BERTOLT BRECHT
Theory into Practice
are required to demonstrate your appreciation and theoretical understanding
of Brecht to modern theatre practice as shown in specific aspects of a
production either seen or participated in (Mother Courage/ Caucasian Chalk
Circle). You should show understanding of the following:
 the subject matter
 the political purpose or message or dramatic intention
 the actor/audience relationship
 staging form adopted
 directorial interpretation/production style
 design elements
 role of actors and performance style
 technical elements
 audience response
Brecht: 25 Essential Points
Brecht Believed:






the stage should approximate a lecture hall
Aristotelian/dramatic theatre is obscene because it induces trance and confirms
fatalistic attitudes
Spectators must be made aware that they are sitting in a theatre, learning lessons
from the past
The theatre should destroy all illusions of reality as they arise
The ‘Epic’ dramatist must tell a story which illustrates social truth
By adopting Marxist principles, theatre could be used to ‘change the world’
Brecht’s Epic Theatre – The theory:





Epic theatre is intended to educate the audience about social inequalities
In Epic theatre, characters are defined by their social function, not by their
personalities
Brecht coined the term ‘verfremdung or ‘making strange’ to describe the effects he
wanted to create for his audience
Brecht’s early plays were called Lehrstucke; later he abandoned didacticism for
dialectical theatre
Brecht introduces the idea of creating Spass in his drama, ‘social criticism through
fun’.
Brecht’s Epic Theatre – The practice:
1







Epic theatre is loosely knit and episodic in structure
Epic drama uses montage: all aspects of the production – décor, music,
choreography – are autonomous and work independently
The stage designer is not expected to create a realistic setting for the action but a
credible environment built around the actors work
All props used should be authentic
To destroy the illusion all the workings of the theatre, such as lighting rigs and event
he musicians should always be visible onstage
Epic drama uses gestic means to deliver its message
The social relationships within the play are shown gestically both by individual actors
and through their stage groupings
The Brechtian Actor







The Brechtian actor is acting in ’quotation marks’ narrating the actions of a certain
person at a definite time in the past
Actors perform in a spirit of criticism
The actor externalises social attitudes through gestic acting
The Brechtian actor shows in each action his alternative choices – ‘fixing the
not…but’
The Brechtian actor steps in and out of role in full view of the audience
Brecht introduced rehearsal exercises, such as speaking in third person and
speaking stage directions aloud to help his actors create distance between
themselves and the role.
Brecht invented the ‘The Street scene’ model for actors.
2
PEOPLE AND IDEAS THAT INFLUENCED BRECHT:
EXPRESSIONISM:
This was a movement in art and literature which originated in Germany before WW1 and ended
around 1924. It influenced Modernism in England and America; and Surrealism which developed
in the period between the wars.
Expressionists tried to break through accepted notions of reality to try and find a deeper meaning
underneath. Its style is not smooth and linear. It is erratic and explosive rather than descriptive.
Reality is distorted and heightened and is sometimes grotesque.
Expressionist playwrights of the time included Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller. They wrote in the
years immediately after WW1 and attacked Capitalism in industrialised societies. The characters
were only referred to as titles, so in Gas, by Kaisre, The cast list includes: The Engineer, the girl,
the Gentleman in white, the billionaire’s son.
In his essay, On Experimental Theatre, (1939) Brecht said of Expressionism:
It represents arts revolt against life; here the world existed purely as a vision, strangely distorted,
a monster conjured up by disturbed souls. Expressionism greatly enriched the theatre’s means of
expression and brought aesthetic gains that still have to be fully exploited, but it proved quite
incapable of shedding light on the world as an object of human activity. The theatres educative
ability collapsed.
Brecht on Theatre – Willet pg 132
BRECHT AND MARXISM
In the late 1920’s, while working on Joe Fleishhacker, Brecht began to study Marxism. He started
to read Das Kapital and took lessons from Karl Korsch at the Karl Marx school in Berlin. Brecht’s
relationship with Communism is a complex one.
He took from Marxism an essential understanding of society and a sense of historicism and
materialism. This much is clear in his plays and theoretical writing. And while there are many
theoretical and practical differences among the various forms of Marxism, most forms of Marxism
share:







an attention to the material conditions of people's lives, and social relations among
people
a belief that people's consciousness of the conditions of their lives reflects these
material conditions and relations
an understanding of class in terms of differing economic relations of production, and
as a particular position within such relations
an understanding of material conditions and social relations as historically malleable
a view of history according to which class struggle, the evolving conflict between
classes with opposing interests, structures each historical period and drives historical
change
a sympathy for the working class or proletariat
and a belief that the ultimate interests of workers best matches those of humanity in
general.
3
His relationship to the Communist Party is less clear. Brecht’s teacher, Karl Korsch, was a
leading Marx scholar and was also one of the most active militants in the Communist movement.
In 1926, he was one of the first victims of Stalinism in the German Communist Party and was
expelled from the movement to which he had always been committed. He then moved to the
forefront of the Left Opposition and developed a sharp critique of Stalinism in the USSR. This
was the man Brecht called ‘my teacher of Marxism’. Brecht, although a supporter of Communists,
never became a Party member.
