ABSTRACT

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) possessed an intense visual sensibility; in his writing for and about the stage his poems and stories are filled with admiration for lightness and material elegance, and for stage settings that display an "aesthetic of selective precision and implied human presence". The scenographic played a fundamental role as Brecht and his collaborators grappled with innovative narrative methods and rehearsal practice. He found joy in working alongside scenographers and his writing is filled with reference to the theory and practices of scenography. Dialogue within the process of making performance, and dialogue whereby the spectator constructs meaning in performance, continue to be significant issues of interest within contemporary theory and practice. Brecht and Caspar Neher's scenographic dialogues offered political and aesthetic "space" for both the artists and the audience whose integration can establish the dialectic nature of performance.