Practitioner 2: Bertolt Brecht
and the Epic Theatre
EUGEN BERTHOLD FRIEDRICH BRECHT
(b. 10 February, 1898, Augsburg; d. 14 August 1956)
Brechtian Dramaturgy
※ Rejected the idea of entertainment through emotional catharsis
※Brecht preferred an epic narrative with loosely knit and episodic scenes
※He rejected the notion of the well-made play e.g. act 1 is exposition and act 2
climax and dénouement
※ Disallowed the audience’s empathy with the actors on stage
※ Rejected the well-made play in favour of a drama which was episodic and
loosely knit
※ Emphasised the theatricality of theatre
※ Facilitated the adoption of a critical attitude towards the actions being staged
※ Initiated a social critique to expose the prevailing ideologies and inequalities
of the capitalist system
National Theatre:
An Introduction to Brechtian Theatre
An Introduction to Brechtian Theatre
YouTube.mht
Politics
I grew up as the son
Of well-to-do people. My parents
Put a collar round my neck and taught me
The habit of being waited on
And the art of giving orders. But
When I had grown up and looked around me
I did not like the people of my own class
……………………………………………….
And I left my own class and joined
The common people
EUGEN BERTHOLD FRIEDRICH BRECHT
(b. 10 February, 1898, Augsburg; d. 14 August 1956)
Politics
Elementary school bored me for four
years. During my nine years at
Augsburg [Grammar school] I did not
succeed in imparting any worthwhile
education to my teachers. My sense of
leisure and independence was
tirelessly fostered by them.
- Brecht
EUGEN BERTHOLD FRIEDRICH BRECHT
(b. 10 February, 1898, Augsburg; d. 14 August 1956)
“Germany seemed to be on the path of
democracy. There was freedom of speech
and of artistic expression. In the
second half of the 1920s, however, the
old reactionary militaristic forces
began to regain strength. I was then
at the height of my career as a
playwright, my plays being produced
all over Europe. But in Germany voices
could already be heard demanding that
free artistic expression and free
speech should be silenced. Humanist,
socialist, even Christian ideas were
called ‘undeutsch’ (unGerman), a word
which I hardly think of without
Hitler’s wolfish intonation. At the
same time, the cultural and political
institutions of the people were
attacked”
Brecht, Poems 1913-1956, eds. John Willett and
Ralph Manheim (London, 1976), p.427:
Every word that leaves the lip
Describes an arc, and then
Falls on the listener’s ear; I wait and hear
The way it strikes; I know
We are not feeling the same thing and
We are not feeling it at the same time.
ARISTOTELIAN DEFINITION OF TRAGEDY
1. Aristotle’s Poetics states that the audience
watching a tragedy should experience catharsis,
a relief from pity and fear.
2. The emotions of pity and fear call for a
recognition of some kind of affinity between
the audience and the characters who act or
suffer.
3. The fall of the hero, due to the individual error
(hamartia) is inevitable.
Source: www.abdn.ac.uk
Bertholt Brecht’s epic theater
•
The dramatic theater's spectator says: Yes, I have felt
like that too-- Just like me--It's only natural-- It'll never
The dramatic
theatre’s
have
change--The
sufferings
of spectator
this man says:
appallYes,
me,I because
theyfelt
arelike
inescapable--That's
all seems
that too – Just likegreat
me –art;
It’s itonly
naturalthe
–
most
obvious
in –the
world--I
weep
they
It’ll
never thing
change
The
sufferings
ofwhen
this man
weep, I laugh when they laugh.
appal me, because they are inescapable- That’s
• The epic theater's spectator says: I'd never have
greatitart;
it all seems
theway
most
obvious
thing in the
thought
-- That's
not the
-- That's
extraordinary,
world
– I weep--when
they
weep,--IThe
laugh
when of
hardly
believable
It's got
to stop
sufferings
this they
manlaugh.
appall me, because they are unnecessary -That's great art; nothing obvious in it -- I laugh when
- Brecht
on (Brecht)
Theatre
they weep, I weep when they
laugh.
Warren Sack, University of California
Martin Esslin
Bronnen’s play was written in the explosive,
declamatory style of the Expressionists. But
Brecht wanted to produce it quietly and
realistically. Already at this stage he hated
noisy, emotional tantrums in the theatre.
Aristotelian catharsis is an “opium for the masses” (Brecht):
 Empathising with the characters prevents the audience
from reflecting critically on the social causes of human
suffering
 Plots that represent the hero’s error as central to his
misfortune do not allow the dramatist to write a play that is
socially critical: the focus is on the representation of
misfortune due to individual error rather than the “error” in
the socio-political structure
Drums in the Night (1922)
The audience were greeted by streamers with
inscriptions like ‘DON’T STARE SO
ROMANTICALLY’ and ‘EVERY MAN FEELS
BEST INSIDE HIS OWN SKIN’. They saw the
action taking place in a non-realistic setting with the
picture of the city rising up behind the screens that
suggested the walls of a room.
