Born 1898 – Augsburg, south Germany Becomes a medical student serves as medic in WW1 and the sees horrors of the
wounded and many of his school friends are killed.
1917 – decides to study drama instead and sickened by the excesses of the war he turns to theatre to change the world
He had been reading Karl Marx and felt Marx’s political and philosophical ideas were close to his own
He wrote many plays and had a love of collaborating with designers, musicians and artists
He becomes a renowned Writer and Director
His work has had a profound impact and influence on developments in
theatre throughout the 20th and 21st centuries
Brecht’s Plays
Bael (1918).
Drums in the Night,
Jungle of the Cities (1923)
A Man's a Man (1926).
Mahagonny. In 1927
The Threepenny Opera. (1928)
The Lehrstuck (1929-30) teaching plays
The Measure Taken (1930).
The Mother (1932)
The Severn Deadly Sins
The Roundheads and the Peakheads
Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
Galileo (1939),
Mother Courage (1939),
The Good Man of Szechuan (1941),
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)
Caucausian Chalk Circle (1943).
Hangman Also Die (1943
The Days of the Commune (1949),
Admired Elizabethan theatre An almost bare stage with the audience
standing round itPolitical and personal events unfolding in
swiftly changing scenes Gripping stories of Kings and their lives
presented for a semi illiterate audiencePerformance that would have taken place in
daylight ( makes audience aware
they are watching a play )
The performances of Travelling Fairs
Tales of heroic deeds
A singer/ narrator
Stories with a moral purpose and added pictorial illustrations
Accompanying music on a barrel organ
He believed in people’s ability to change.
Theatre was about exploring the
landscape of society not individual characters
He rejected the traditional theatre for it focused on
the individual,
their psychology
their personal crisis
‘His desire for a theatre that through it’s
expression of particular opinions and attitudes could effect change in the material world.
The change he sought was based on his belief that the oppressed working class had to be empowered to alter their miserable lives through structured political action.’
’
• Mackey, Sally Cooper,Simon (2000). Drama and Theatre Studies . cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. 316.
Theatre should be about exploring the political
Develops Epic Theatre He searched for a form of theatre that
would project the crisis in society and the individuals place within it.
He wanted a questioning attitude from both his actors and audience
He described his epic theatre as
“narrative drama about the state of society”
Epic theatre –is not realism
events and people are depicted within their social and political environment
Characters are often representative of their social group/class – they do not have personal names but are called
e.g. the peasant – the soldier -
Epic He defined epic theatre as challenging
the dream world of dramatic illusion
He wanted a spectator who was awake and alert
He wanted to pose problems that would lead the spectator to action with a task to achieve in the real world
Key points
Brecht emphasises
• The message must be clear
• The audience must remain critically aware and not become emotionally lost in the tragedy of an individual character
• Stanislavski emphasises the inner feelings the inner soul of individual character
Similarities
Stanislavski
• Search for truth
• Integrity and a response to the modern world
• Ensemble playing Hard work and dedication
• Close reading of the text
Brecht
• Search for truth
• Integrity and a response to the changing modern world
• Ensemble playing Hard work and dedication
• Close reading of the text
Different Emphasis Stanislavski Emphasises
• the inner feelings the inner soul
• What are the characters’ motives
• He wants to know why something is so on a personal level
• How can we understand this character from his personal emotional experience
Brecht Emphasis
• outward signs such as in social structures of society
• He wants to know what are
this characters' social motivations
• What are the social conditions making them behave this way
• What conditions are prevalent in society and can we change them
What would you see Simple staging – clear white stage lights – few but well made props
Back projection of slides –with titles for each scene – that tells you what is going to happen or picture
Each scene is self contained
Characters are sometimes named but often archetypal – e.g. the peasant – the farmer of class or social grouping
There is a usually a narrator or chorus that tells part of the story as it progresses or comments on the action
What would you see
Actors playing multiple roles
Actors often speaking directly to the audience
The action is interrupted by a song that comments on the ideas in the play or moves the action on
Sometimes characters are in half masks
The blocking is very specific and emphasises the social and class relationships
The Subject Matter
(Epic)
Narratives are displaced in time and placePolitical parablesEpic story telling
The Political Purpose/Message and Dramatic Intention
Heavily influenced by political ideals of Karl MarxTo arouse in the audience a need for changeTo keep an audience thinking.
