Why Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht is theater’s hottest old name
Actors F. Murray Abraham, left, and Mary Beth Peil on opening night of Bertolt Brecht’s The Three Penny Opera in New York in April 2014. Photo by Monica Schipper / Getty Images.
The playwright, theorist and poet Bertolt Brecht is known worldwide as a giant of modern theater. But until recently, few theaters — especially in the U.S. — have been staging his plays. Production companies haven’t seen much of a market for the Marxist playwright’s overtly political style and have generally stuck with more familiar, accessible works.
That’s starting to change. Since last year, Brecht suddenly seems to be everywhere. In New York alone, we’ve seen productions of The Good Person of Szechuan (originally translated as The Good Woman of Szechuan), A Man’s a Man, and The Threepenny Opera, which has also been performed in Long Beach, California, Washington, D.C., and Yorkshire, England.
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