These poems are brilliant and inspiring because they were written by a socialist. They were written to make you think about the system.

Questions by a Worker Who Reads is one of my favourite poems. The freeways, offices, electricity system and everything else in our civilization were not built by politicians or company executives - they were built by workers.

Bertolt Brecht has acquired the same status as those other artists whose work is known, but not appreciated. Like Faulkner, Joyce and Proust, he has become transmuted into an adjective; even worse, he has followers who describe themselves as "Brechtian" and who are happy to discuss his theories of drama instead of the dramas themselves. But things get even worse when you get closer to the man himself, for there is a wealth of evidence that "der arme B.B." was, in fact, a conscienceless thief who stole credit from everyone with whom he worked and, in particular, from the women he charmed into professional and emotional liaisons. Add to this his craven attitude towards Stalin, and his theories of epic theater seem to be, at the very least, a gross exercise in self-deception. All very off-putting. But his poetry is a different matter. Brecht approaches the reader without the arrogance of a theorist interested in instructing the audience how to think. He is more candid, both personally and politically, willing to condemn his own weaknesses and, in his later years, those of the movement that he had defended at any cost. And, most importantly, his poetry is fresh, direct, cutting and beautiful, even in translation. This is a volume that those who are interested in writing poetry should have.

I found this play, although interesting, to fully satisfy the alienation that Brecht intended to place upon his audience. It was somehow very difficult to feel any really emotion except disdain, and perhaps hatred, towards Mother Courage herself, and this was not helped by her continual hipocracy and mecurial nature. I would have prefered something perhaps slightly more aimed at providing a satisfying read (or show) for the audience, and somehow found "Mother Courage" rather depressing and horrid. She is a symbol for everything wrong with the world and I hope that I never come across anyone of similar moral or ethical values.

Brecht doesn't want emotion because that is Brechtian theater. He thought that in order for a play to invoke social change, it needed to be clear to the audience, that the audience needed to learn something. Emotions, Brecht felt, clog the mind and only feed the brain sentiment, not rational thought. Mother Courage and Her Children is, quite obviously, an anti-war play. Brecht wants you to see that war makes criminals out of everyone, even mothers. He wants you to love Mother Courage while you hate her so that the emotion is cancelled out and you are only left with the thoughts of her actions and why they were wrong. If you want a play to read or perform that is challenging, amazing, and intellectual all at once, this is the way to go. I performed this and I was forever changed.

Saying that Brecht didn't want his plays to evoke an emotional response is an extreme oversimplification of his theories. He just didn't want the emotional response to overwhelm the intellectual response and remove the audience's capacity to judge the work objectively. In this play, we have a heroine who is not a heroine. We understand her, but we never empathize with her. Consequently, the interdependence of war and economy is illuminated without making the reader wallow in excessive emotion. Yes, we do feel strongly when Kattrin is beathing her drum, but that feeling is not what the audience leaves with at the end of the play.

The author is best known for his theatrical work and poems, while his narrative prose has been underestimated. This collection of 37 short stories (reprinted for Brecht's centenary) shows another facet of Brecht's literatry gift. This is writing with an unpretentious tone and reporting style. The composition of the stories falls into three distinct periods. The Bavarian stories written between 1920 and 1924 treat mainly autobiographical problems of a young man in his early twenties. The Berlin stories written between 1924 and 1933 marks his most intense period in this genre. These stories have a sober and realistic style, thematically dominated by topical issues of the 1920's, aiming to reveal the social behavior of individuals. The third group refers to stories written during Brecht's exile (1937-1940), the first pieces serve as ammunition in the struggle against fascism, and the later ones have a strong socially critical orientation. The reader familiarized with the work of Brecht (poems and plays) will certainly recognize the author's style stamped in these short stories, his determination to represent reality accurately, lack of affectation, anecdotal but with a sense of dread. Quite a treat for a lover of short stories!

