Brecht

It is difficult to imagine a play which is completely successful in portraying drama as Bertolt Brecht envisioned it to be. For many years before and since Brecht proposed his theory of "Epic Theatre", writers, directors and actors have been focused on the vitality of entertaining the audience, and creating characters with which the spectator can empathize. Ð''Epic Theatre' believes that the actor-spectator relationship should be one of distinct separation, and that the spectator should learn from the actor rather than relate to him. Two contemporary plays that have been written in the last thirty years which examine and work with Brechtian ideals are Ð''Fanshen' by David Hare, and Ð''The Laramie Project' by Moises Kaufman. The question to be examined is whether either of these two plays are entirely successful in achieving what was later called, Ð''The Alienation Effect".

Over the course of his career, Brecht developed the criteria for and conditions needed to create Epic Theatre. The role of the audience can be likened to that of a group of college aged students or intellectuals. Brecht believed in the intelligence of his audience, and their capacity for critical analysis. He detested the trance-like state that an Aristotelian performance can lure the audience into. Plays that idealize life and humanity are appealing to an audience, and this makes it easy for them to identify with the hero, they reach a state of self oblivion. The spectator becomes one with the actor, and experiences the same fantastical climax that is unattainable in real life.

"However, at the end of the performance, the audience has already experienced the highest emotional climax, the memory of which is strung along by the inevitable plot resolution. The audience has no choice but to leave with the rapidly fading memory of their dramatic stimulation and return to the underwhelming reality that awaits them outside of the theatre."

"The task of epic theatre, Brecht believes, is not so much to develop actions as to represent conditions. But to Ð"«representÐ"­ does not here signify Ð"«reproduceÐ"­ in the sensed used by theoreticians of Naturalism. Rather, the first point at issue is to uncover those conditions. (One could just as well say: to make them strange

(Benjamin 1966, 18-9)

"The art of epic theatre consists in arousing astonishment rather than EMPATHY." (Benjamin 1966,16)

" Ð''Theatre' consists in this; in making live representations of reported or invented happenings between human beings and doing so with a view to entertainment. At any rate that is what we shall mean when we speak of theatre, whether old or new."

You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen.

--Ben Kingsley

He detested the "Aristotelian" drama and its attempts to lure the spectator into a kind of trance-like state, a total identification with the hero to the point of complete self-oblivion, resulting in feelings of terror and pity and, ultimately, an emotional catharsis. He didn't want his audience to feel emotions--he wanted them to think--and towards this end, he determined to destroy the theatrical illusion, and, thus, that dull trance-like state he so despised.

The result of Brecht's research was a technique known as "verfremdungseffekt" or the "alienation effect". It was designed to encourage the audience to retain their critical detachment

The dramatic aesthetic is the strong centralization of the story and a momentum that draws the six poetic elements (plot, character, theme, dialog, rhythm, and spectacle) into common relationship.

[2] The epic aesthetic, by contrast, "can take a pair of scissors and cut it into individual pieces, which remain fully capable of life" (p.

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. http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_epic_theater.html

Brecht believed that "To think, or write, or produce a play also means to transform society, to transform the state, to subject ideologies to close scrutiny." Having established this doctrine for himself, Brecht instigated the use of epic theatre in an attempt to break from the Aristotelian definition. Although he did not approve of the Aristotelian version, he redefined the nature of catharsis to suit his needs.

Quick to criticism the role of the audience in traditional theatre, Brecht placed particular emphasis on the eventual let down created by fantasy.

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Stage/1052/brecht5.htm

Brecht's reference to actors as "sellers of drugs" is particularly apt imagery. The actors sell a package of fabricated grandeur to the audience, which experiences a rush of feeling leading to an emotional high. However, at the end of the performance, the