Los Angeles Times

Critic’s Notebook: ‘Siegfried’ via Brecht’s alienation effect

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. Confession: I finally had my Achim Freyer fit. It was during the first ...
Hyperallergic

This Opera Doesn't Need You

I always thought there was something half-baked in Bertolt Brecht’s formulation of the “alienation effect.” First, there is a discrepancy between what he aims for and the method he proposes to get ...
The Chronicle of Higher Education

For Brecht, an Ironic Encore

Even so, they add, the Brecht legacy is shaky, as a result of problems that have nothing to do with Mr. Fuegi’s book. Broadway theaters shy away from Brecht, whose plays require large casts and ...
The American Conservative

Brecht’s Galileo: Hero or Anti-Hero?

No, Andrea: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” The lines, Galileo responding to the parting words of his pupil, Andrea Sarti, who is furious and betrayed by his teacher’s recantation, are from ...
Los Angeles Times

Review: ‘The Partnership’ looks anew at Brecht’s creative circle

The German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) inspired extremes of loyalty and antipathy. Brilliant, charismatic and seductive, he was professionally unreliable and personally deceptive.