The Staging Style Adopted
The proscenium archEpic as opposed to dramatic( Aristotelian)Swiftly changing scenes
Design Elements
Realistic selective detailVery well made propsCostumes made to look well worn
Technical Elements
Hard white light that can be seen by the audience The half curtainThe revolve
Role Of Actors And Performance Style
Getsus
The actor is in role not a characterThe actor as demonstratorThe actor as the main source of distancingThe use of gestus
The Actor Audience Relationship
The role of the narrator/chorus. Direct addressThe isolating of songs as a form of commentThe abolition of illusionThe audience encouraged to smoke and drink
Audience Response
They be alerted to the need for changeTo observe rather than empathise
Epic theatre –is not realism
events and people are depicted within their social and political environment
GestusMontage Verfremdungseffekt (look at things /actions with new understanding)
Design Music
Directorial Interpretation/Production Style
( Gestus )
(Montage)
(Verfremdungseffekt)
The director as part of the team
The use of music to comment on the action
Very refined and specific detail
The blocking -clear and carefully constructed stage pictures that help explain the ideas and characters’ social relationships
THE PLAYWRIGHTStructured episodicallyPeople shown within their social and
political environmentMany scenes that tell a part of the story in
a self contained way Awareness of past eventsTell audience what's happening through
scenes titles or labelsUse of parables
Epic theatre is not realism so the Stanislavsky naturalistic acting style is not appropriate.
The actor must stand outside the character
The actor moves away from the inner life of characters towards the way in which society has taught them to behave towards each other.
The Actor
Gestus is about putting over a clear message
It uses a range of outward signs developed by the actor to show social relationships.
These include:
stance – and voice
physical body and facial expressions
use of gesture
Gestus- what is it?A style of acting in which the main focus is: The outward signs of social relationshipsThese include Voice physical and facial expression. The effect is to shift the focus of characters
towards the way they behave towards each other
Brecht wrote his plays so they would force the actor to adopt the correct stance
The movements are worked out in rehearsal and remembered by the actors for their performance
DIRECTOR
Blocking very important must clarify the structure and the character relationships in the play
Use all the stage and support the audience to develop a critical attitude
Bring out the social, political and economic ideas in the plays
COMPOSERBrecht intentionally breaks interrupts the action
at key moments with songs and messagesMusic and songs should express ideas and
themes of the play and give a separate comment on the action and ideas
Music should help distance the audience by providing contrast
The word and the tune clash which will draw more attention to the words
Early productions influenced by expressionist art
Note how the walls, doors and windows leans at odd angles to demonstrate the distortion in the social structure.
‘Drums in The Night’
Why Epic is not realistic or naturalistic.
The action is constantly broken up in to episodes
A narrator interrupts to address the audience
Songs interrupt to comment on the action
All these are constantly breaking the dramatic tension
How• By analysing the play you determine the
basic story line.
• Break down the story into smaller elements until each scene becomes the expression of one simple basic action which you can put into a simple sentence
E.g‘Evil Step Mother Plots the death of Snow
white’
Montage • Short scenes of an image or an idea
• Draws attention to the content
• Emphasis on the visual-
• Each scene carefully arranged so all moments could be read and understood even by a deaf person
• The designer drawings of the stage ( like a film storyboard does today)
• Cut from one scene to another image subject/idea
• And a new meaning or understanding is created by both the different scenes and their ideas images having been placed next to each other
Verfremdungseffekt
Make things seem strange or different”.
Use the word distancing not strange
With the use of devices to make things appear in a new light,
so we consider them with intellectual objectivity, robbed of their conventional outward appearance.
challenge habitual perceptions
Verfremdungseffekt
Brecht gives the example of a child whose widowed mother remarries, seeing her, for the first time, as a wife.
In the plays a V-effekt may be produced by the comment of the Singer or narrator
In ordinary dialogue (as in Galileo's “now I must eat”: suddenly he is seen not as the great scientific innovator but an ordinary, hungry man
You tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpkCazstUhMRobbie Williams sings Mack the Knife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3ih36zijZg&feature=related Commentary on epic theatre
Meryl streep as m Courage Tv show http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=mWApVvqM-W0
Extract Meryl Streep singing ( push comes to shove)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUSFRF1Pppo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AJQlRmJvLA&feature=relatedThe Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at Nottingham http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQWsp7C5OfUThe Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at abbey theatre
http://www.thereallybig.com/marks.htm#cccRecent version of Caucasian chalk circle with new compositions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tw5w6JdwtcShort intro Caucasian