Epic Theatre: The Influences of Bertolt Brecht Essay

Brechts work is based on the concept that theatre is a means of political persuasion for the masses. He sees the theatre as a tool to manipulate the audience, and to influence their day-to-day living once that have thought about issues raised during the performance.

Above all, I wouldn’t be where I am today without theatre. Without the chance to perform throughout my life, I would be disconnected from the wide array of communities and histories that’s been imbedded in my daily routine. Unfortunately, it’s speculated that the theatre is a dying art form, because of the expanding popularities of movies (“Is”), but I think that it’ll remain a well renowned part of expressing imagination and interpreting history as years pass; it only takes cooperation with school faculty and young students that go above and beyond to change their

Brecht’s political theatre stems from his political views towards communism and the upper class society. Theatre that comments on political issues within society. Brecht began to have a dislike for the capitalist society he was brought up in and wanted more of an equal approach to the world and the people around him. With epic theatre, Brecht wanted it to be both didactic (able to teach others) and dialectic (able to create discussions and ideas). The audience at no time during an epic play can be seen to be in a trance or take what they see on stage for granted. Our performance is reflective of Brecht and his Epic and Political theatre as we address many political topics such as Marxism and the divides between classes and the corruption of the government. We have props such as protest signs and banners to communicate Brecht’s political theatre to the audience. In the first episode, Brown’s Boys, there is a scene where MPs choke and die after ignoring the recession and protesters emerge into the audience chanting that ‘politics is dead’ and ‘they don’t really care about us’ while holding banners saying, ‘politics is dead’ and ‘Gordon Clown’. This was done as it represented politics and the fact the seriousness of the situation was ignored; showing how quickly the issues with the recession spiralled out of control and became something that even the higher up in society were unable

The history of theatre in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is one of the increasing commercialization of the art, accompanied by technological innovations, the introduction of serious critical review, expansion of the subject matters portrayed to include ordinary people, and an emphasis on more natural forms of acting. Theatre, which had been dominated by the church for centuries, and then by the tastes of monarchs for more than 200 years, became accessible to merchants, industrialists, and the less privileged and then the masses.

The above example illustrates not only how the theatrical performance affects the audience, but also how the audience influences its dynamics, development and the characters within it. The actors feel a certain level of acceptance from the viewer, who demands a certain way of depicting the character. Theatre is not just entertainment, itís something much more than that ñ itís education. Theatre should always represent things, rather than

This meant that the old high culture, with its idealism and élitism, would have to be replaced with a specifically modern culture. Brecht demanded ‘the radical transformation of the theater’ which would ‘correspond to the whole radical transformation of the mentality of our time’. In the 1920s, he, along with Erwin Piscator, created an ‘epic’ theatre different from ‘dramatic’ or ‘Aristotelian’ theatre. Whereas the premise for dramatic theatre was that human nature could not be changed, ‘epic’ theatre assumed that it both could change and was already

Brecht was not the sort of writer or director that wanted an exact portrayal from his actors of how he saw his characters. Nor did he expect the audience to take an exact interpretation from he actors. He wanted the audience to draw some sort of moral from the story that would arouse their sense of reason to affect their own

Bertolt Brecht was a director and playwright, born on February 10th 1898 in Augsburg Germany. Throughout his life he disagreed strongly with his father’s bourgeois lifestyle, this may have changed his writing technique and powered his political views portrayed in his work. Brecht studied medicine in 1918 at Munich University where he was then appointed a medical orderly during the First World War. Influenced by the monstrosities war brought to his attention, Brecht wrote many poems reflecting his experiences as well as producing his first play titled “Baal” in 1919. Escaping the grip of war, Brecht followed his passion into Bohemian theatre and literature beginning in Munich where he then travelled to Berlin after. Working alongside Erwin Piscator, they cemented the epic theatre theory. Epic Theatre, is a theory that Brecht believed in encouraging the idea that theatre should conform to the reasoning behind it, instead of focussing on the audience’s feelings towards it. Bertolt Brecht’s work conformed to his theory of epic theatre. He wanted his work to be a platform for change and stated how people should “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”. Naturalistic theatre focused on entertainment to captivate the audience to the extent of forgetting themselves and being involved with the characters they are watching. Emotions felt and released during theatre such as crying, is recognised as catharsis. Brecht was completely against cathartic theatre and believed

