Nachleben und Dokumentation: ‚Antigone‘ als Modellbuch bei Bertolt Brecht

The paper elaborates on the format of the model book in Bertolt Brecht’s work, focusing on the 1948 production of ‘Antigone’. For this performance, Brecht developed a model book together with Ruth Berlau and the stage designer Caspar Neher in order to document the development and staging of the play. The paper explores the interrelation between Brecht’s concept of the model and the practices, narrative procedures, and media of documentation. In this context, the question of afterlife proves to be central both to the plot of ‘Antigone’ and to questions of documenting and archiving theatrical work. The paper problematizes the model book as an essential example of Brecht’s work politics, in which claims of regulation and control conflict with those of unplanned change and renewal.