© Justin Cash theatrelinks.com1 Bertolt Brecht PLAYWRIGHT DIRECTOR THEORIST PRACTITIONER

© Justin Cash theatrelinks.com 1

Bertolt Brecht

PLAYWRIGHT

DIRECTOR

THEORIST

PRACTITIONER


“Brecht’s work is the most significant

and original in European Drama

since Ibsen and Strindberg”

Raymond Williams


Contents

Background

Epic Theatre

V-effect

Acting and Other stagecraft

Historification

Playwriting structure (form)

Dramatic vs Epic (theory)

Realism vs Non-Realism (practice)


Overview

Born 10th February 1898, Germany. Wrote first play Baal in 1918, aged twenty. His ideas have revolutionised playwriting, production

techniques and acting. Brecht is widely regarded as one of the most important

figures in 20th century theatre. He is considered by many to be the most influential

person in theatre since World War II.


The Influence of Expressionism

Brecht collaborated with fellow German Erwin Piscator on his ideas for the theatre.

Both men were influenced by Expressionism, a movement that was strong in Germany, but more successful in the visual than performing arts.

Expressionism in the theatre asked for distortion of line, mass, colour, shape and balance with sets and props.

Make-up and costume were more often used to reflect social roles than to depict everyday appearance.


Origins of 'Epic Theatre' Brecht probably didn’t coin ‘epic’, instead possibly

borrowing it from the great epic poems of literature. Alternatively, Hans Egon Holthusen claims Brecht first

heard the term ‘epic theatre’ being used in Berlin in 1924 where it was already being used in ‘certain revolutionary experiments on the stage’.

Others claim Erwin Piscator (who collaborated with Brecht on various projects) first coined ‘epic theatre’.

Brecht may have employed several of Piscator’s staging techniques, only later to develop them as his own ideas.


Brecht and Piscator finally parted ways because Brecht believed the only way to achieve social change through the theatre was to present no emotion in performances. Piscator disagreed and believed some degree of emotion was necessary.

Critics argue the term ‘alienation effect’ is not the best translation of the German word ‘verfremdungseffekt.

Holthusen notes Brecht borrowed the concept from the Russian Formalism movement and the term was really a translation of the Russian word ‘ostrannenie’, where on a trip to Moscow in 1935 ‘the word must have…struck him as a brilliant definition of his own favorite idea’


Timeline 1921: arrived Berlin, writing several more plays over the

next decade. 1926: embraced Marxism. 1933: Hitler came to power. Under Hilter’s rule, experimentation in the arts was stifled

and dramatists either produced plays about an all-powerful Nazi world, suddenly became silent or left the country.

Freedom of speech was severely disrupted. Brecht exiled himself to Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden

and Finland.


Timeline 1941: sails to USA and settles in Santa Monica, CA. 1947: questioned before the House Committee on

Unamerican Activities. US Government suspicious of his alliance with

communism in their country. 1948: returns to Germany on an Austrian passport. Establishes the Berliner Ensemble; soon to become one

of the great theatre companies of Europe. Brecht was a perfectionist who painstakingly re-wrote

scenes from some of his plays and then used his theatre company to perfect his theories.


Epic Theatre Events are telescoped over a long period of time, using

several locations or settings for the action. His plays were sometimes told from the viewpoint of one

character (a single storyteller). This technique left the spectator emotionally detached from the events on stage.

Brecht himself also remained detached from the story. He called his drama a ‘theatre for the scientific age’. Brecht’s plays were didactic and his was a social activist

theatre, asking the spectator to create social and political change in the outside world.


Epic Theatre The Good Woman of Setzuan has two alternate endings

(neither of which is a resolution), then an epilogue asking the audience to create their own plot ending.

Ideas were linked to his Marxist beliefs that man can be nothing but evil, greedy and corrupt in a capitalist world.

Parables in his plays were used to distance the spectator marginally from the events on stage.