When he eventually moved to East Berlin after persecution in America, he retained Swiss
passports for himself and his family – an understandable precaution perhaps by somebody who
had seen totalitarianism before and had spent much of his adult life as a refugee.
The political purpose or message or dramatic intention:
When writing about Brecht you need to be aware of the political climate at the time in Germany,
as well as Brecht’s own political beliefs. Brecht supported Marxism which was diametrically
opposed to the Nazi, fascist regime. Brecht wanted his work to appeal to the masses, the worker
(or the general public in a Marxist sense). He sought to educate and entertain, wanting
individuals to form their own opinions regarding the drama they were watching.
CHINESE THEATRE
Brecht saw the Chinese actor Mei Lan Fang in Moscow, 1935. He watched him perform without
make-up, costume or lighting and saw an actor who seemed to stand aside from his part ‘and
make it quite clear that he knows he’s being observed’. There was a lack of illusion or empathy in
the performance. By standing outside of the character the actor forced the audience to look more
closely at the mechanism of acting. In the absence of ‘the fourth wall’ and the techniques used in
Chinese theatre, Brecht saw some of his own ideas of ‘epic theatre’. Brecht wanted simple and
uncluttered action. He was reacting against the melodramatic bourgeois German theatre
that he witnessed around him.
JAPANESE NOH THEATRE
Noh plays are often morality tales and require the audience to make a judgement on what they
see. Brecht’s play He who said yes/ He who said no, is based on the Noh play Taniko Again, in
the techniques of Japanese theatre performance, Brecht saw the use of ‘alienation’
(verfremdungseffekt).
SPORT, BOXING AND TRAVELLING FAIRS
Early on in his analysis of theatre, Brecht drew a comparison between the theatre audience and
the audience at a football or boxing match. Firstly, he wanted his theatre to have a mass appeal,
to be able to draw the live crowds that a sporting event would. Secondly, he noted that these
sporting audiences were always wide awake, in bright light and engaged in a dialogue with what
hey were watching. Whilst following a complex match or game, they could still chat to friends and
be relaxed and critical. Brecht wanted to encourage this attitude in theatre audiences.
Brecht also had an interest in the sports hero. He wanted to understand the boxers mind and he
had a relationship with the great German boxer of the day, Paul Samson-Korner, with whom he
collaborated on a play called The Human Fighting Machine, which was never completed.
Brecht was heavily influenced by the fan-fairs of his youth, street entertainment and political
cabarets. His fascination with travelling fairs –
4





A singer/narrator
Stories with a moral purpose, underscored by pictorial illustrations.
Accompanying music on a barrel organ
A performance in daylight
The audience free to smoke and drink and come and go as they please.
There were no illusions in the performance and Brecht wanted to demystify the mechanics of
the performance.
ERWIN PISCATOR (1893-1966)
Piscator was a German theatre director whose left-wing policies and house-style were of great
interest to Brecht. It was with Piscator at his theatre that Brecht first worked on Hasek’s novel
The Good soldier Schweik. Piscator worked in Berlin in the 1920’s. His plays involved large
casts, often complex stage machinery and the use of film and back projections. His pieces were
motivated by politics. In April 1930, he wrote: ‘Never was it more essential than now to take
sides; the side of the proletariat. More than ever the theatre must nail its flag fanatically to the
mast of politics; the politics of the proletariat.
The Theatre of Erwin Piscator – Willet pg 121
John Willet observes, ‘Meyerhold was surely right when he complained in 1928 that Piscator has
built a new theatre but makes old actors perform in it’. The concept of epic ‘gestic’ acting was
independently elaborated by Brecht in
‘The Theatre of Erwin Piscator’ Willet pg120.
DRAMATURG; Piscator was making political theatre before the Ausberger (Brecht)…Though
Piscator never wrote a play himself and hardly even wrote a scene, the Ausberger claimed that
apart from himself, he was the only competent dramatist. The actual theory of non-Aristotelian
theatre and the development of the A-effect should be credited to the Ausberger, but much of it
was also supplied by Piscator, and in a wholly original and independent way. Above all, the
theatres conversion to politics was Piscator’s achievement, without which, the Ausberger’s theatre
would hardly be conceivable.
Trans. Willet pg 68-69
CASPAR NEHER (1897-1962)
Caspar Neher was Brecht’s stage designer. He was also born in Augsberg. Brecht and Neher
met at school in their early teens. With a common interest in theatre, they became friends. Like
Piscator, Neher fought in WW1 but unlike Piscator and Brecht, he was not politicised either by his
experiences nor his contact with radical friends such as Brecht. Indeed, Neher was able to
continue working in Germany throughout the Nazi period, while Brecht, Piscator and many other
were forced into exile due to threats to their loves.
Neher was first and foremost an artist. He did line drawings and was interested in stage design
from his teens onwards. Brecht and Neher collaborated in many Brecht productions in their early
and later lives, despite a separation of over ten years while Brecht was in exile. Brecht showed
no resentment at Neher’s apoliticism. Fritz Korner once said of Neher, ‘he never had any
(convictions). Not even in the Nazi period.’
