BRECHT IN PRACTICE
David Barnett |
| The International Brecht Society | Lots of useful information, free access to articles on Brecht from the Brecht Yearbook, and membership details |
| e-cibs | The electronic publication of Communications of the International Brecht Society. Includes reviews, interviews and articles |
| The Writing Brecht Project | A project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that has already led to new translations of little-known material by Brecht into English. The ‘Media’ section has some great material on performing the poems |
| Brecht in English | A link to the publisher, Bloomsbury, which prints most of Brecht’s works in English |
| Splendid Theatre | To my knowledge, this is the company that developed the ‘tickle and slap’ approach to Verfremdung. That is, drawing an audience in with something amusing or fun, before re-presenting it (making it strange) as something more vicious or hard-hitting.
While Splendid does a lot of work with secondary schools, it is rightly known for its Brechtian theatre. Well worth contacting for a workshop. |
| BBC 2 Documentary on Brecht | Contains lots of excellent archival material in its three sections, interviews with Helene Weigel and Carl Weber, among others, and clips from the Berliner Ensemble. While some of the ideas may be a little old-fashioned, the overall piece is worth a view. |
| Carl Weber on Brecht | A short film in which Weber remembers his time with Brecht and sets out some useful Brechtian theatre principles |
| David Zoob Using Brecht | Here and in four other short films (videos two, three, four and five), David Zoob of Rose Bruford College gives glimpses of how Brecht’s theories can be concretely applied in practice. It’s a shame that he doesn’t address theoretical ideas directly, but his approaches are clear, helpful and useful. |
| Brechtian Acting | Extracts of a talk I gave at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2014 |
| Why Brecht is Still Relevant | Laura Bradley of Edinburgh University, discussing The Caucasian Chalk Circle, gives a great account of Brecht’s theatre and its politics |
| Making Brechtian Theatre | Ron G. Davis with some sage words on what staging text with a Brechtian approach can mean |
| Brecht in Rehearsal | Authentic recordings of Brecht in rehearsal, sounding very angry at first, then more evidence of the laughter often reported by his creative team |
| Jawohl, Brecht | A wonderful, hour-long film, made by one of Brecht’s assistants from the 1950s, the late Peter Voigt. Some great anecdotes and insights. |
| https://brechtfestival.de/ | A link to this year’s Brecht Festival in Augsburg, run by the artists Jürgen Kuttner and Tom Kühne; |
If you have any suggestions for Brecht-related material on the web, contact me here: david.barnett@york.ac.uk
BRECHT IN PRACTICE
David Barnett |