Caspar Neher, the focus of Abbott and Holder’s upcoming exhibition, was a long-time collaborator with the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Neher designed the stage sets for a number of his theatre productions in the 1920s and ‘30s.
Brecht wanted his productions to appeal to the logic of the audience rather than its emotion. He wrote: “Stage designers feel they have achieved their aim if you can look at the stage and believe you are in a real place in real life. What they ought to be doing instead is to make you believe you are in a good theatre.”
Brecht was dubbed the greatest stage designer of his day.