Actors Arno Wyzniewski and Ekkehard Schall and director Manfred Wekwerth, all members of the Berliner Ensemble, talk about Bertolt Brecht’s theater theories and methods, which made him one of the most important twentieth-century playwrights and directors, both in Germany and internationally.

The film features important events in Brecht’s life, including his move to Switzerland in 1947, after fifteen years in exile; his ambivalences about moving to East Berlin the next year; the founding of the Berliner Ensemble; and his extensive work there, with up and downs resulting from shortsighted East German cultural policies, until his death in 1956.

The director also explores the importance of Brecht in the late 1980s. This short film includes quotations from Brecht’s Arbeitsjournals; historic photos of Brecht and performances of his plays; and footage of rehearsals of Heiner Müller’s adaptation of Brechts’s Der Untergang des Egoisten Johann Fatzer (The Downfall of Egoist Johann Fatzer) at the Berliner Ensemble in 1988.