1933-1947 (Exile: Scandinavia, USA), Section 3 Summary and Analysis

Notes on the Folk Play - After a brief paragraph describing the roughness and crudity of folk plays ("a mixture of earthy humour and sentimentality, homespun morality and cheap sex"), Brecht discusses how the form devolved into the "musical revue", a collection of incidents and songs without linear narrative. This, in turn, leads to the question of style (noble and stylized versus realistic and intimate), both of which, Brecht says, ultimately "whitewash" the truth that theatre should be aspiring to present.

Alienation Effects in the Narrative Pictures of the Elder Brueghel - This is a collection of notes, some in informal point form, made by Brecht in response to viewing paintings by the medieval Flemish painter Brueghel. The notes focus on ways in which the artist's apparent intent to make the viewers look...