Nevertheless, Brecht and Neher’s friendship lasted and survived the separation as is attested to
be the following poem, written by Brecht in about 1948:
The Friends
The war separated
5
Me, the writer of plays, from my friend the stage designer.
The cities where we worked are no longer there.
When I walk through the cities that still are
At times I say: that blue piece of washing
My friend would have placed it better.
The Playwright’s speech about the Theatre of the Stage
Designer Caspar Neher (from Willet pg 84-86)
With what care he selects a chair, and with what thought he places it! And it all helps the playing.
One chair will have short legs, and the height of the accompanying table will also be calculated,
so that whoever eats at it has to take up quite a specific attitude, and the conversation of these
people as they bend more than usual when eating takes on a particular character, which makes
the episode clearer. And how many effects are made possible by his doors of the most diverse
heights…There is no building of his, no yard, or workshop or garden that does not bear the
fingerprints of the people who built it or lived there. He makes visible the manual skills and
knowledge of the builders and the ways of the living inhabitants. In his designs our friend always
starts with ‘the people themselves’ and ‘what is happening to or through them;’. He provides no
‘décor’ frames and backgrounds but constructs the space for ‘people’, to experience something in.
He (Neher) often makes use of a device which has since become an international commonplace
and is generally divorced from its sense. That is the division of the stage, an arrangement by
which a room, a yard or place of work is built up to half height downstage while another
environment is projected or painted behind, changing with every scene or remaining throughout
the play. This second milieu can be made up of documentary material or picture or tapestry. Such
an arrangement naturally gives depth to the story while acting as a continual remainder to the
audience that the scene designer has built a set: what he sees is presented differently from the
world outside the theatre.
This method for all its flexibility, is of course, only one of the many he uses; his sets are as
different from one another as the plays themselves. The basic impression is of very lightly
constructed, easily transformed and beautiful pieces of scaffolding, which further the acting and
help to tell the evening’s story fluently. Add the verve with which he works, the contempt he show
for anything dainty and innocuous, and the gaiety of his construction, and you have perhaps some
indication of the way of working of the greatest stage designer of our day.
KURT WEILL – MUSIC
Brecht saw music as essential to his theatre. They are a feature of v-effeckt and spass. A
musical score could include songs which commented on the action and gave the singer/actor the
opportunity to address the audience directly. (They could also be sung like a chorus, which could
address the characters with advice and warnings or take on the function of telling the audience
the characters unspoken thoughts). He used songs to wake up the audience. The music and the
songs were treated as separate elements. Brecht used cheap and expressive music that was
popular – cabaret, jazz, folk, ballads and contemporary. Songs could comment on characters
feelings as third person narrative, and thus were far from naturalistic. The songs allow for the
distancing effect to take place as well as emphasising the message of the story and often
undercutting the emotional element of the scene. The style of the music is often recitative and
repetitive. The emphasis is on the words and the parable being put across, not on the melodic
quality of the music. (eg: Mother Courage). Songs should be directed to the audience. Brecht did
not like sentimentality. He liked music that dealt with real life issues. Sentimentality breeds false
issues and statements. BUT it should be fun.
6
INTRODUCTION TO EPIC THEATRE
In his Epic Theatre Brecht sought to illuminate the historically specific features of an environment
in order to show how that environment influenced, shaped and often battered and destroyed the
characters. Unlike dramatists who focused on the universal elements of human situation and fate,
Brecht was interested in the attitudes and behaviour people adopted towards each other in
specific historical situations. Thus, in Mahogonny and The Three Penny Opera he was interested
in how people related to each other in a capitalist society; in Mother Courage, how trades people
related to soldiers and civilians during war in an emerging market society; in The Measure Taken,
he depicted revolutionary relationships in the struggle in China.
Brecht called this practice historicization and believed that one could best adopt a critical attitude
towards one’s society if the present social arrangements and institutions were viewed as
historical, transitory and subject to change. Brecht intended that epic theatre show emotions,
ideas and behaviours as products of, or response to specific social situations and not as the
unfolding of the human essence.
Brecht, in turning to Marxism to explain human behaviour rejected humanist essentialism. This
meant that he rejected the premise that there is such a thing as human nature, which is the same
in all places and at all times. That men and women may be essentially different is sometimes
included in this idea, and it may also be extended to say that different races of people are
essentially different – sometimes with the added slant that men are essentially superior to women
and white men essentially superior to black. Liberal humanism is a term you often come across; a
liberal humanist would want to hold onto the idea of an essential human nature but would reject
the idea of superiority of one sex or race over another. A liberal humanist statement might be:
We are the same under the skin.
Brecht rejected naturalism in the theatre. Naturalism can be defined from the quote in Hamlet: ‘To
hold as twere a mirror up to nature’. Brecht wanted theatrical pieces not only to show the world
as it is, but also how it might be – imagine a mirror in which you not only saw yourself but also
showed how you might look. Also, a mirror, is in a way, ‘invisible’ – you cannot see the surface of
a mirror, all you can see are the things that it reflects. Brecht wanted his mirror to be visible. He
wanted his theatre to ‘show the showing’.
