A History of the Berliner Ensemble by David Barnett (review)

David Barnett’s history of the Berliner Ensemble (BE) provides an in-depth history of the company that Brecht established in 1949, shortly after settling in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It offers profound historical insights into the artistic development of the BE over the fifty years from its founding under Brecht and Helene Weigel to 1999, the very eve of the tenure of its current Intendant (general manager), Claus Peymann. Although the BE is still a functioning company, Barnett gives compelling reasons for limiting his history to these five decades: as he asserts in his conclusion, Peymann’s takeover of the company “was the point at which the BE as such ceased to be the BE” (445). Barnett’s study presents valuable perspectives on why and how this came to be the case.

Given the BE’s status as “Brecht’s theatre,” a history of the company is very much welcomed by those with an interest in Brecht as a practitioner and the development of his theatre after his death. However, the BE is not interesting solely for having been the company with which Brecht was able to try and test his dialectical approaches to theatre. As Barnett writes, the BE is “an intriguing and contradictory object of inquiry” (3) because its history presents a set of historical contradictions in terms of its day-to-day running, its legacy, and its relationship with authority. This was a Brechtian theatre that had difficulty deploying dialectical methods in a renewal of theatre, yet while its approach became influential across the world, the BE itself stood under the constant threat of the burden of tradition. Moreover, despite the Marxist foundations of the BE’s approach to theatre, its history was colored by difficult relations with a self-avowed Marxist-Leninist regime. Barnett leads his readers through this history in chronological order, structuring it around moments of crisis and resolution: from the difficulties of establishing the company in the first place to its status as a valuable international commodity in the eyes of the GDR authorities, through the troubled years of Manfred Wekwerth’s leadership and eventually to its attempts to survive as a limited-liability company in a reunified Germany. Throughout, Barnett gives a thorough treatment of the actions and key players that determined the artistic course of the BE. With his emphasis on the stylistic development of the ensemble over these years, his first chapter provides excellent potted accounts of key Brechtian terms and debunks some myths about Brecht’s own leadership practice along the way. This and the following three chapters focus on the company under Brecht’s tenure and firmly place the reader to appreciate and understand the work of his successors during the period after his death in 1956, discussed in the successive ten chapters and conclusion.

As Barnett states in his introduction, the indefinite article in the book’s title is an indication that, of course, the history of a company with a history as rich as that of the BE cannot claim to be definitive. Yet, this history will likely become a standard work, and not undeservedly. The level of archival research that has gone into this book, and the many interviews conducted for it, enable Barnett to shed new light on moments in the BE’s history. Indeed, that Stephen Parker’s Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life (2014, reviewed in Loren Kruger’s review essay in this issue) makes regular references to Barnett’s unpublished manuscript is itself a testament to the thoroughness of the latter’s primary research, which complements his extensive critical reading of important secondary sources. On top of this, as ever, his clear and eminently readable style provides accessible summaries of the countless organizations and individuals that populate the BE’s history, which makes for compelling reading. The reader occasionally wonders at how on earth he managed to publish much of the material. For example, Barnett’s insights into Barbara Brecht-Schall’s constant interference in [End...