Backed up by previously unpublished papers and interviews with Brecht's colleagues and many lovers, this biography argues that Brecht was not in fact the author of the plays which have given him his iconic stature. "Mother Courage", "The Threepenny Opera" and "The Good Person of Szechuan", to name but a few of "his" most popular plays, were written (Fuegi calculates at least 80% of them) in a sex-for-text scheme by his mistresses, none of whom have ever received any recognition. Fuegi shows Brecht to have been personally offensive, politically slippery, sexually deranged, racist, an anti-Semite, a plagiarist, and mesmeric at the same time. Weaving together history and biography, the book offers encounters with Hitler the set designer, Kurt Weill, Charles Laughton (who lent Brecht his limo when he went to Hollywood), Rosa Luxemburg, Goebbels (who made up a third in a love triangle), Isherwood and Walter Benjamin.

Brecht and Company

Fuegi, John

HarperCollinsPublishers

Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, according to Plan (Directors in Perspective)

This is the first full-length study in any language of Bertolt Brecht's day-to-day work as a theatre director. Professor Fuegi has researched his subject extensively over many years, and this book is the result of interviews with Brecht's closest associates (including Helene Weigel, Angelika Hurwicz, Elisabeth Hauptmann and Hans Bunge), inspection of the unpublished typescripts recording several years of Brecht rehearsals at the Berlin Ensemble, and consultation of archival materials in Moscow, Berlin and Harvard University. Although Brecht is acknowledged worldwide as having changed our whole conception of playwriting, acting and directing, virtually nothing has been previously published which tells how he worked and reacted with actors, and how his productions were actually put together in rehearsal. John Fuegi now tells the story, evoking the excitement and controversy which surrounded Brecht's work on the stage. He examines the way Brecht applied his manic but brilliant character, in both personal and professional life (though these cannot easily be separated), in order to create the tension and confusion, contradiction and chaos, from which his best productions emerged. He shows how the plays must be seen in the light of their evolution on the stage through innumerable arduous rehearsals, themselves conditioned by the intense magnetism, spontaneity and unpredictability of Brecht's personality. Most importantly, the book charts the evolution of Brecht's own dramatic theory from his early rejection of Stanislavskian realism and his demands for emotional coolness from the spectator to his later acceptance of the power of theatre to involve, even to move, the audience. The book goes behind the scenes to look at the playwright's negotiation of contracts for his productions, commercial agreements which were often highly beneficial to himself but markedly less so to his collaborators such as Kurt Weill, Ruth Berlau and Elisabeth Hauptmann, and it talks frankly of Brecht's use of the 'casting couch', bestowing and withholding favours with the same volatility that characterized his remarkable love-life. The story is accompanied by illustrations, many of which have not been published before. It provides a much-needed antidote to some of the more sterile accounts of Brechtian theory, concentrating very much on the 'practice' but remaining at the same time vividly aware of the social and political context in which and about which Brecht was writing. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of theatre and of dramatic and comparative literature, and it is presented in a lively style that should also appeal to the general reader.

Humor & Entertainment

Cambridge University Press

This is the first full-length study in any language of Bertolt Brecht's day-to-day work as a theatre director. Professor Fuegi has researched his subject extensively over many years, and this book is the result of interviews with Brecht's closest associates (including Helene Weigel, Angelika Hurwicz, Elisabeth Hauptmann and Hans Bunge), inspection of the unpublished typescripts recording several years of Brecht rehearsals at the Berlin Ensemble, and consultation of archival materials in Moscow, Berlin and Harvard University. Although Brecht is acknowledged worldwide as having changed our whole conception of playwriting, acting and directing, virtually nothing has been previously published which tells how he worked and reacted with actors, and how his productions were actually put together in rehearsal. John Fuegi now tells the story, evoking the excitement and controversy which surrounded Brecht's work on the stage. He examines the way Brecht applied his manic but brilliant character, in both personal and professional life (though these cannot easily be separated), in order to create the tension and confusion, contradiction and chaos, from which his best productions emerged. He shows how the plays must be seen in the light of their evolution on the stage through innumerable arduous rehearsals, themselves conditioned by the intense magnetism, spontaneity and unpredictability of Brecht's personality. Most importantly, the book charts the evolution of Brecht's own dramatic theory from his early rejection of Stanislavskian realism and his demands for emotional coolness from the spectator to his later acceptance of the power of theatre to involve, even to move, the audience. The book goes behind the scenes to look at the playwright's negotiation of contracts for his productions, commercial agreements which were often highly beneficial to himself but markedly less so to his collaborators such as Kurt Weill, Ruth Berlau and Elisabeth Hauptmann, and it talks frankly of Brecht's use of the 'casting couch', bestowing and withholding favours with the same volatility that characterized his remarkable love-life. The story is accompanied by illustrations, many of which have not been published before. It provides a much-needed antidote to some of the more sterile accounts of Brechtian theory, concentrating very much on the 'practice' but remaining at the same time vividly aware of the social and political context in which and about which Brecht was writing. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of theatre and of dramatic and comparative literature, and it is presented in a lively style that should also appeal to the general reader.

A revolutionary portrait of one of the world's greatest theater artists examines his achievements as the product of his relationships with lovers and colleagues--whose work the charismatic and manipulative Brecht appropriated to fashion himself into a major literary force. 15,000 first printing.

Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama

History

Grove Pr

The result of twenty-five years of research on three continents, Brecht and Company is a revolutionary portrait of one of the world's greatest theater artists -- and the people upon whom he built his reputation. A noted Brecht scholar, John Fuegi traces the evolution of Brecht's parasitic relationships and aggressive ambition through close analysis of diaries, letters, and drafts of the literary works, revealing a man who was personally dazzling, a genius at assembling and directing the plays created in his workshop, but ultimately lacking in literary stamina, for which he depended on his lovers. A landmark study about the life and times of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century theater, Brecht and Co. will forever change our understanding of Brecht and his oeuvre. "[An] enormous, fascinating biography." -- The New Yorker "One of the most important critical studies of the century." -- New York Magazine

Brecht and Co.: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama (Grove Great Lives)

GROVE PRESS

The essential Brecht (University of Southern California studies in comparative literature, v. 4)

Hennessey & Ingalls

Brecht & Co: Biographie (German Edition)

Europäische Verlagsanstalt

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fuegi, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fuegi, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fuegi, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Brecht and Company

Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, according to Plan (Directors in Perspective)

Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, according to Plan (Directors in Perspective)

Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama

Brecht and Co.: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama (Grove Great Lives)

The essential Brecht (University of Southern California studies in comparative literature, v. 4)

Brecht & Co: Biographie (German Edition)