In rejecting essentialism and naturalism, Brecht was rejecting the idea of ‘nature’, or rather
‘human nature’. This essential unchanging nature is the same yesterday, today and forever. A
mirror showing Brecht’s idea of ‘nature’ would have to also show the things that created it and
which were in the process of changing it, i.e. social, man-made processes.
Brecht’s writing is sometimes divided into different periods. He read and took instruction in
Marxism in the 1920’s. The plays most influenced by Marxism are the early didactic pieces,
called Lehrstucke. In German, ein Lehrer or eine Lehrerein is a teacher, lehren means to teach.
Das stuck is a play or a piece.
Brecht’s early pieces after his study of Marxism, like The Mother are seen as didiactic, pedagogic
plays. But Brecht did not want to tell people what to think as the term didactic may imply. He
wanted an audience to think for themselves, to judge what they saw. In exile in the late 1930’s he
wrote this poem:
On Judging
You artists who, for pleasure or for pain
Deliver yourselves up for judgement of the audience
The world which you show
7
You show what it is; but also
In showing what it is you suggest what could be and is not
And might be helpful. Fro from your portrayal
The audience must learn to deal with what is being portrayed.
Let this learning be pleasurable. Learning must be taught
As an art, and you should
Teach dealing with things and with people
As an art too, and the practice of art is pleasurable.
To be sure you live in a dark time. You see man
Tossed back and forth like a ball by evil forces.
Only an idiot lives without worry, The unsuspecting
Are already destined to go under. What were the earthquakes
Of grey prehistory compared to the afflictions
Which we suffer in cities? What were bad harvests
To the breed that ravages us in the midst of plenty?
Brecht wanted people in the audience to think about the real world outside theatre. This was
his way of using theatre for political ends. He used to have a sign which he took with him on his
travels and put above his desk which said, THE TRUTH IS CONCRETE.
BRECHT- HIS THEATRE PRACTICE
Brecht’s writings on theatre were developed over a lifetime. His starting point was always his
practical work and consequently ideas were constantly in flux and developed. It is a curious fact
that very little has been publicised to tell us either how Brecht really worked with his actors, or
how his epoch making productions were put together in rehearsal…overwhelmingly, studies of
Brecht have been largely theoretical in nature.
The audience was discouraged from identification with the characters by a number of techniques,
which have become known as his Alienation device or Verfremdungeffekt. These included the use
of parables, interludes, songs, placards and captions, masks, projections and his work on Gestus.
All of these were crucial to Brecht’s theatre and allowed the audience to distance themselves not
only from the familiar subjects and situations, but from their own preconceived notions and
personal experiences. Brecht’s Theatre, where the narrator had a critical attitude to the story and
the audience was encouraged to make decisions was called Epic Theatre. To clarify the
differences between Epic and Dramatic theatre Brecht presented the table on the following page:
DRAMATIC THEATRE
Brings an event to life
Involves the audience
and wears down its
capacity for action
Helps it to feel
Communicates
experiences
The audience is
projected into an event
Suggestion is used
EPIC THEATRE
Relates the event
Makes the audience an observer but
arouses its capacity for action
Compels it to make
decisions
Communicates insights
The audience is
confronted with an
event
Arguments are used
8
The character is a
known quantity
The character is
subject to investigation
Man is unchangeable
Man can change and
make changes
Eyes on the course
Events move in
irregular curves
Events jump
Eyes on the finish
Events move in a
straight line
One event follows
another
The world as it is
The world as it is
becoming
‘Theatre for Learning’ 1957
BRECHT’S IDEAS AND THEORIES:
VERFREMSDUNGSEFFEKT
This loosely translates from German as ‘distancing effect’ and is a major feature of Epic
Theatre. It is seen through the actors and their relationship with the audience.
The Verfremsdungeffekt and the Actors:
 Actors do not submerge themselves in their character – the actors then receive
‘renewed attentiveness’ from the audience (i.e. theya re forced to look closely at
the mechanics of acting)
 Actors demonstrate their roles, rather than fully embodying their character – this
then allows them to address the audience and narrate.
 Brecht dislocated the through line of action, one of Stanislavski’s theories,
because this made the outcome seem inevitable, and impossible to change.
The Verfremsdungeffekt and the Actors:
 Actor’s appealed to the audience’s reason, rather than their emotions – this
removed sympathy and personal identification with the action onstage –
therefore, the audience regard the actors as actors, not as characters, and are
thus able to consider the themes and arguments of the play.
 The audience are to judge the validity of a character’s chosen course of action.
The actor’s action affects an audience’s response.
 Brecht wanted to create a critical view in the audience – there was no lessening
of audience involvement, it just became a more objective role.
 The audience must not have an emotional catharsis - ie take on the burdens and
become trapped in the emotions of the play, so they cannot form a judgement.
 Brecht wants us to look at the characters’ actions, not what they say – words
can lie (subtext) but the act doesn’t lie.
