Brecht Is at Home In Asia: A Report on the 
IBS Symposium in Hong Kong 
December 1986 
 
 
Carl Weber 
 
 
 
 
    When in December 1986 scholars from all over the world arrived in 
Hong Kong for the Seventh Symposium of the International Brecht 
Society, few of them expected a conference with so many par- 
ticipants, or the number of papers presented or productions 
performed. Aside from 125 academics, there were 139 actors and 37 
stage directors or designers who had come to Hong Kong to discuss 
Brecht's work and its impact on contemporary theatre and/or society. 
Nearly 50 papers were read; panels brought together directors from 
European and Asian countries; there were performances, demon- 
strations and video recordings of performances shown, and altogether 
10 productions could be seen in theatres or concert halls. This 
encounter of Brecht research and practice was the most intensive and 
extensive symposium the International Brecht Society has ever 
assembled. 
    Many of the papers are published in this present volume, and I am 
sure the resonance of the conference will be felt in future Brecht 
research. What deserves immediate reporting and a first evaluation, 
however, are the performances that were presented during the week; 
after all, they added up to a first truly international Asian Brecht 
Festival. 
    A wide range of works and approaches could be seen; there were 
highly polished productions by top professional companies as well as 
spirited semi-professional, agit-prop type presentations; there was an 
exquisitely honed recital in cabaret format as well as remarkably 
skilled work by young Hong Kong acting students. We saw lavish 
stagings of some of the major plays next to resolute adaptations done 
in the most simple, but effective, street theatre style. And there was 
also new work which applied Brecht's dramaturgic and performance 
theories. 
    What became evident was that Brecht has considerable relevance 
for much contemporary Asian theatre and only now has he been truly 
discovered in some countries. It also became evident that there is 
passionate disagreement about Brecht's potential impact, pitting 
scholars and theatre practitioners from the West against those from 
Asia. Many of the discussions and the papers read during the 
conference dealt with a lingering Brecht fatigue in the West, especially

in Western Europe, while others described the invigorating effect his 
plays and his theories have in Asia and other parts of the so-called 
Third World. Especially noteworthy in this context is the fact that 
 
 
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