A New and Historical Theatre in Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galileo? - Kristina Kolb

Literature Review from the year 2007 in the subject Theater Studies, Dance, grade: 90%, The Open University, language: English, abstract: Just like Brecht's ideas about theatre changed throughout his career as a dramaturg and a playwright, most prominently embodied in the three different versions of Life of Galileo, moving away from the formalist epic theatre towards a dialectical one, so have our perceptions of the theatre, and what was new and revolutionary during the early years of the play's production has now been reappropriated by high culture. While Brecht displayed a great awareness of the need to continuously adapt his play in order to not only make it appropriate for the times, but also to maintain it appropriate in the light of changing times, different productions of the play have only done so with limited courage and success, leading to the sad result that what Life of Galileo once embodied is usually not entirely what it embodies now.