 Action of characters exposed: we are able to criticise them:
o Right and Wrong actions are exhibited onstage
o We only realise we can change the world by seeing the wrong actions
alongside the right.
 The audience were distanced so:
o They didn’t take things for granted
o So they stayed mentally alert, so they could think and argue about what
they saw onstage – only then would they be motivated
9
o
It forces the audience to look at things that are familiar and ordinary in a
striking, peculiar or unexpected way, so they see the world afresh.
GESTE/ GESTUS
Brecht thought that for an actor to communicate with an audience he would need to connect
with them through his body language as well as verbally. This is what Brecht called GEST.
Gestus is the gist or essence of a character or scene and is mainly determined by the social
position and history of the characters. It often involves a contradiction. The most famous
being the silent scream by Helene Weigel in Mother Courage and Her Children. The
contradiction lies in the idea of a scream being silent and succinctly shows her feelings of
repression by not being able to vocalise her pain.
Geste relates in particular to the skills used by the actors
o There is no subtext – ‘All feelings must be externalised’. Geste excludes the
psychological aspects of a characters development.
o It has 2 essential components –
1. Contradiction – between actions and words.
2. It stands for a social relationship.
o Geste allows alternative consciousness and points of view, so an audience are made
to think, and come to conclusions based on this.
o Gestus should show status.
o Exaggeration: The most important thing we ever find out about a Brechtian
character is their social standing in the hierarchy. The props they use and their
gestus can show this.
o Create a character from the outside/in, rather than Stanislavski’s inside/out. The
main idea the actors must put across is the status of the characters.
o Ensemble acting is important –
o actors should stop gravitating to the centre of the stage
o multi-roling is an important element of ensemble acting and v-effeckt.
o they shouldn’t detach themselves or be alone
o they shouldn’t get too close, but should always look at who they are speaking
to, so the audience focus on that actor
o The play is most important – not actors or ‘stars’
SPASS:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Is the German word for ‘Fun’.
It is another aspect of dialecticism in his work
‘Satire’ – the use of comedy in order to propel change.
The grotesque stereotypes – e.g. the Governor’s wife is haughty, useless, selfish
and self-obsessed.
The audience is being invited to laugh at these characters and ultimately condemn
what they stand for.
It is made palatable to the audience though rapport and humour.
The use of music and song is also a part of spass
‘A theatre without laughter is a theatre to be laughed at’ Brecht
Laughter with a social criticism.
DIDACTIC VS DIALECTIC:
o
Didactic means intended to instruct. Through his work he wanted the spectator to
learn about the world in which they lived. He did not want audiences to leaves their
brains on coat racks.
10
o
Dialectical refers to the testing of truth by discussion – in simple terms – a debate.
Brecht intended to give all sides of an argument and allow the spectators to make
the critical judgement as a result.
HISTORICISATION:
o
o
This term in drama was coined to refer to the Brechtian practice of using a known
event from history to act as a commentary on modern society.
By setting the play outside the audience’s own time period, makes it easier for the
spectators to focus on the message of the play, as they view a strange society with
which they are not familiar.
BRECHT: PRACTICAL STAGING
STAGE DESIGN:
o
The set for a play should be anti-illusionist: constantly reminding the audience they
are in a theatre, so they do not believe they are watching reality, and do not get
drawn into the empathy with the setting, or simply marvel at its grandeur.
o
The set is built to the actors needs. Built to last 2 hours. Built to support a group of
actors not built for characters
o
the set evolves as a creative partnership (ensemble)
o
The designer adopts a political attitude towards the events on stage – they show the
issues on stage through the set.
o
The stage is bare and open, except for a few props. The props are real, and the
actors must be comfortable with them.
o
The set is changed in view of the audience – this breaks the illusion, and reminds the
audience they are in a theatre.
o
Set designer = set builder
o
Visible machinery – ropes, flies, rigs and orchestra
o
There is no curtain, or if there is it is just strung across the stage (Brecht’s half
curtain) again this destroys the illusion.
o
Selective realism – the minimum is needed to suggest time and place. Only those
bits of buildings needed to suggest time and place were constructed.
o
Furniture should look used – this makes them authentic, so then we do not focus on
them, do not even think about them.
o
The backstage area should be exposed for audience scrutiny, so they can see the
mechanics of acting, and so not get drawn into an illusion.
o
Representational sets – this shows the audience what it is straight away, so they are
not drawn in wondering what the set is.
11
o
Projections/ slides/placards are used, stating what will happen. By explaining what
will happen, there is a focus on events and character, and the audience do not have
to follow a story, which will cause them to be drawn into the events onstage.
STAGING FORM:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Boxing ring/ in the round
Touring set therefore should be minimal
Breaking of the 4th wall
Rejection of scenic realism
Actor/audience relationship
Configuration of space/ demarcation of acting area.
SCENERY & PROPS:
o
o
o
o
Period usage
Creating the environment around the actors
Props are functional and authentic
Base materials of the people (leather briefcase)
LIGHTING:
o
o
o
o
Visible sources of lighting used
Bright white light
Vibrant lighting
Lighting can be changed onstage by the actors to show the mechanics of the
production.
o
COSTUME DESIGN:
o
o
o
o
o
Costumes should be individually distinguishable – characters must be
distinguishable, for they all have different meaning, and must not be bound up
together.
