Bertolt Brecht : Chaos, according to Plan (Directors in Perspective)

Rating:
Summary: Are we reading the same book??
Review: I don't quite understand the previous reviewer's comments.
This book is a very good introduction from a technical point of
view. It surveys the career of Brecht as a stage director. This aspect of Brechtian studies in the Anglo-American circle is lacking. Carl Weber and John Rouse are leading scholars on this topic, but you have to dig hard and deep to find their articles.
If anything, the detailed record on the production of the Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Berliner Ensemble which forms the core of chapter six is an absolute keeper. It details how Brecht directed this play himself. What kind of things he was looking for? What to focus on? What to work on? How? It's invaluable but it's ignored again and again by college teachers who try to piece together theorectical expressions from defferent periods in Brecht's career. I say none of this nonesense; instead, study chapter six, if your German is not good enough and then you will get a handle on Brecht.
The rest of the book is a little chaotic, and his writing is a bit imprecise sometimes. People familiar with Eric Bentley's or Martin Esslin's books will recognize that the lack of political consciouness does not start with Fuegi. Fuegi really has some contributions to the study of the theatricality in Brecht by focusing upon the so-called "theatre" side.
What fouls Fuegi's reputations as a scholar and a biographer is his notorious biography published later. That volume is now deservedly out of print.

Rating:
Summary: American neurosis
Review: This book is a compendium of America's neuroses, from its puritanism through its hatred for anything smacking of socialism all the way to its feminist-inspired guilt feelings towards women. These neuroses are then projected on Germany, leading to countless misunderstandings concerning the nature of German history and life. As an account of Bertolt Brecht and the world in which he operated this book is all but worthless. If you want to understand how crazy Americans really are, however, by all means go ahead and study it as carefully as you can.