Bertolt Brecht

Brecht was born on February 10th 1898 in Bavaria. He was 16 when WW1 broke out, though he was initially enthusiastic, he felt his classmates were being "swallowed by the army."  He enrolled in a medical course at Munich University in 1917, which then lead onto him becoming a medical orderly in a military clinic. Appalled by the effects of war, he first went Munich. then Berlin, to pursuit an acting career.

Unsatisfied with society after WW1, his work fits well with the development of Marxism at the time. By WW2 he was an established figure. He was a pacifist who didn't believe in war and so fled Nazi Germany the day after Hitler became chancellor.

The experiences and events that Brecht lived through helped develop his political voice. He had an original approach to acting and brought a dynamic theatrical style to present his views.Though his most acclaimed work, "Mother Courage and her Children." , is a period piece set in the 1600's, it's a highly regarded anti-war play and is extremely relevant to our contemporary society.

His work had a huge impact on theatre's development and his ideas were so revolutionary that some changed the way people approached theatre forever. He used his work as a force against the popularity of naturalism at the time, and wanted to make the audience think. He wanted the audience to remain apparent that they're watching a play and avoid getting emotionally involved as he felt they would lose their ability to think and judge. He would use various different techniques to remind the audience that what they were watching was not real, this was named Epic Theatre. He called his use of distancing the audience from emotional involvement the verfremdungseffekt.