Volume Three of Brecht's Collected Plays brings together work from 1929 to 1933, a crucial period of creativity for Brecht. St Joan of the Stockyards, a battle of good and evil set in a mythical Chicago, is full of pastiche and parody. The Lehrstücke or short "didactic" pieces, Lindbergh's Flight, The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent, He Said Yes / He Said No, The Decision, The Exception and the Rule, and The Horatians and the Curiatians, spare and highly formalized, show Brecht rejecting conventional theatre and seeking new forms of expression. The Mother, based on Gorky's novel, contains one of Brecht's great female roles.
The volume, edited and introduced by John Willett, includes Brecht's own notes and all the important textual variants.
