Art Instead of Romance: Brecht's Collaborations with Women

Summary

Most of the women who collaborated with Brecht or acted under his direction were women with whom he was not romantically involved—Asja Lacis, Elisabeth Bergner, Anna Seghers, Hella Wuolijoki, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Regine Lutz, to name only a few. No matter if they, too, were attracted by his creative genius, his sparkling wit, his seductive charms, they by no means sacrificed their independence by working with him. This also had to do with Brecht's own character and behavior. To those women who were older, he exhibited none of the oedipal struggles of a Hamlet. To those younger, he showed paternal guidance and interest. And toward those who were his peers, he behaved as one among equals. (That he could be selfish and unyielding, even cruel, when it came to the women he loved, notably toward his wife and his lover Ruth Berlau, is well known. But this is not our topic here.)

These attitudes that he modeled in his own life are evident in his stance as an author toward the many strong women figures he created for his plays. That he was able to do so was largely due to the talents of his wife Helene Weigel, a remarkably strong and independent woman in her own right, whose inspiration and influence allowed him to create some of his best-known women characters, which of course she herself first played: Frau Begbick, Pelagea Wlassowa, Señora Carrar, the Jewish wife, Antigone, Mother Courage. After they returned to Berlin in 1948 and created their own ensemble—Weigel as Intendantin, Brecht as artistic director— they became a tenacious collaborative team whose ingenuity made the Berliner Ensemble one of the most renowned theater companies in Europe. It was surely to a great extent because of his solid relationship with his wife and collaborator Helene Weigel that Brecht was able to build working partnerships with other emancipated women.

Asja Lacis

In 1918 the Latvian Bolshevik Asja Lacis gave up her career in Moscow's legitimate theater to work with abandoned juveniles and orphans because she believed improvisation helped children “become aware and develop.” In 1920 she set up a theater studio in Riga for lay workers and prisoners. Between 1922 and 1924 she was in Berlin and Munich where she introduced theater practitioners to the avant-garde experiments of Meyerhold and Tairov.