Weekend Brecht

Bertolt Brecht 

From Brecht's A Short Organum for the Theatre:

"Our representations [on the stage] must take second place to what is represented, men's life together in society; and the pleasure felt when the rules emerging from this life in society are treated as imperfect and provisional. In this way the theatre leaves its spectators productively disposed even after the spectacle is over. Let us hope that their theater may allow them to enjoy as entertainment that terrible and never-ending labour which should ensure their maintenance, together with the terror of their unceasing transformation. Let them here produce their own lives in the simplest way; for the simplest way of living is an art." (Translated by John Willett)

Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, directed by Robert Wilson, is at BAM Oct 4—8.