Brecht in America

While Bertolt Brecht's German reputation was fairly well established by 1922, when he received the Kleist-Preis for his Expressionist play Trommeln in der Nacht, it was not until the production of Mahagonny and the Dreigroschenoper (in 1928 and 1929 respectively) that his work obtained sufficient success to justify its consideration as one of the important artistic forces to be reckoned with on the continent of Europe. The repercussion caused by the Dreigroschenoper spread East to Moscow and West to Paris, and even a rumor or two of this apotheosis of the old Beggar's Opera disturbed England's insular calm. 1 In the United States, no tangible evidence of Brecht's fame can be found before 1933, when the Dreigroschenoper had its first American performance.2 The history of the reception of Brecht's plays, poems and critical writings on these shores is full of misunderstandings, partly grotesque. It can be divided roughly into three phases, the first one ending with Hitler's rise to power and Brecht's flight to Scandinavia, the second-that of gestation-encompassing the period between 1933 and 1947, and the third-that of fruition-spanning

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