Angelo Miramonti says that if he would describe the theatre in words then its energy its fun and its transformation of our lives together. He also says that the word oppressed in the theatre of the oppressed, is the “one who is suffering because of a situation or someone

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, (b.1898-d.1956), known commonly as Bertolt Brecht, was a German poet and playwright. One of his major contributions to theatre history was the “alienation effect” (From the German, “Verfremdungseffekt”). Brechtian alienation requires the removal of the “fourth wall.” This is a term that describes the “suspension of disbelief” by the audience that takes place during a performance. It is often thought that the audience looks in on the play’s action through an invisible wall, just as the audience during a performance is focused upon a procenium stage. This is a literal and figurative term. The audience pretends that the characters in the story are actually alive,

In this essay I will be discussing the theatrical style of Brecht and how he created his own form of theatre and I will be using his play 'Mother Courage and Her Children' to back up the innovation and techniques that Brecht used during his career. 'Mother Courage and Her Children' is set in the 30 year's war and follows Mother Courage making a living by selling supplies from her wagon to armies that they encounter. Trying to make a living for herself and her family. The focus is on the conflict that occurs between war profiteering and maintaining a family. Her children end up dying due to the struggle of trying to live like a family and trying to survive the war.

In other theater forms, the spectators are passive and simply react emotionally to the actors. However, in Theater of the Oppressed, the audience actually has life because they are active participants in the play. By acting as both an audience member and a spectator, the play of the oppressed person at hand becomes more meaningful. The spect-actor can come into the play and through critical thinking, he or she changes the scene to make the oppressor less oppressive. They cannot change the scene through “magic”, or bring in a characteristic that a majority of the oppressed population lacks. When the audience member is both the actor and an observer, there is a space for everyone to be an equal participant thus increasing the level of interaction

In today's busy world, people usually struggle to find time for fun and a way of relaxation but when it happens, they often spend it on entertainment. One of those forms of entertainment is watching stage or film productions. Theatre and film have lots of aspects in common and depend on each other, however, they involve differences. People choose between theater and film based on factors and their own preferences. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast between those two forms of art.

Life of Galileo and Top Girls are two plays that truly exemplify epic theater. They both tell stories in order to call the audience to some form of action, and they both alienate the audience from the characters. Epic theater’s purpose is “to cause the audience to think objectively about the play, to reflect on its argument, to understand it, and to draw conclusions” (“Epic Theater”). Therefore, for a work to be categorized as epic theater it must have an argument or main idea. Not only must it have an idea that drives the play, but the subjects of the play must be conduits to this idea. This is why characters in epic plays are often detached from the audience. The audience is not supposed to be invested in

Brecht was born in 1898 in Germany, Ausburg. He had gone to Munich then Berlin, in search of a theatrical career, however it soon came to an abrupt halt as Nazis came into power in Germany. Brecht had fled to the USA to seek a better, safer future. Brecht was influenced by a wide range of writers and events, such as Chinese theatre and Karl Marx. The fact that Brecht had been through so much when his homeland got wrecked, gave him a political view to express reality. Epic theatre is where the spectator shouldn’t get emotionally attached with the characters but instead should try and think of what the message being spread on the stage is really about. Brecht made Epic theatre his main focus as he wanted to portray messages through his work; events he had been through are highlighted in his plays written including themes of death, greed, misery etc. To make sure the audience were left critical of the theatre piece; Brecht would alienate the audience which in return made the audience distance themselves from the performers. Alienation could be by reading stage directions out loud, or having a juxtaposing song where the lyrics may be harsh but are accompanied by a sweet medley like we used in our devised piece. Brecht used juxtaposition as it alienated the audience so they didn’t get connected to the performance on an emotional level. In our performance, we also included juxtaposition for our riot scene, using the sweet melody of ‘ring ring roses’ contrasted with aggressive