Brecht?

I'll be honest and say that I haven't particularly enjoyed any of the three Brecht shows we have seen during our time here in Berlin. In a way I feel like we're kind of screwed going into any Brecht show simply because of the way his work has been presented to us throughout our education. "You're not supposed to connect with Brecht's work. It's all about alienation." We've gotten the Sparknotes version of Brecht since high school, and because of that I kind of feel like I'm trapped in what is probably an incorrect perception of what his work should be, what affect it should produce on an audience.  Perhaps it is the anticipation of seeing Brecht performed "the way it should be" that has tainted each experience for me, made me feel as if I myself am missing something, the key that would unlock the secret as to why Brecht has been deified by theater history.

I've questioned whether subtitles would help me to enter the shows in a more engaging way. I've questioned whether the tiresome nature of each production, the inability to connect on an emotional level with the work, is purposeful or a product of ineffective productions. Brecht has become even more of an enigma after actually getting the chance to see his work in its native tongue, in his native land. After seeing three radically different productions of his work, it doesn't seem as if anyone has quite put their finger on what his work was/should be today. Has he become another Shakespeare, a playwright whose work some directors use simply as the loose basis for their own artistic explorations, their own high concept work and aesthetic circle-jerking? On the other hand, as some of us saw in "Mother Courage," is his work simply a museum piece now? The work that high schoolers come and suffer through on a school trip as they sneak glances at their iPhones? Is anyone doing a production of Brecht today that would evoke the same sensational feelings that skyrocketed him to the top of the theatrical universe? Or are we all just pretending to enjoy his work, to engage deeply with him, because we feel it is our duty to history?