In 1930 he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Town of Mahogany. Also during this year he wrote his first "exemplary plays," A Man's Man, which introduced his unorthodox idea of "epic theatre." Epic theatre is a technique created by Brecht, which causes the audience to feel no emotions about a play, but to think critically about its content. This would become a well-used and important technique in Brecht's later plays.
In 1933 Brecht's Marxist political beliefs forced him to go into self-imposed exile, from fascists Germany. His writings had made him a natural enemy of the National Socialists, rising to power in his native country. He first managed to escape to Switzerland, then to Scandinavia. With help from some of his fellow artists and exiles, especially Lion Feuchtwagner, Brecht was able to come to the United States of America. He became anti-Nazi writer for a periodical published in Moscow, and produced the 1938 drama Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. .
During this time Brecht wrote what are critically regarded as his greatest works. In 1943 Brecht's desire to motivate social concerns, in his audience, led to the play The life of Galileo. In this play, through the character Galileo, Brecht reexamines the recurrent theme of obstacles to social progress. In 1949, he created Mother Courage and her Children, which enlists the spectators" feelings as well as their reason. This play was both a success and a failure. It was a success because it was highly popular, but it was a failure in that it caused the audience to feel sympathy for its characters, which violated Brecht's technique of "epic theatre." In these mature works Brecht overgrew the single-minded didactic message of his earlier pieces, and achieved complex themes that would be impermissible under the official policies of communism. .
For a brief period of time, Brecht lived in Hollywood on1954 argyle Avenue. He then moved into a house on 817 25th Street in Santa Monica, from 1941 to 1942.
