Talk:Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer

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This page is less then half about the actual Fatzer Fragment by Brecht and to a disproportionate amount about the American premiere of it.I suggest that the American Premiere bit should be broken out into its own page to enable other, Fatzer text specific comments to be added to this page.

There is a lot more to say about the Fatzer Text than what is mentioned here. So far it is mainly described as just another one of Brecht's epic dramas and referred to stage productions of it. However, Fatzer was written in the context of the Lehrstuecke which were not written for the stage but to be performed for learning purposes (= you learn by performing, vary the roles etc). Nothing of this is reflected in the current article.

The Fatzer fragment is of particular importance as Brecht himself, towards the end of his life, regarded it as his most important text. It is the text that he couldn't resolve, dealing with decisions between the individual (Nietzsche, Brecht's early phase) and the group or collective (Marx, Brecht's Learning Play phase with Die Massnahme as a central text). Brecht remarked at one stage that he is writing Fatzer first of all to inform himself about such questions ("zur Selbstverständigung") and this is how it should/could be used: to learn how Brecht himself learned about himself using that text.

It is also remarked, most notably by Heiner Müller that the Learning Plays should be considered the high point of Brecht's career, the period that produced the most aesthetical and otherwise advanced texts, but Brecht had to backtrack to more stage suitable types of drama as a response or firefighting experience first to Fascism, Exile and then the situation in the early GDR. In this respect the Fatzer text is considered by some as Brecht's real legacy.

--Dana08 (talk) 14:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)