{"id":226,"date":"2016-04-14T19:36:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T19:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mgs.performerstuff.com\/?p=226"},"modified":"2020-03-26T15:58:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T15:58:47","slug":"who-isbertolt-brecht-1898-1956","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/performerstuff.com\/mgs\/who-isbertolt-brecht-1898-1956\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Acting Teachers! Who is?\u2026Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Great Acting Teachers!\u00a0Who is?\u2026Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)<\/h3>\n
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Written by\u00a0Elizabeth Brendel Horn<\/p>\n

April 13, 2016<\/p>\n

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\u201cNo one will improve your lot if you do not yourself.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n


Breaking the fourth wall. Harsh lighting. Captions. While these elements might not sound out of the ordinary to a modern theatregoer, the German dramatist and director Bertolt Brecht was groundbreaking in using such conventions in what he termed \u201cepic theatre.\u201d A Marxist and antibourgeois, Brecht used theatre to create a political forum with the audience.<\/p>\n

Epic Theatre<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brecht dismissed the widely accepted notion that the purpose of theatre was to allow the audience to have an emotional response, equating catharsis (the release of emotions caused by pity and fear) to complacency. Rather, he believed theatre should create a platform for rational self-reflection that would ignite in audience members the desire for social and political change. In his effort to prevent an emotional response from his audience, Brecht sought to remind audience members that they were in a play by highlighting the theatricality of the experience \u2013 an aesthetic quite different from the realism popular in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.<\/p>\n

Verfremdungseffekt<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Brecht sought to achieve this rational self-reflection through verfremdungseffekt<\/em>, which translates into the defamiliarization effect or distancing effect. Brecht borrowed inspiration from traditional Chinese performance, in which he observed the most dramatic of stories was portrayed without performers getting emotionally \u201cheated.\u201d To create emotional distance for his audience members, Brecht had actors directly address the audience, used bright unnatural lighting, used explanatory placards, changed characters on stage, changed costumes on stage, and incorporated songs in non-musical plays. And while traditional Aristotelian plays upheld unity of time, place, and action, Brecht frequently broke this mold through the use of montage. These theatrical conventions, considered bold in Brecht\u2019s time, are now familiar on the modern stage and screen. However, what remains unique is Brecht\u2019s use of these elements to remind the audience that what they were witnessing was not real life, but instead a theatrical experience, which Brecht believed paved the way for an analytical response and social justice.<\/p>\n

Mother Courage and Her Children<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Considered by many to be Brecht\u2019s masterpiece of epic theatre, Mother Courage and Her Children<\/em> is presented in twelve scenes over the course of twelve years. The play follows Mother Courage through the Thirty Years\u2019 War and illustrates the gruesomeness of war. True to epic theatre form the episodic structure of the play never allows for a moment of catharsis, although reports say Brecht was disappointed at the emotional connection the audience exhibited as the play premiered during the rise of World War II.<\/p>\n

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Elizabeth Brendel Horn<\/strong> is an assistant professor in Theatre for Young Audiences at the University of Central Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n

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