First published in the 1950s and expanded in later editions, this book breaks Brecht’s practice into eight interlocking elements—structure, staging, music, acting, narrative form, and the political function of theatre.

Willett, who was also Brecht’s English translator and a central figure in introducing Brecht to Anglophone audiences, writes with both scholarly clarity and practical theatrical understanding. Rather than treating Brecht as an abstract theorist, he shows how epic theatre actually functions on stage: how alienation works, how gesture becomes argument, and how performance can provoke thought rather than identification.

For theatre students and directors the book has long functioned as a working manual; for readers of Brecht it provides a precise map of the mechanics behind one of the twentieth century’s most influential dramatic traditions.