The Life of Edward II of England

A prefatory note to the play reads: Here is shown before the public the history of the troubled reign of Edward the Second, King of England, and his lamentable death likewise the glory and end of his favourite, Gaveston further the disordered fate of Queen Anne likewise the rise and fall of the great earl Roger Mortimer all which befell in England and specially in London, more than six hundred years ago.

[3] Looking back at the play-text near the end of his life, Brecht offered the following assessment of their intentions: "We wanted to make possible a production which would break with the Shakespearean tradition common to German theatres: that lumpy monumental style beloved of middle-class philistines.

"[4] The production of Edward II generated a moment in rehearsal that has become one of the emblematic anecdotes in the history of theatre, which marks a genuine event; a new organizing force had suddenly arrived on the theatrical scene and the shape of 20th-century theatre would come to be determined by the passage of the 'epic' through the dramatic, theatrical and performative fields.

Where each of the first three plays is, to some extent, a rejection of influences, Edward II is an attempt to lay the foundations of a new style of theatre, the development of which in practice and the definition of which in his theoretical writing would occupy Brecht for the rest of his working life.

[6]The play opened at the Munich Kammerspiele on March 19, 1924,[citation needed] in a production that constituted Brecht's solo directorial début.

The cast also included Andrew Achsen, Larry Attille, Christopher Cull, Michael Franks, Margo Gruber, Dan Johnson, Will Lampe, Joe Meek, Jason Moehring, Gay Reed, Count Stovall, Patrick Sullivan, and Jeffery V. Thompson.

[11] As part of the director's dramaturgical preparation, McDowell travelled to Germany to interview Erwin Faber and Hans Schweikart, two of the actors in Brecht's original production of 1924.