Out of an increasing sense of frustration at not being able to access the WSJ’s website sans subscription, I’m posting my article of August  23, 2006 on Bertolt Brecht.  (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115628846460042784-search.html?KEYWORDS=Echt+Brecht%3A+A+Festival+in+Berlin&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month)

By A.J. GOLDMANN
August 23, 2006; Page D10
 

Berlin

Visiting this city in the early 1920s, Bertolt Brecht observed:  “The swindle of Berlin distinguishes itself from all other swindles through its breathtaking  shamelessness.” Sprawling, chaotic and artistically charged, Berlin was Brecht’s  kind of town and exerted such an influence on the young playwright that his  name practically became synonymous with the German capital. It was an  association that would last Brecht’s whole life.

It was here that he experienced his most staggering prewar successes  before fleeing Hitler in 1933, and to which he returned 15 years later at the  invitation of the East German government. It was here that he died 50 years  ago this month. Little surprise, then, that Berlin should be the center of this year’s  Brecht celebrations. In this atmosphere of adulation, it’s easy to forget the  controversies that continue to surround Brecht’s life and work, including his  politics and the disputed authorship of his plays.
 Although it’s a conventional staging of “The  Threepenny Opera,” the production at the Admiralspalast is packing  them in thanks to punk rocker Campino (left), who plays Mack the Knife.

A disappointingly conventional staging of “The Three-penny Opera” directed by Klaus Maria Brandauer, the Austrian actor best known  for the films “Mephisto” and “Out of Africa,” is lacking  in dramatic momentum. But the production, at the lush Admiralspalast, is  packing them in thanks to an all-star cast headed by the German punk rocker  Campino as Mack the Knife. In a bizarre promotional tie-in, the production  has teamed up with Strassenfeger (Street Sweeper), a newspaper sold by  beggars throughout the city. The paper devoted an entire issue to the production; it also serves as the de facto playbill.

The bulk of the festivities of the “Brecht Summer” are  being supplied by the Berliner Ensemble, which Brecht founded in 1949, at the  Theater am Schiffbauerdamm — the site of “Three-penny’s” 1928  premiere. The “Brecht-Fest” (until Sept. 3) offers a marathon of 76  plays, readings, lectures, film screenings and concerts, including all of  Brecht’s major works.

One of the high points is a shattering production of “Mother Courage and Her Children,” Brecht’s chronicle play about a war profiteer  who pays for her success with the lives of her children. Directed by the  Berliner Ensemble’s artistic director, Claus Peymann, it stars the riveting Carmen-Maja Antoni in the title role. Other highlights include guest  performances from Barcelona, Nice, Tokyo and Florence.

In an interview with the Berlin  daily BZ, Mr. Peymann called Brecht Germany’s “dramatic Himalaya”: “He is  possibly the only German playwright who truly has enjoyed world-wide  success.” He feels Brecht’s popularity is linked to his critique of a corrupt society, which continues to reverberate in today’s world.  “People are afraid, looking for meaning. Back then Germany was  also plagued by unemployment and economic uncertainty; politics were corrupt  and the banks were for sale.”

Brecht’s themes help make him, along with Chekhov, one of the most  frequently performed 20th-century playwrights. The first Paris  production of “Mother Courage” in 1954 gained immediacy in light of  the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Those  viewing “Mother Courage” today can find parallels to the war in Iraq.

But debate surrounds Brecht the artist and the man. Over the years,  scholars have pointed to other writers who had a hand in many of Brecht’s  best-known works. John Fuegi, a professor at the University of Maryland  and founder of the International Brecht Society, argued in his 1994  “Brecht & Co.” that a series of remarkable women who worked  with Brecht should be given their due.

Citing Brecht’s own admission that he had a “fundamental laxity  in questions of intellectual property,” Prof. Fuegi said that Brecht  marketed himself aggressively and negotiated lucrative publishing deals,  often at the expense of his collaborators. His book makes the claim, for  instance, that 80% of “The Threepenny Opera” was actually written by Brecht’s lover and frequent collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann.  Unexpectedly, an article in Strassenfeger details her contribution to  “Threepenny” and suggests that her name be listed alongside those  of Brecht and Weill.

Carl Weber, a professor of drama at Stanford University  and a directing assistant with Brecht in the 1950s, dismisses Prof. Fuegi’s  conclusions. He says that while Brecht did believe in a sort of  “collective authorship,” the key ideas were Brecht’s. Prof. Weber praises the “brilliant women” who worked on many Brecht plays as  strong and loyal, rather than as the victims Prof. Fuegi portrays.

Questions of authorship aside, the impact that Brecht has had on  theater, film and literature is undisputed. The director Peter Brook once  said, “Brecht is the key figure of our time, and all theater work today  at some point starts or returns to his statements and achievements.”  Brecht’s dismantling of classical dramatic form is seen overtly in the work  of Tony Kushner, whose “‘Angels in America’ has a very Brechtian  structure,” Prof. Weber says.

Although Brecht himself shied away from it in later years, his  technique of “Verfremdung”  (alienation) continues to inspire and provoke. It is a tool to make an audience think critically about what it is watching on stage, but not to the  exclusion of emotional attachment. “The audience of a Brecht play is  emotionally connected” before that connection is severed through ironic  means, Prof. Weber says. Strategies such as hanging explanatory placards onstage  and leaving stage machinery visible have inspired artists as varied as Trevor  Nunn, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Wilson, Peter Handke and, more recently, the  Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier.

Despite this influence, Brecht’s reputation in the West was for a  long time tainted by his commitment to communism. Prof. Weber is glad for the  greater embrace of Brecht’s varied body of work since the end of the Cold  War. “His plays have been liberated,” he says.

Mr. Goldmann  writes on culture from Berlin and New York.