Conversely, if uniform is used. Once you are in uniform, you are uniform, you are
unrecognisable as an individual – you can be manipulated as a group.
Costumes should be in dull colours: fabrics should be undyed. Distressed costumes
and neutral colour palette for the working class. This is simply so the audience does
not get drawn in by the beauty of the costumes.
Costumes should show signs of wear - texture and quality to signal their function not only does this distance the audience but it represents character.
Use of half-mask (ruling class) is important – this distances us, as we focus on an
actor’s body, their physical actions, so we realise they are actors.
12
The most famous Gestus of all- Mother Courage’s The Silent Scream by Helene Wiegel
ASSIGNMENTS AND ESSAY WRITING
You will need to familiarise yourself with Mother Courage and her Children.
13
Assignment 1:
With close reference to one or more live productions that you have seen, or
participated in, explain how, and with what success, Brecht’s ideas on
verfremdungseffekt (alienation) were used in order to affect the audience response.
(50 marks)
Explain how the technique was used and what its consequence was –how successful
were they in your view.
INTRODUCTION:
Arguably one of the most important aspects of Brecht’s epic theatre is his notion of
verfremdungseffekt. This has become popularly known as alienation technique.
However, this implies a rather cold, distant reading of the term. It can be more
accurately translated as ‘strange making’ technique. For this is more akin to what
Brecht intended. He wanted an active type of theatre that could be used for as a
tool for changing our flawed society. To achieve this goal, he wanted to educate
audiences and actors that there is a need for change. So people events,
recognisable phenomena, institutions and society are held up for display in such a
way that an audience recognises the reality of what they are seeing and sees it in a
different light. We are products, said Brecht of the scientific age. Therefore we
should look at life critically with the cool rational eye of the scientist. This is what
Brecht’s verfremdungseffeckt seeks to achieve.
This essay will explain how The National Theatre’s recent production of Brecht’s
Mother Courage utilised Brecht’s ideas on verfremdungseffekt (v-effekt) and to what
extent it was successful.
Assignment 2:
With close reference to one or more live production that you have seen, or
participated in, assess the success of two to three actors in adopting a Brechtian
approach to their roles.
(50 marks)
Assignment 3:
With close reference to one or more live production that you have seen, or
participated in, explain how one or more of the following Brechtian features
contributed to its success in conveying a social message:
o Music and/or song
o Narrator/s
14
o Gestic acting
(50 marks)
Assignment 4:
Explain how Brecht’s ideas about ‘ensemble acting’ were demonstrated in one
or more live productions that you have seen, or participated in, and assess the
contribution of the performers to the success of the production.
(50 marks)














The socialist ethic of the Berliner Ensemble
The ensemble of ‘workers’. The significance of each member of the
ensemble as his/her own person.
Acting in ‘quotation marks’ and a spirit of criticism of one’s own and of fellow
actor’s work
Gestic acting
Rehearsal exercises for actors in relation to epic theatre/ alienation, the street
scene
The split character’s/ multi-roling – actors within the ensemble often play both
‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters both rich and poor.
Theatre for a scientific age
Casting against type to enrich the ensemble, unheroic casting.
‘Taking the tone’ within the ensemble
Accepting suggestions from the ensemble
Training new actors and exposing them to an audience
Ensemble actors embodying competing social attitudes
Language and song
The relationship of the ensemble with the audience
Essay questions.
BRECHT
o In his plays and in his practice, Brecht attempted to combine political instruction with
entertainment. With reference to at least one ‘Brechtian’ production that you have
seen, or participated in, assess the effectiveness of a range of Brechtian techniques in
conveying a political message to a present-day audience.
o Explain how one practitioner’s ideas about the use of design elements were
exemplified in a production which you have seen, or participated in, and assess the
contribution made by the design to its dramatic effectiveness.
15
o Explain how a production that you have seen, or participated in, demonstrated
Brecht’s ideas about acting. How successful do you consider the actors to have been
in applying his methods?
o Explain how one practitioner’s rejection of ‘scenic realism’ was demonstrated in a
production that you have seen, or participated in, and assess the contribution of the
stage setting to the success of the production.
o Assess the contribution made by music and song to the effectiveness of one or more
Brechtian-style productions that you have seen, or participated in.
o Explain how one practitioner’s ideas about ‘ensemble acting’ were demonstrated in
one production that you have seen, or participated in, and assess the contribution of
the performers to the success of the production.
o Explain how Brecht’s ideas for creating fun(Spass) for his audience, to help them to
appreciate his social message, contributed to the success of one or more productions
that you have seen or participated in.
o Explain how one practitioner’s ideas for affecting his audience were adopted in one
or more productions that you have seen or participated in and assess the effectiveness
of the methods used.
o With close reference to one live production that you have seen or participated in,
explain how Brechtian techniques were applied in order to discourage the audience
from empathising with the characters and assess the success of the methods used.
o With reference to one or more live productions that you have seen or participated in,
explain how, and to what effect, one practitioner’s approach to stage setting was
applied.
o With close reference to one or more live productions that you have seen or
participated in, explain how design elements were used to support a distinctively
Brechtian approach to presenting the play and assess the contribution made by design
to the success of the production.
o With close reference to one or more live productions that you have seen or
participated in, assess the success of the application of one practitioner’s ideas about
the role of the performer within the production(s).