Dr. Charles F. Urbanowicz / Professor of Anthropology
California State University
"Eugen Berthold Brecht was born on 10 February 1898, in Augsburg,
Bavaria. His father was a clerk in the local paper-mill, who later rose to the
position of manager of the firm. ... His school years saw the emergence of
at least two traits which were to become characteristic both of his work and
personality: the forming of a wide circle of intimate friends and
collaborators...and the interest in the Bible, biblical phraseology, and poetic
forms such as the psalm, hymn and choral." Michael Morley, 1977, Brecht:
A Study (London: Heinemann), pages 1-3.
"Germany in the twenties, the Weimar Republic, never really emerged from the
slaughter of World War I which preceded it before entering the violence which
portended its close and the horror of Nazism. Brecht reflects an age which sees
life as brutish and basic, people as self-centred and violent, even nature as
uncaring rather than maternal. ... From about 1929, when Brecht witnessed the
bloody dispersal of a May Day march by the Berlin police, whose president was a
Social Democrat, he determines to aid the Communist cause in practical ways,
though he apparently never became a party member. ... Hitler's rise to power
meant immediate exile (followed by withdrawal of German citizenship in 1935 and
poverty through loss of royalties. ... On 21 July 1941 the Brecht family arrived in
America, where friends awaited them and a house was ready in Santa Monica,
Hollywood Alfred D. White, 1978, Bertolt Brecht's Great Plays (Barnes & Noble),
pages 3-10.
Bertolt Brecht on actors: "...nobody who fails to get fun out of his
activities can expect them to be fun for anybody else." Bertolt Brecht,
1926, Translated and reprinted in John Willet, 1957 Brecht on
Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic (THINK OF THE
ENJOYMENT THE ACTORS SEEMED TO GET FROM THEIR
PERFORMANCES IN ERNEST)
"A firm believer in the use of theatre as an instructional medium,
Brecht...sought to prevent audiences from becoming too involved emotionally
with the events portrayed on stage. He considered it a shameful waste of the
theatre's resources to mesmerize an audience and purge its emotions
through an identification with the characters and situations. All such empathic
theatrical experiences he identified as 'Aristotelian.' He called theatre that
existed solely to give sensual pleasure without provoking socially meaningful
thought 'culinary.' Theatre should inform the spectator; it should make him
ponder the drama's Marxist implications--the need for societal change
Samuel L. Leiter, 1991, From Stanislavsky To Barrault: Representative
Directors of the European Stage (NY: Greenwood Press), page 158.
"The epic theatre is chiefly interested in the attitudes which people
adopt towards one another, wherever they are socio-historically
significant (typical). It works out scenes where people adopt attitudes
of such a sort that the social laws under which they are acting spring
into sight. For that we need to find workable definitions: that is to say,
such definitions of the relevant processes as can be used in order to
intervene in the processes themselves. The concern of the epic
theatre is thus eminently practical. Human behavior is shown as
alterable; man himself as dependent on certain political and economic
factors and at the same time as capable of altering them” Bertolt
Brecht, ~ Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic 1935
"The 'epic theater' Brecht envisioned was to rest on three pillars: new
dramaturgical constructs embracing different raw materials; a new
style of production that would de-emphasize emotion; and a new
spectator who would cooly and scientifically appreciate this new
theater concept. John Fuegi, 1972, The Essential Brecht
Bertolt Brecht “The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre”. Bertolt Brecht, 1930,John Willet, 1957
DRAMATIC THEATRE
EPIC THEATRE
plot
narrative
implicates the spectator in a stage situation
turns the spectator into an observer, but
wears down his capacity for action
arouses his capacity for action
provides him with sensations
forces him to take decisions
experience
picture of the world
the spectator is involved in something
he is made to face something
suggestion
argument
instinctive feelings are preserved
brought to the point of recognition
the spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience
the spectator stands outside, studies
the human being is taken for granted
the human being is the object of the inquiry
he is unalterable
he is alterable and able to alter
eyes on the finish
eyes on the course
one scene makes another
each scene for itself
growth
montage
linear development
in curves
evolutionary determinism
jumps
man as fixed point
man as process
thought determines being
social being determines thought
feeling
reason
"The Berliner Ensemble came to represent what is today called "epic theater". Epic theater
breaks with the Aristotelian concepts of a linear story line, a suspension of disbelief, and
progressive character development. In their place, epic theater uses episodic plot structure,
contains little cause and effect between scenes, and has cumulative character development.
