The Mother [antikvár]

The Mother was written in the style of a Lehrstück ("play for learning"), although it requires Professional actors. The play's dramaturgy is antimetaphysical, materialistic and non-aristotelian. Thus it declines to assist the spectator in surrendering himself to empathy in the unthinking fashion of the Aristotelian dramaturgy; and it relates to certain psychic effects, as for instance catharsis, in an essentially different manner. In the same way as it refuses to tacitly hand over its heroes to the world as though to an inalterable destiny, it alsó has no intention of handing over the spectator to a "suggestive" theater experience. Rather its concern is to teach the spectator a most definitely practical conduct that is intended to change the world, and for this reason he must be afforded a fundamentally different attitűdé in the theater from that to which he is habituated. -From Brecht's Notes to The Mother