ABSTRACT
Bertolt Brecht collaborated with partners and friends throughout his life. Almost all his plays – including The Threepenny Opera, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Galileo, and Mother Courage – are the product of a close cooperation between Brecht and a set of his colleagues. They shared in collecting material, translating sources, putting text into verse and editing and re-editing after rehearsals. Among forms of literary partnerships, the Brecht circle is an extreme case of sustained collective production. Public recognition, however, has been focused on the individual Brecht, and “Brecht” has come to denote an author like many others. What explains this discrepancy between the process of producing these plays and public recognition? How have these texts become associated with one individual? In my analysis, I draw on letters by Brecht and his collaborators, memoirs, biographical research and the reception of Brecht’s life and work.1 Most prominent among his co-authors are the writer Elisabeth Hauptmann, the actress Grete Steffin, and the Danish journalist Ruth Berlau.