16
o With close reference to specific moments from one or more live productions that you
have seen or participated in, explain how a variety of Brechtian techniques were used
to convey social/political ideas to an audience.
o Explain how practitioner’s ideas for stimulating the interest of his audience were
applied in one live production that you have seen or participated in, and assess the
effectiveness of his methods in relation to specific moments from the production.
BRECHT.
In Relation to – Mother Courage and Her Children.
Brecht’s purpose.
Brecht saw Theatre as a tool to examine society. Brecht wanted a new kind of theatre that
reflected the times in which he was living- replacing an old fashioned theatre. He wanted a
theatre that asked questions of the actors and the audience that entertained whilst also
being a tool for social and political change.
He wrote ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ as a response to Twentieth Century war and
Politics.
Verfremdungseffekt.
In order to encourage an audience to stay mentally alert and in a condition to think about
and argue with what it sees on stage Brecht developed the idea of Verfremdungseffekt.
This is ‘to make strange’. It should make the audience pay attention to something that they
might otherwise simply take for granted.
‘Certain incidents in the play should be treated as self-contained scenes and raised - by
means of the inscription, musical or sound effects and the actors’ way of playing- above the
level of the everyday, the obvious, the expected Prevents emotional involvement.
The street scene.
Brecht drew an analogy between his Theatre and a sporting event at which spectators were
encouraged to smoke but also to express their opinions of the skills on display. It also
acknowledges that the audience is an educated participant.
Kenneth Tynan said that the actor in Brecht’s theatre treated the spectator as an equal ‘in a
sort of dialectic, rather than as people to be sweetened or flattered’.
Acting.
Stanislavski wanted truth in a performance. Brecht wants us to ask ‘is this picture of society
actually true?’
Does it truthfully tell us why this character is like he/she is or why s/he does what s/he does?
The actor must not identify with the character but be surprised by the character's behavior,
contradict him, do not take his/her behavior for granted.
When an actor goes on stage as a certain character they should imply what doesn’t take
place as well as showing what does. This is called ‘fixing the ‘not…but’ Moments when
choices are made and emphasized.
“Did I bargain for too long?” After she has delayed the release of Swiss Cheese by
trying to get a better price for her business.
The actor should not let a fourth wall divide them from the audience.
17
‘Let the audience see you are not this character, but you are an actor representing this
character and that you do not necessary agree with what your character is doing/saying.
However, be specific and avoid caricature. In this last point are the seeds of social Gest
(Demonstation).
Emotions have to be externalised and for this an actor must use gesture. Gesture as used
by the actors adopting the V-effekt must underline the social gest. Social gest reveals the
prevailing social relationships between people of a given period. These social gests are
underlying every incident.
Absolute clarity was very important to Brecht and he was a big fan of Charlie Chaplin.
Mother Courage always carefully counted out the money when doing a deal.
The General- his laugh and cigar and his swagger.
Yvette- her body language and costume.
Later when Yvette was married to the Colonel she shows through her body how she
has shifted social classes. She wears a fur coat.
Direct address to the audience- The chaplain directly addressed the audience and
asked them to think about Eilif being a hero during wartime but a criminal for doing
the same in peace.
Brecht wanted us to be critical of the people he made fun of - The General, The Chaplain,
Exaggeration used to ridicule.
Set Design
Brecht’s most famous set Designer was Casper Neher. Neher would observe rehearsals
and concentrated on social groupings. The set should remind the spectator that they are in
the theatre and should acquire the same fascinating reality of a sporting arena during a
boxing match- to show the machinery.
“If a set represents a town it must look like a town that has been made to last precisely 2
hours”
Selective Realism- Using only what is necessary to tell the story and should be authentic.
Tents made from canvas but in scene 2 it was just a canopy and the General and
Chaplain and Eilif stood outside of it.
Authentic uniforms and costumes
Guns
Chicken in scene 2
Potatoes in scene 2 – actually cooking of food on stage
Chaplain chopping wood.
Brecht saw the set as another actor and often the set could be constructed in such away as
to force an actor into adopting an attitude. It adds to the gestus.
18
In Scene 2 The General was stood up stage left and had a large grand straight backed
chair. Stage right the cook was on a very small milking stool whilst he peeled the
potatoes. MC had to crouch down beside him to pluck the chicken.
The cart was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre the actors’ were forced to show the
struggle to move it and get around.
Songs
Music was an essential part of Brecht’s Theatre. It could interrupt the action, comment on
the action and could comment on emotions in the 3rd person. Song of fraternization- song
by Yvette.
Songs were to be treated as separate elements. Courage’s song about how war is just
another form of business. Breaks up the structure Non linear.
Courage’s song scene 7
Spass
“Fun” / Satire…Grotesque Stereotypes. A sense of fun.
