Berlot Brecht

BERTOlT BRECHT

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany on 19th February, 1898. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Munich before becoming a medical orderly in a German military hospital during the First World War This experience resistant his hatred of war and influenced his support for the failed Socialist revolution in 1919.After the war Brecht returned to university but eventually became more interested in literature than medicine. His first play to be produced was Bale (1922).

Brecht attempted to build up a new approach to the theatre. He tried to convince his audiences to see the stage as a stage, actors as actors and not the usual make-believe of the theatre. Brecht required disconnection, not passion, from the observing audience. The purpose of the play was to awaken the audience minds so that he could communicate his version of the truth.

BRECHT METHOD

Brecht developed a style of theatre known as epic theatre. He believed that in conventional theatre the audience hung up their minds with their coats as they entered the theatre. He wanted to remind the audience that they were watching a play. He used representations of characters instead of real characters. He also encouraged the actors to talk to the audience before the play began. He used minimal props; usually only one per character. There was a use of character labels. A half curtain across the stage was also a feature, and the actors changed costumes on stage. The characters changed costumes on set because they wanted enforce the idea that the actor's were not completely one with the character. In making this distinction, they helped break the fourth wall between the audience and the stage. Brecht did not want the audience to be comfortable with the play instead he wanted them to judge society and go out to make a difference.

 

 

EPIC THEATRE

It took Brecht approximately 10 years to devise his Epic theatre. His main influences were: Travelling fairs; Elizabethan style theatre (props minimum, quick scene changes, ) He wanted to make clear the distinction between Dramatic theatre (romanticised, emphasised theatre) and Epic theatre, which distances the audience so they look on neutrally. Through Epic Theatre, Brecht was not providing truth, but rather opinions, and a method with which to interrogate them.

Epic theatre is almost the direct opposite of Dramatic theatre. Dramatic theatre aims to copy ‘real life’ on stage and make its audience into feeling for the characters on stage. The human being is unchangeable. It shows man as a fixed point.  Dramatic theatre wears down the spectator’s power for action. Epic theatre wants the audience to be significant observers questioning what is happening on stage, realising the characters are actors and that the stage world is not attempting to pretend to be real. The human being is inconsistent. Epic Theatre is a means for social change. The spectator is forced to face something and see man as a process.

Brecht did not want you getting too attached to the characters on stage, but instead focus on the meaning of the story. Actors could be swapped around in roles during the piece to keep the audience alert. Unlike Stantanislavski he was a theatre consultant who believed in creating “truth” on stage, meaning that he wanted an audience to feel that what was happening in a performance was as natural and real as possible. In order to present his ideas to other actors and directors he created his own system which is generally familiar as the ‘Stanislavski system’. Within his system, Stanislavski comments on how an actor may use emotion memory to help them make their performance as believable as possible. 

In order for an actor to make their performance seem real to the audience, an actor must first believe their performance themselves, which, Stanislavski commented could easily be done by the actor finding a similar situation to what the character is in and relive the feeling which they felt at the time as Stanislavski was adamant that an actor on stage must live a “repeated” experience not a “primary” one because it is their own past experiences which shape the characters on stage and an actor must always remain themselves on stage but use the ‘given circumstances’ and the ‘magic if’ to imaginatively adapt to the situation on stage. 

Brecht did not believe in Stanislavski naturalism, he came up with the theory that if you come to see a play and pay for the play then that can never be Natural, so epic theatre was Brecht's way of theatre, what he wanted to achieve was to make the audience know it wasn't real that it was fiction.

So Epic theatre was very humorous, which made it successful, Brecht could put one of the most despicable crimes such as murder, and make it comic by adding music or making character's puppets, it also made people see different aspects of the scene so even though he/she has murdered someone, that person may think.