Chapter five is the most programmatic of all. It grew out of uneasiness about my role as coach of teams participating in international moot court competitions. These competitions claim to bring litigation practice into legal education. However, although I see the value of mooting, I increasingly felt that these competitions were neither reflecting practice nor what academic training should be about. The chapter is an attempt to articulate my uneasiness as well as to come up with an alternative. It contains a critique on international moot court competitions, based on a comparison between two traditions of rehearsing in European theatre. The first understands rehearsing as mimicking an ideal model as closely as possible. Most existing international moot court competitions, I argue, fit this tradition. The second is the Brechtian tradition, which understands rehearsing as experimenting an echo of Kierkegaard’s notion of "repetition forward." In the last part of the chapter, I rethink international moot court competitions along Brechtian lines. Instead of training students to outperform others according to pre-fixed criteria, I seek to develop a moot noncompetition, which brings students and staff together in a common experimental environment where the boundaries of litigation are probed.

An analysis of brecht's most popular piece along tragic parameters.

This chapter explores in particular the 'greek presence' in the small organon, as manifested in the form of greek tragedy and/or its theorist aristotle. This is embedded within a broader analysis of this key work as a fundamenal contribution to theatre theory. New archival material in the form of brecht's type-written inserts into his personal copy of aristotle's 'poetics' is published for the first time and discussed in detail.

The brechtian tragic is inconceivable without the brechtian comic. Virtually no brecht play lacks a strong comic dimension, covering the whole range of the genre (parody, commedia, slapstick, clown etc.). Brechtian tragi-comedies call for special attention in this context, and this chapter contains detailed analyses of the resistible rise of arturo ui as well as the fragmentary, aristophanes-inspired pluto revue.

Brecht is one of the few 20th-century artists who regularly uses choruses as a theatrical device. Its use by brecht leads to fundamnetal observations about his dramatic art more generally.

The significance of the model book, which developed out of the 1948 production of the antigone, far exceeds its immediate context. Like the production which it is based on, it is an exemplary case study for brecht's novel kind of theatre in its dramaturgical, actorial and directorial dimensons. The diverging format of the two editions of the model book and their significance are discussed. The chapter concludes with a plea for re-inventing the model book format.

The chapter explores affinities with tragedy and the use of tragic themes in this brecht/weill opera.

Natualism is the closest other for brecht and therefore required the strongest differentiation. As a particularly empathy-driven form of theatre, it provoked particularly polemical responses from him which in turn also helped brecht to articulate his own ideas more clearly.

An exploration of brecht's most overtly tragic play .

An analysis of one of brecht's masterpieces as a deep and powerful exploration of the tragic 'big form'.

Another one of brecht's masterpieces, the galileo explores the fall of one scientist and the ongoing rise of science.

This chapter situates brecht's conception of greece relative to his notions of asia and his use of the asian theatre traditions, in particular japanese noh theatre. This other other supplied brecht with crucial technical ideas but also served as the pure and uncompromised theatre tradition which was uniformly positively connoted.

The 'genius' shakespeare has a unique position for brecht and continues to be one of his (few) life-long artistic companions. Of particular interest here is brecht's adaptation of shakespeare's coriolanus, including his translation, which shows remarkable poetic skills but also points to ways of overcoming the tragic impasse and traditonal tragedy's (unproductive) focus on the (disposable) individual by showing the transformational power of collectives.

An integrative concluding exploration of the book's key themes and insights which is also designed to function as a stand-alone piece.

Based on a naturalist play, this collaborative adaptation showcases brecht's originality, not least through the framing action and the internal audience. Which brecht created.

The bold and idiosyncratic piece 'the measure' is perhaps brecht's most challenging experiment with the 'big form'.

Brecht was exposed to schiller, a formative influence throughout his life, from an early age. While schiller supplied brecht with tragic language (both as langue and parole) and an intellectualist attitude towwards drama, his idealistic conception of theatre, human morality and freedom provoked parodic responses from brecht, especially in his st joan of the stockyards.

With quotations from Phiip Gossett, Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Tom Christensen, the argument is reiterated for an ‘integrative model for French opera’ that includes opera with spoken dialogue. The importance of the independent, commercial theatre and the cultural value it commanded in Paris are summarised. Knowledge of French popular opera is demonstrable elsewhere, with London the obvious example shown in research by Vanessa Rogers and Erica Levenson. The nature of John Gay’s musical integrations in The Beggar’s Opera is compared with Paris practice and with Brecht’s in Die Dreigroschenoper. Key discoveries in the book are reviewed, especially the ‘new’ manuscript for La Chercheuse d’esprit. Opéra-comique research by Thomas Betzwieser and Ruth Müller is summarised and related to the current project, ending with further quotations from Tom Sutcliffe, Thomas Bauman and Alfred Roller.

Key themes of this book are introduced. This includes brecht's position relative to the western dramatic tradition, the structure of this book and the range of brecht's exposure to (greek) tragedy. The notions of genealogy and analogue are introduced. The chapter concludes with a case study, brecht's use of masks.