The goal is one of estrangement, or "Verfremdung", with an emphasis on reason and
objectivity rather than emotion, or a type of critical detachment. This form of theater forces the
audience to distance itself from the stage and contemplate on the action taking place. To
accomplish this, Brecht focused on cruel action, harsh and realistic scenes, and a linear plot
with no climax and denouement. By making each scene complete within itself Brecht sought to
prevent illusion. A Brecht play is meant to provoke the audience into not only thinking about
the play, but into reforming society by challenging common ideologies. Following in the
footsteps of Pirandello, he blurs the distinction between life and theatre so that the audience is
left with an ending that requires social action.
(http://www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/about_bertolt_brecht.html)
Mr.Puntilla and His Man Matti. Ensemble 1949
"NOTE: The term Epic Theater, used by Brecht for the first time in
1926, did not originate with him, although it is generally applied to
his work today. It was already in the air in 1924 when Brecht moved
from Munich to Berlin and was first used in connection with
revolutionary experiments by director Erwin Piscator. Many
playwrights and composers produced plays and musical
compositions in the 1920s which have been since been labeled
epic (Stravinisky, Pirandello, Claudel), and others have followed in
their footsteps (Wilder, Miller, Becket)."
[http://www.orst.edu/instruct/ger341/brechtet.htm]
"Instinctive compassion is a major subject of Brecht's last major
dramatic work, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, which was written in
1944-45 while Brecht lived in exile in the United States. This
beautiful play, which is a kind of dramatic dream, concerns a
young servant girl who saves the deserted infant child of the
Prince during a revolution." Charles R. Lyons, 1968, Bertolt
Brecht: The Despair and the Polemic
Brecht's Epic Theatre
Although Bertolt Brecht's first plays were written in Germany during the 1920s, he was not widely
known until much later. Eventually his theories of stage presentation exerted more influence on the
course of mid-century theatre in the West than did those of any other individual. This was largely
because he proposed the major alternative to the Stanislavsky-oriented realism that dominated
acting and the "well-made play" construction that dominated playwriting.
Brecht's most important plays, which included The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her
Children, and The Good Person of Szechwan, were written between 1937 and 1945 when he was in
exile from the Nazi regime, first in Scandinavia and then in the United States. At the invitation of
the newly formed East German government, he returned to found the Berliner Ensemble in 1949
with his wife, Helene Weigel, as leading actress. It was only at this point, through his own
productions of his plays, that Brecht earned his reputation as one of the most important figures of
20th-century theatre.
Certainly Brecht's attack on the illusive theatre influenced, directly or indirectly, the theatre of
every Western country. In Britain the effect became evident in the work of such playwrights as
John Arden and Edward Bond and in some of the bare-stage productions by the Royal Shakespeare
Company. Western theatre in the 20th century, however, has proved to be a cross-fertilization of
many styles (Brecht himself acknowledged a debt to traditional Oriental theatre), and by the 1950s
other approaches were gaining influence.
Brecht's earliest work was heavily influenced by German Expressionism, but it was
his preoccupation with Marxism and the idea that man and society could be
intellectually analyzed that led him to develop his theory of "epic theatre." Brecht
believed that theatre should appeal not to the spectator's feelings but to his reason.
While still providing entertainment, it should be strongly didactic and capable of
provoking social change. In the Realistic theatre of illusion, he argued, the spectator
tended to identify with the characters on stage and become emotionally involved
with them rather than being stirred to think about his own life. To encourage the
audience to adopt a more critical attitude to what was happening on stage, Brecht
developed his Verfremdungs-effekt ("alienation effect")--i.e., the use of anti-illusive
techniques to remind the spectators that they are in a theatre watching an
enactment of reality instead of reality itself. Such techniques included flooding the
stage with harsh white light, regardless of where the action was taking place, and
leaving the stage lamps in full view of the audience; making use of minimal props
and "indicative" scenery; intentionally interrupting the action at key junctures with
songs in order to drive home an important point or message; and projecting
explanatory captions onto a screen or employing placards. From his actors Brecht
demanded not realism and identification with the role but an objective style of
playing, to become in a sense detached observers.
Please watch on Youtube:
• Five Truths about Bertolt Brecht
Brecht's Marxist political convictions led him to propose an
alternative direction for the theatre that would fuse the two
functions of instruction and entertainment. In this way the
theatre could project a picture of the world by artistic
means and offer models of life that could help the
spectators to understand their social environment and to
master it both rationally and emotionally. The main concept
of Brecht's program was that of Verfremdungseffekt
("alienation"). In order to induce a critical frame of mind in
the spectator, Brecht considered it necessary to dispense
with the empathetic involvement with the stage that the
illusionary theatre sought to induce. Generally, this has
been understood as a deadening coldness in the
productions, but such an interpretation proceeds from a
general ignorance of Brecht's own writings on the subject.