Parables were often presented in the form of songs. Emotion on stage was limited, as Brecht believed this

belonged to the theatre of realism (which he loathed).


The stage began to tell a story. The narrator

was no longer missing…the stage began to

be instructive. The theatre became an affair

for philosophers, but only for such

philosophers as wished not just to explain

but also to change the world.

Bertolt Brecht


V-effect

German word verfremdungseffekt. Correct translation - ‘to make strange’ (to make

actions strange, or to make the familiar strange). Misleading translation: ‘alienation-effect’. Realistic theatre: also known as ‘dramatic theatre’. Realism and naturalism dominated the great stages

of the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


V-effect

Brecht called the realistic theatre ‘a branch of the narcotics business’.

He believed realism was like a drug in that, largely through the use of emotion, it pacified the spectator, incapacitating his ability to achieve social change.

So Brecht’s acting and staging techniques suitably distanced the spectator from the action.


“It was the actor’s task to put himself

at a distance from the character he

was portraying and the situation he

was involved with, in order to arouse

a thinking, enquiring response in

the spectator”

J. L Styan


Gestus The term gestus first appeared in a theatre review Brecht

wrote in 1920. Initially meant body gesture, as opposed to the spoken

word. Later, gestus came to mean the total process of all

physical behaviour the actor displays. Gestus defined a social position; the character’s status

and function in society.


Actor

To show rather than imitate. Demonstrate at arm’s length (somewhat simplified and

stereotypical). Gesture consciously indicates inner feeling. Actor visibly observing own movements. Actor allowed to directly address the audience

(considered strong). Previous use of the aside (considered weak). Few Brechtian characters gain audience empathy.


Actor Brecht’s essay The Street Scene summarises his acting

theories. A person who witnesses a traffic accident merely

re-enacts the events (a demonstration) in a non-emotional manner, in order to tell others.

This person deliberately does not re-enact a perfect imitation of the event, for this would be ‘art’ and the demonstration encourages a logical detached view of the situation for the observer.

In rehearsal, Brecht often encouraged his actors to precede their lines with ‘he said…’ in order to remain objective about their role.


Set Design Dispensed with illusion and symbolism. No suggestion of a ‘fourth wall’ and only a half curtain or

none at all (if so, strung on a string across the stage), thus enabling the actor and spectator to share the same space.

Sometimes a bare stage; often only props, resulting in an open space on which to tell a story.

Sometimes the stage had sets that incorporated treadmills, machinery, projection and ramps.

Brecht was influenced by Piscator (the first to use projection) and Meyerhold (constructivist set designs).

Set changes in full view of the audience.


Playwright

Brecht’s plays were structured episodically. Scenes were often preceded by a title and brief

description; offering an account of the action of the upcoming scene.

This could be read aloud on stage, thus spoiling the dramatic tension and suspense in the scene.

Brecht preferred to call the scenes ‘episodes’ and the audience ‘spectators’.


Director

Groupings of actors on stage were positioned specifically to clarify the human relationships in the play.

This was functional rather than serving an aesthetic purpose.


Lighting

Lighting equipment deliberately visible to the audience in order to remind the spectators they were in a theatre.

Stage covered with plain (open) white light so the actor would seem to be in the same world as the audience.

Coloured light would merely assist in the atmosphere of illusion and evoke emotions.

Yet again, the division between the stage and audience areas were broken down.


Music

Music and song were used to express the ideas of the play’s theme independently (unlike opera, where the music reinforces the text).

Music and song were often at odds with what was happening on stage at the time.

Music was used to neutralise emotion rather than intensify it.

The purpose of songs in Brecht’s plays was to reinforce themes, shock the audience with an unexpected. technique and momentarily break the increasing dramatic tension.


‘Brecht considerably oversimplifies

characters, for he is principally

concerned with social relationships.

He is not interested in total personalities

or the inner lives of his characters’

Oscar Brockett


Historification

Brecht’s plays were sometimes set in the past in order to place the present in perspective.