The author is best known for his theatrical work and poems, while his narrative prose has been underestimated. This collection of 37 short stories (reprinted for Brecht's centenary) shows another facet of Brecht's literary gift. This is writing with an unpretentious tone and reporting style. The composition of the stories falls into three distinct periods. The Bavarian stories written between 1920 and 1024 treat mainly autobiographical problems of a young man in his early twenties. The Berlin stories written between 1924 and 1933 marks his most intense period in this genre. These stories have a sober and realistic style, thematically dominated by topical issues of the 1920's, aiming to reveal the social behavior of individuals. The third group refers to stories written during Brecht's exile (1937-1940), the first pieces serve as ammunition in the struggle against fascism, and the later ones have a strong socially critical orientation. The reader familiarized with the work of Brecht (poems and plays) will certainly recognize the author's style in these short stories, his determination to represent reality accurately, lack of affectation, anecdotal but with a sense of dread. Quite a treat for a lover of short stories!

It's popular now-a-days to call communism "out of touch" and socialism "out of style." Brecht's question, then: Who should own anything? Should possession be nine-tenths of the law? Or should the laws of ownership remain an open-ended affair? -- could be called a foregone conclusion.

Woe to the foregone conclusion, then. Its trial date is ever on the way.

Laughably, the Helms-Burton bill, recently signed into law by Pres. Bill Clinton, is a giggle back to Brecht's discussion. And a silly one. One should think that were the United States to be in the business of giving back land "once stolen," that the Navajo, Sioux, Chippewa, et. al. would be first in line.

Not so!

Apparently, Cuba's land belongs not to its current owners, but to its capitalists of 40 years hence. Oh, silliness. Oh, amusement.

So ask Brecht's question, then, not as a socialist, a communist or a red. Ask it as a human being. To whom does anything belong? What is belonging? What is ownership? Who owns anything? When - and why - does ownership occasionally turn on its own head?

I had to read this for my theatre department at school. But as I did I found that through the course of this play, Brecht gives a sense of honesty in all of the chracters. Weather that honesty is good or bad, it is a truthfull play that brings forth many aspects of seraching for what is good and bad.

It's a fascinating play, but it's important to take into consideration that it takes up to 4 hours to produce in its entirety, requires a cast of up to 40 people plus orchestra and tech crew. The carnival scene (10) also requires many props, and setting it during the renaissance can be demanding for a costumier! We performed it outside in winter at night. Brrrr...

"The Measures Taken and Other Lehrstucke," by Bertolt Brecht, brings together four theater pieces by this important German playwright. The book is edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Included is an introductory note entitled "The Lehrstuck or Learning-Play," which is excerpted from an essay by Brecht. The pieces in this book, all of which were written from 1929 to 1930, are as follows:

"The Measures Taken," translated by Carl R. Mueller, is the story of a group of Communist agitators from Moscow who go to spread ... in China. It's a compelling story about the conflict between idealism and doctrinal orthodoxy. "The Exception and the Rule," translated by Ralph Manheim, is about an expedition headed by an exploitative merchant. It's a story of greed, violence, and law. "He Who says Yes" and "He Who Says No," both translated by Wolfgang Sauerlander, are a linked pair of plays; each one tells the story of a young man's quest to get medicine for his ailing mother.

Overall, the plays have a very ritualized quality; three of them make use of a chorus. The stories told in these plays have the flavor of parables. Overall, I found these pieces very intriguing, particularly in a post-Cold war context.

One has to know and understand the original German text of the Dreigroschenoper to be really able to judge the quality of the English translations. This one, used among others by Helen Schneider on her album with Weill songs, has nothing of the sarcasms of the German lyrics. Better read the 1954 translation of Marc Blitzstein or the translation made by Frank McGuinness in the early 1990s.

Of all the translations on the market, this one is the best -- most are watered-down, tepid versions. Manheim & Willet's was used in the late 1970's revival of the piece by the New York Shakespeare Festival, which starred the late Raul Julia and Ellen Greene (of "Little Shop of Horrors" fame, in the role originally intended for Lotte Lenya).