The audience is being invited to laugh at these characters and ultimately condemn what
they stand for.
(In rehearsal, to find a stereotype; explore the character from the outside-in.)
Two Acting Styles co-existing
Grotesque contrasted with Sympathetic down-to-earth characters
(both are making political statements to the audience and one shows up the other)
Comedy as a distancing technique. The scene with Kattrin trying on Yvette’s shoes.
Comic characterizations. The General, The Cook
The chaplain’s proposal to Mother Courage.
The scene changes- had a real sense of energy and ensemble.
Montage.
Connects dissimilar images/scenes in such away as to ‘shock’ people into new recognition’s
and understandings.
Eilif’s death on stage as MC sings another verse of courage’s song.
Scene titles
Help eliminate suspense.
19
The play’s lengthy scene titles were delivered matter of factly by a member of the
ensemble.
Brecht Mother Courage and Her Children



The play was finished in 1939.
It is set in Europe during the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648)
It tells the story of a woman, Anna Fierling who makes her living by travelling around
the battlefields with her canteen wagon; buying and selling what goods she can lay
her hands on. At the beginning of the play she is accompanied by her two sons Eilif
and Swiss Cheese, and her dumb daughter Kattrin. The play tells the story of how
Mother Courage eventually loses all of her three children to the war. As the
Sergeant prophetically says to her at the end of the first scene.
Like the war to nourish you?
You have to feed it something too





Brecht was a committed Marxist and he intended his theatre to be dialectical
because dialectics lies at the heart of Karl Marx’s philosophical thinking and
revolutionary politics. Broadly speaking, dialectics refers to the clash of opposites
and the contradiction, which are bound to arise when opposites come into conflict.
Mother Courage herself embodies a clash of opposing ideals – dialectic. She is a
walking contradiction. She needs the war in order for her business enterprise to
thrive, but at the same time, she fears it for the threat it resents to the safety of her
children.
She is caught in the contradiction between being a merchant and being a
mother.
So essentially the play is about the contradictory claims of business and
motherhood; and about the inevitable loss that the mother suffers as she tries to
negotiate these contradictory demands.
In the model book for Mother Courage, Brecht describes Mother Courage’s situation
thus:
She longs for the war but at the same time fears it. She wants to join in
but as a peaceable business, not in a warlike way. She wants to
maintain her family during the war and by means of it. She wants to
serve the army and also to keep out of its clutches.


In each of these sentences Brecht expresses the contradictions in Mother Courage’s
character. The basic contradiction of course is between her role as a mother and her
ambition as a merchant. Brecht uses the exceptional circumstances of war as a
means of forcing the contradictions in her character to the surface; to dramatically
confront and reveal the contradictions through the brutal event of the war.
Brecht’s studies of Marxism and revolutionary politics led him to imagine a new kind
of spectator. Traditionally the theatre audiences were content to accept the world
depicted on the stage as a true picture of the world as it really is; something, which
simply has to be accepted as natural. Brecht wanted a theatre that would show that
in any set circumstances a number of different options exist for the characters. And
20
the job of the spectator was to judge the validity of the characters’ selected course of
action.



Brecht wanted to create dissent.
In political terms, submission produces
acquiescence, deference and conformity to the status quo; dissent produces
defiance, protest and a desire for change.
The overriding principle in Brecht’s theatre is a commitment to fundamental social
change; and consequently, he set out to develop theatre, which presents the world
and human nature as knowable and alterable. It was his development of
verfrumdungseffekt and the epic form, which helped him proved the tools for
achieving this end.
Brecht wore his politics on his sleeve; he directly addressed his audiences and
challenged them to look at what happens in the work of human affairs not as being
natural, like the weather or the changing seasons but as being man made socially
unjust and therefore changeable. Many of his ideas both about politics and a new
anti realist theatre are contained within this prologue.
THE OPENING SCENE



“Spring 1624……….etc” are projected onto a cyclorama.
The words are detailed and explicit. This is not ‘any old where’ or ‘once upon a
time’ but a specific time and place and a specific year. Not that this particular
place has to be remembered: yet the stating of the facts is important. On this
stage will be a representation of something real and therefore specific and
therefore open to investigation. A general statement like ‘The Thirty Years War’
would be too vague, leaving too much and too little to the imagination.
The opening dialogue between the sergeant and the recruiting officer takes place
on a more or less empty stage: ‘a highway’
What is achieved by this
dialogue?
THE OPENING DIALOGUE

The war dominates the play. For these 2 characters war is a livelihood. They
are war’s creatures and are quick to rationalize their self-interest, turning the
feeding of the war into something morally admirable. The 2 men are not
themselves witty critical or intelligent: but their dialogue generates a critical wit.
What they both say is outrageous and true. War brings organization. In a way,
the dialogue is realistic (2 such people may talk like that) but is aim isn’t simply to
establish a realistically convincing situation but to make the audience look
critically at it.
Brecht’s objective is to present a scene in a way that encourages the
audience to see al round it: the objectivity he aims at is achieve in that
way.
21