Aristotle believed the action of a play must occur in a single location over the course of a single day.

Aristotle’s model of the ‘three unities’ of time, place and action was crushed by Brecht.

The Life of Galileo spans 32 years and many settings.

Mother Courage and her Children is set in the midst of the Thirty Years War (1618-48).


Historification

The Good Woman of Setzuan detaches the spectator emotionally by being set in pre-Communist China.

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is set in 1930’s Chicago in a greengrocer trade setting, but the main character represents Hitler and the play is really about the atrocities of 1930s Germany.

The society is the play’s focus, not the characters. The spectator is asked to critically observe the

society portrayed in the play and compare it with his/her own world > inspired to make change.


PLAYWRITING STRUCTURE (FORM)

Brecht often began by writing his plays with no act or episode divisions; these were later added.

Act divisions denoting interval at the theatre did not exist. Some plays included long and short scenes. Long episodes involved most of the stage action crucial

to the plot. Short episodes commented upon the action around

them, often reinforcing themes and including the songs.


‘The audience should never be

allowed to confuse what it sees on

stage with reality. Rather, the play

must always be thought of as a

comment upon life - something to be

watched and judged critically’

Oscar Brockett


DRAMATIC vs. EPIC plot involves spectator in the

stage situation wears down the

spectator’s power of action

communicates experiences

narrative turns the spectator into

an observer arouses the spectator’s

power of action

communicates aspects of knowledge


DRAMATIC vs. EPIC

the human being is taken for granted

he is unalterable

one scene makes another

the human being is the object of enquiry

he is alterable and able to alter

each scene exists for itself (episodes)


DRAMATIC vs. EPIC linear plot development

focus is on the characters in the play

plot conclusion is paramount

in curves

focus is on the type of society portrayed

the process is most important, not necessarily the end


REALISM vs. NON-REALISM

illusion of reality on stage

characters fully-rounded, life-like, believable

lots of emotion between characters

remind the audience they are watching a play

most characters are one-dimensional, stereotyped

limited emotion



audience undergoes a largely emotional response to the play

characters talk to each other

actor fully accepts and becomes character

audience undergoes a scientific, intellectual response to the issues of the play

characters can directly address audience

actor merely identifies with role



actor plays one role

narrator doesn’t exist costumes complete,

historically accurate

sets/props detailed, complete, authentic

actor can swap characters/dual roles

narrator a key factor costumes incomplete

(fragmentary), lack detail for identification

sets/props fragmentary



masks unacceptable lights hidden to create

the illusion of reality set changes and stage-

hands in darkness stage curtain is an

essential tool to hide scene changes and denote interval/end

occasional mask use stage lighting in full view

of audience set changes and stage

hands in full view little or no use of stage

curtain



projection rarely used no signs or placards

employing plot synopsis would ruin suspense and dramatic tension in the play

projection is common placards and signs

frequently used plot synopsis

deliberately employed at the beginning of scenes to spoil the suspense


BIBLIOGRAPHY Bial/Martin (Ed.): Brecht Sourcebook

Brecht, Bertolt: Mother Courage and her Children

Brecht, Bertolt: The Good Woman of Setzuan

Brecht, Bertolt: The Life of Galileo

Brecht, Bertolt: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Brockett, Oscar: History of the Theatre

Brockett, Oscar: The Essential Theatre

Brockett, Oscar: The Theatre: An Introduction

Burton, Bruce: Living Drama

Demetz, Peter: Brecht: A Collection of Critical Essays

Huxley/Witts: The Twentieth Century Performance Reader

Sacks/Thompson: The Cambridge Companion to Brecht

Styan, J.L.: Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 3: Expressionism and Epic Theatre

Thoss, Michael: Brecht for Beginners

Williams, Raymond: Drama from Ibsen to Brecht

Documents

© Justin Cash theatrelinks.com1 Bertolt Brecht PLAYWRIGHT DIRECTOR THEORIST PRACTITIONER