Situated at the intersection of literary and theatre studies, this study explores literary reflections on theatrical performances in the early plays of Bertolt Brecht and Ödön von Horváth. Starting from their student years in Munich, it follows their journeys to the theatre stage, revealing theatrical performances to be a shared dramatic subject in their early works. It demonstrates how, around the time when theatre studies were beginning to take shape, Brecht and Horváth presented literary reflections on theatrical performances, which considered performances as aesthetic, social, and political events in the context of the Weimar Republic and its public sphere.