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Where Extremes Meet: Rereading Brecht and Beckett / Begnung der Extreme.
Brecht und 
Beckett: Eine Re-interpretation 
show the complete stage picture so that the blocking pattern can be 
ascertained clearly. 
        From all available evidence, Beckett appears to have been 
much more insistent on ultimate control of his texts in performance 
than Brecht was. 
The fundamental difference between B & B: 
n spite of the many traits of their theatrical practice that they shared,
  there remain, of course, profound differences between the two 
playwright/directors. I don't think I need to elaborate here, but let me
mention one instance where their attitudes differed sharply: Brecht held
that, as a playwright and director, he was obliged to enlighten his 
audience about their position with respect to society, and to advocate 
social change, i.e. the improvement of society, which, in his view, was 
most likely to be attained through socialism. Beckett, on the other 
hand, had no avowed intention to educate anyone or to change the 
world in the least. When the critic/scholar Katherine Worth mentioned 
to him that Edward Bond "wanted to change the world" with his plays,
Beckett commented: "Let it turn!" 
Some of the lessons we can learn from B & B: 
W      alter Asmus: "What I learned foremost from  working with 
       Beckett was: to strive for precision, to strive for simplicity, to
encourage actors to be simple with their means, to trust simplicity, to 
dare not to act, to act concretely and functionally." 
        This was also one of the most valuable lessons I learned from 
working with Brecht. Others were: the importance of creating a precise 
and easily readable visual narrative and of defining a concrete and 
sharply profiled gestus of characters when working with the actors. 
Most of all, to strive in the scenic writing for the clearest possible 
articulation of the fable as it has been derived from the text. 
Walter Asmus 
B&B 
here is almost nothing left to tell, to quote Beckett. We are 
      marrying them! I get the feeling B&B are now more or less 
      synonomous. The only thing I can do is carry on in this vein. 
But I can't refrain from remarking that there were times when Beckett 
was a persona non grata on one side of the world, and Bertolt Brecht 
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