Brecht Research

Brecht was alive from 1898-1956. This period was filled with two world wars which is a lifetime of violence to experience & formulated the need for more experimental theatre to express these things for an audience. He studied medicine in Germany before he decided to change direction in favor of expressionist theatre, challenging theatre as an art form & expanding its influence. This was within the new form of expressionism, established at the beginning of the first world war. This was to destroy convention in place of real emotion. This work was explosive & grotesque to a new audience however as it was so explicit in it depiction of life that it shook theatre as a process to it's core. I think that it's vital to the development of art to be continually pushed in a socio-political direction, stretching what the audience can stand against what they deserve to see to convey a message. Once this medium is reached between explicit & the political is where Brecht thrives. Finding the need to evoke such strong emotion through the political issues in order for the audience to recognize & expand their understanding of a subject was Brecht's pure goal.

Baal at this time, a play concerned with suffering caused by excessive sexual pleasures. It sensationally depicted what were considered immoral attitudes at the time. This was showing the direction that Brecht aimed for & that the issues that he would tackle had no limit to their scope or scale, politically or socially. By having such an apt way with words & a vision to rival many he was began to become an infamous artist within the theatrical landscape.