Book Reviews 
 
 
John Willett, Caspar Neher: Brecht's Designer. London and 
New York: Methuen, 1986. 141 pages (illustrated). 
 
    With a text largely by John Willett and with 76 black and white 
illustrations from various stages of Caspar Neher's career, this small 
paperback volume was designed to accompany an exhibition of Neher's 
work which toured England in 1986. The volume achieves what the large 
and expensive 1966 Caspar Neher by Gottfried von Einem and Siegfried 
Melchinger did not: some sense of how heavily Brecht as director relied 
on Neher's stage designs. With carefully selected drawings of proposed 
sets followed by photos of the stage realization of those sets, Willett 
clearly shows how important Neher's role was in the dozens of 
productions he did with Brecht. 
    The volume also contains a charming text by Egon Monk on 
Brecht's and Neher's work together staging the adaptation of Lenz's 
original play, The Private Tutor. This text originally appeared in German

in the Melchinger/ von Einem book. Monk presents here a small jewel of 
careful and understanding observation, refreshingly candid in the use of

human detail and far removed from high-flown theory or any idealization,

often produced by those with little knowledge of Brecht's practical and 
very down-to-earth stage work. 
    Willett is quite frank about the fact that Neher stayed in Germany 
during the Third Reich and worked until the theaters were finally closed.

Equally refreshing is the citation of the early Neher in the Augsburg and

Munich days, as he writes openly about Brecht's rather Kragler-like 
behavior at that time.The volume closes with a most useful "Neher 
Chronicle" which traces the main line of Neher's career without making

all the entries somehow dependent upon" or revolve around the axis of

Bertolt Brecht. At least one of the figures who contributed so much to 
the Brecht oeuvre finally begins to emerge in his own right as a major 
contributor to the modern stage, 
    This is a useful and well constructed work on a major figure who 
went in and out of the Brecht circle at various times in his life, and it
is 
strongly recommended. 
 
 
John Fuegi 
University of Maryland 
 
 
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