Rather, he insisted, as Appia, Craig, and the Symbolists did
before him, that the audience must be reminded that it is
watching a play.
Brecht's ideas can be approached through the image
presented by the theatre he chose to work in on his return
to East Germany in 1947. The auditorium of the Theater
am Schiffbauerdamm is lavish to the point of fantasy,
decorated with ornate plaster figures. The stage, by
complete contrast, is a vast mechanized scenic space in
which everything is clearly exposed to view as theatrical
and man-made. In the contrast between the comfort of the
auditorium and the science of the stage lies the condition
of Brecht's theatre. The audience was there to be
entertained but also to think scientifically.
Many of the techniques of Brecht's staging were
developments of earlier work. The use of threedimensional set pieces in a large volume of space clearly
derived from Jessner. His delight in the use of machinery
and in particular the revolving stage came from Piscator.
The insistence on the actors' demonstrating through the
physical disposition of the body their gestus ("attitude")
toward what is happening derived from Meyerhold, though
with Brecht the gestus was always socially based. The
clearest of his alienation devices, the projection of captions
preceding the scene so that the audience knows in advance
what will happen and therefore can concentrate on how it
happens, derived from Piscator's jotter screens and film
captions.
Brecht acknowledged in his work the need for the actor to
undergo a process of identification with the part, and he
paid tribute to Stanislavsky as the first person to produce a
systematic account of the actor's technique. Brecht
required his actors to go beyond Stanislavsky and to
incorporate a social attitude or judgment into their
portrayal. Characterization without a critical judgment was
in Brecht's view seductive artifice; conversely, social
judgment without the characterization of a rounded human
being was arid dogmatism. The theatre of mixed styles and
means that Meyerhold and others constructed to cope with
the grotesque experience of modern living was
transformed by Brecht into a political principle. He used
mixed means and styles to expose the contradictions,
inconsistencies, and dialectics of situations and characters.
Brecht's strongest theatrical effects were created through
the juxtaposition of inconsistent attitudes in a character.
Although the settings in Brecht's productions were clearly
theatrical, the costumes and properties were not. Great
care was taken to make each property and its use
authentic for the period or character. In Brecht's theatre, if
a chicken were to be plucked the actor did not mime or
roughly approximate the action--the chicken was plucked.
Costumes had to make clear the social class of the persons
wearing them. This places Brecht directly in the line with
the Meiningen Players, though again the gestus is
particularly social rather than historical.
Brecht's methods of rehearsal were especially innovative.
The methods worked out in his own company, the Berliner
Ensemble, established a directing collective well advanced
beyond those of Reinhardt and Piscator. In Brecht's
theatre, the director, dramaturge, designer, and composer
had equal authority in the production. The designer had a
special function; in addition to designing the sets and
costumes, he also produced, for early rehearsal purposes,
a series of sketches of key moments in the action. The
rehearsals became a process of testing hypotheses about
the play and its production. What held the collective
together and made the method workable was the story, or
fable. All the elements of production were synthesized for
telling this story in public. At some points the music
conveyed the meaning, at other times the setting, or the
actors, or the words did. Brecht often invited observers to
the rehearsals in order to test the clarity of the story. The
process of testing could continue into the performance
period. When the company was satisfied that the staging
was correct, the production was photographed and a
Modellbuch was prepared with photographs set against the
text to show the disposition of the stage at all times and to
mark significant changes of position on the part of the
actors. The Modellbuch was then available (in a more
advanced form than the designer's sketches) as the basis
for any subsequent productions.
Scene
from the
Mother
Courage
and Her
Children,
with
Helene
Weigel as
Mother
Courage
The Modellbuch has aroused resentment on the part of
directors who prefer to respond freely to the text. Brecht's
intention was not to limit but to provide a document as
scientific evidence of an experiment that could be used in
further research. Since the finished text was, in any case,
only one facet of the fable, the model book gave evidence
of other aspects of the story and its telling.
Brecht's influence on the contemporary theatre has been
both considerable and problematic. His Marxist views have
proved a real stumbling block to his assimilation in the
West, and his use of formalist techniques in the service of
entertainment has presented difficulties in the socialist
countries. There is no doubt that the settings and
costumes of his productions are the features that have
most influenced the contemporary theatre. Contemporary
design exhibits in many ways the influences of his staging.
Source:
"theatre" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
<http://www.eb.com:180/bol/
topic?eu=118828&sctn=7>