Bertolt Brecht wanted theater audiences to think, not weep. The "alienation effect" was his great invention: break the illusion, remind the house that this is a play, make it judge what is happening rather than feel along with it. A revolution in the theater.
He was born in Augsburg in 1898, a medical student who wrote plays. The Threepenny Opera (1928) — a reworking of The Beggar's Opera with music by Kurt Weill — became the sensation of Berlin. The bandit Macheath, corruption, the marketplace, morality turned inside out.
When Hitler came to power he fled: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the USSR, the United States. In Hollywood he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The next day he left for Europe for good.
In East Germany he founded the Berliner Ensemble. Mother Courage and Her Children, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Life of Galileo. He died in 1956. The theater is still at work.