Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic

This is a huge selection of essays written over many years. This not necessarily something you may want to just sit down and read straight through. If you do, you will find many contradictions over the years. At any rate, it is a very formative collection of Brecht's work, and certainly a must have for anyone who studies theatre or the arts in general.

Classic Text. Feel free to jump around chapters as you read this. It's a compilation of Brecht's ideas andis best read in random order.

Brecht's theater is a blast, a genuine attempt to do something unique and productive with the heretofore conservative and corporate medium of the stage. It represents the first wave of revolution in European theater since the English stage was closed in the mid-17th century. Brecht successfully constructs an antifascist, anti-exploitative theater without being didactic or heavyhanded about it. (As I mentioned, it's actually a blast.) Much of his success came from surrounding himself with brilliant and dedicated people, and much of the success of this collection of Brecht's writings comes from Brecht's polishing his ideas in the tumbler of real practice with those people. For me, Brecht's passing comments on Aristotle and Shakespeare are worth the price of admission.

There is only one way to describe this book: Paperback gold. I am currently studying A-Level theatre studies and I couldn't ask for a better resource on Brecht than this. However, I don't think it is necessary to be a drama student to read this book. Obviously some background knowledge of Brecht is helpful when tackling some of the essays that he has written but if you have any kind of interest in the theatre then have a go with this, it's very well edited and above all it's really quite an easy read.

As a theater major I found this book a must so I could understand the MAN(Brecht) as well as his concept of theater.... This book will leave in dismay of how he thought but a gunuine source of how much impact Brecht had on the world of theater