Bertolt Brecht's Baden play for learning—Das Badener Lehrstück vom Einverständnis—is so named for having been first performed at the Baden-Baden music festival in 1929, and because it falls among his early Marxist plays with an explicitly didactic function. Einverständnis means agreement or acceptance. The piece was given at Baden-Baden accompanied by a score written by Hindemith, and in a shorter form than the version published in Brecht's Stücke. Hermann Scherchen conducted. The premier created a great scandal, marked especially by the exit of Gerhart Hauptmann in the middle of the Clown Scene.

I believe that of Brecht's plays this is the most unclear in conception and yet the most revelatory of the author's personal conflicts in relation to his thought and politics. It also happens to contain one of the most viciously funny scenes ever written. I want to set forth in this essay some tentative ideas regarding the play.