A History of the Berliner Ensemble

The Berliner Ensemble (BE) is a theatre company founded by Bertolt Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel in 1949 in what was soon to become the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The company quickly established itself as a high-quality producer of theatre, and this was attributable to two main reasons: i. the novelty and effectiveness of Brecht's radical approaches to making theatre and ii. the way in which the BE was structured. Brecht and Weigel sought to engage all members of the company and thus developed a fully functioning ensemble which attacked professional hierarchies in the name of collective production methods. After successful tours to Paris (1954) and London (1956), the BE gained an international profile and this attracted interest from Europe and beyond as theatre-makers sought impulses and ideas from a company devoted to Brecht's ideas.
The theatre continued to engage with and expand upon Brecht's ideas after his death in 1956, and the dynamism of its approach and its willingness to make use of collective creative energy led it to become a new model for how theatres could be organized. The BE was not without its problems, of course, and periods of innovation were matched by those of stagnation and confusion. Yet, the BE nonetheless remained one of the most interesting companies in Europe and focused on its Brechtian legacy as a way of negotiating the complexities of the GDR and, after 1990, the Federal Republic of Germany.
It is thus surprising that no scholarly study exists of this remarkable company. Perhaps this is because there is simply so much archival material available, without consultation of which a history cannot be properly researched. Brecht himself insisted on full documentations of his work and indeed that of others who directed at the BE, and this practice was maintained after his death. After all, the BE saw itself as a motor for generating approaches to making theatre politically, and sought to export its findings to other theatres, not least through full production dossiers. In addition, the BE was not free to choose its own repertoire or develop its own programme: the GDR was a dictatorship which sought to control cultural production centrally through its Ministry of Culture and other organs. There are thus also forty years of government papers which need to be consulted and evaluated, including those of the Stasi. The authorities constructed an extensive network of informers who worked for the Ministry of State Security. The Stasi archive also provides a fecund source for understanding the interaction between the covert intelligence community and its effects on the BE.
This pioneering study of the BE will thus seek to address some central issues concerning not only how radical theatre is made to the highest standards but how it also intersects with government policy and interference while trying to maintain its own distinctive approaches. After twenty months of archival study in Berlin, supported by a British Academy Research Development Award, I plan to write up my findings with an AHRC Fellowship. The broad scope of the study suggests that I should present the results in two volumes: 1949-1971 (from the BE's founding to the year in which Weigel dies and the first phase of the BE ends) and 1971-1999 (from the injection of new blood when Ruth Berghaus becomes Intendantin until the appointment of the current Intendant, Claus Peymann). The project will offer readers not only an authoritative history of the institution but also a series of case studies illustrating first how Brecht established a coherent but flexible method of making theatre and then how his successors took on his ideas only to develop them further.

Theatre Practitioners

The immediate non-academic beneficiaries of the project will be primarily connected with the theatre. In part, the two-volume study will feature a series of descriptions and analyses of Brechtian and post-Brechtian theatre practices. Such material has not been available in English (or indeed any other language) in any other form than John Fuegi's Chaos According to Plan (1987). Fuegi's book only features one study of Brecht's work at the Berliner Ensemble (BE), the place at which he worked sustainedly and experimentally for the last seven years of his life. Brecht's practice was varied and flexible, according to the project on which he was working, and extensive analyses of his directorial projects will be available to theatre-makers for the first time. His practices, however, were linked to their time, and so the study will add further examples showing how Brechtian practice developed and evolved over time. These examples will extend to the post-Wall period, allowing practitioners to understand how the tenets of Brechtian practice may still be deployed today in making theatre politically.
Brechtian theatre is something of a neglected art in the UK, primarily because Brecht's work is often treated a series of devices rather than as a method or approach to making theatre. This study will thus make the argument that one cannot simply pick or choose devices but must rather commit to a process. This change in emphasis is crucial in establishing the foundations of Brechtian practice, and these can help to lead to a re-evaluation of Brecht the theatre practitioner in UK theatres.

Theatre-goers

The popularity of my last book, on Fassbinder and the German theatre, led to my involvement in the world premiere of the opera version of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. The English National Opera invited me to write a scholarly and accessible essay for the programme and to speak at a 'study day' before an evening performance. I expect that the BE will prove a more popular subject than Fassbinder as a playwright and theatre director, and so opportunities to engage with theatre-goers themselves could be greater, too. Brecht is still much performed in the UK, and interest in this project may well lead to more frequent opportunities to participate in theatres' out-reach activities.
Material from the Fassbinder book has also been used (and translated) in the programmes of various European productions of the author's work. That is, the book was read by various dramaturges in Germany and further afield, and then quoted as a way of illuminating productions and/or interpretations. Again, I would imagine that the BE books would have a greater resonance and so my findings may well connect with foreign (and UK) theatres and help them with their productions of Brecht or with his methods.

Dissemination

While the study is initially envisaged as two hardback volumes to appear with CUP, I am confident that a paperback edition will follow (see 'Impact Plan' for more details). This will be able to find a wider audience because of its greater affordability and availability in bookshops. The two-volume format is also intended to make the wealth of material the study presents more accessible to a general reading public by not confronting them with a single weighty tome. CUP is an important international academic publisher with the ability to market and circulate books worldwide. I am also seeking to have the study published in Germany by Brecht's publisher Suhrkamp. This will extend its impact to the large network of German-language theatres (in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and allow them to benefit from the material described and analysed.
(An additional book, Making Theatre Politically: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, is also planned and will be written after the end of the Fellowship. The AHRC and the BA wil