wide variety of hands-on exercises, it illuminates Brecht’s methods for the classroom and the rehearsal hall, equipping readers with tried and tested approaches to theatrical creation. Brecht’s wide-ranging interests are reflected in the model for an interdisciplinary course of study that encompasses theatre history, playwriting, dramaturgy, design, acting, and directing. Rather than serving as a prescriptive manual, Engaging with Brecht allows the teacher, student, and theatre practitioner to experiment with the various methods provided in order to realize their own aims in instruction and production, revealing the continued importance and relevance of Brecht’s work in today’s world. The book offers new examples of and uses for such important Brechtian concepts as Verfremdung, Haltung, Arrangement, Gestus, Historicization, and Figure and applies them to work in the classroom and on stage in order to rethink our analysis and presentation of both classic and new plays.

Dr. Bill Gelber is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Texas Tech University, USA, where he teaches pedagogy, acting and directing at graduate and undergraduate levels, including courses in Shakespeare performance and studies of Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, and Samuel Beckett. He has directed over 60 productions in various genres including plays by Brecht, Shakespeare, Pirandello, Williams and Pinter.