28/11/16-Single

Today's lesson involved research into Brecht. We was separated into 3 groups and each were given a controversial quote. The controversial quote for my group was 'Even though Brecht's plays were written 80 years ago how are they still relevant in today's world'. Using this quote we was given the task to come up with answers to this quote/question and present them to the class in a few lessons time.

When discussing this quote with my group I realised how much situations in today's world related to the meaning of Brecht's play in his time. Brecht was around as the same time as Hitler was in his prime as the dictator and mass murderer we know him to be today. We can only assume that he had a big influence on some of Brecht's plays. Mother courage is a perfect example where he highlights that war only brings misery and he is trying to highlight that war in general is just a waste of time. He also used to make digs at leaders like Hitler in his time however where he had set them during different time periods he got away without being arrested. We can apply this idea to many famous leaders we know today for example:

• Donald Trump
• Vladimir Putin 
• Kim Jong Un 

All of these world leaders can relate back to Brecht's plays. These world leaders, like Hitler, abuse their own power and become greedy for more. In Brecht's play Mother Courage arrogance can be seen in many characters. For example, Eilif becomes very arrogant as soon as he gains power in the Army, this greed for more unfortunately leads to Eilif's demise. I think Brecht wanted Eilif to represent Hitler as Hitler gained power through the Army and his greed for power led to his demise also. However this is all down to interpretation so this doesn't mean that this is the case. 

We have also come up with some questions to as the audience to get them debating as this is a great way to get them involved and understanding people's different interpretation of Brecht. One of the questions we came up with was 'If Brecht was alive in today's world, do you think he would still use theatre as his main platform to get his point across?'. I think that Brecht would use a different platform to convey his messages to people. Platforms such as social media (Facebook, Instagram etc) and Youtube could have been the ones he used. They offer a wide range of age ranged audiences meaning he could convey his points to a larger audience. However, we have to understand that in Brecht's time theatre was the only way he could convey his messages to the public hence why he wrote plays.