Fourth Wall

This phenomenon was replicated at the University of Michigan’s SMTD performance of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, written by Bertolt Brecht. This play told the story of the rise of gangster Arturo Ui and the corruption of the cauliflower business in order to satirize the rise of Hitler. Despite this being a play, rather than a musical, the use of Copland’s “planes of listening” still apply. Theater-goers can still view the work with different approaches- either purely surface level, meaning-driven, or technical, like the “planes of listening Copland describes.

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 the ‘straight theatre’ the director takes the part of the author, and makes the actor see his work (author and director are one). After incorporating the author’s work by way of the director, the actor comes face to face with the spectator (author and director at the actor’s back), and acts freely while enjoying the give and take of the two main elements of theatre – the player and the playgoer. The director alone must set the tone and style of a performance so that the ‘straight theatre’ may not become chaotic, and yet the acting will remain free and unrestrained.”

Anton Chekov and Bertolt Brecht are two theatre practitioners whose work has had a significant impact on the development of modern theatrical practices. Both of these men’s contributions revolutionised the nature of theatre at their time and their work has greatly shaped modern acting techniques and theatre conventions. However, Brecht and Chekhov share more differences than similarities in the way they approached theatre. These differences are strikingly evident while examining their plays. This essay will identify these key differences between Brecht and Chekov and will examine how the different approaches affect each practitioners work.

Leigh’s statement that ‘The edge of the stage is not an invisible boundary over which the actor must never step but a garden wall across which the actor gossips and flirts with the public as if they were neighbours’ seems to have captured the very essence of audience acknowledgement that is so present in the play Pseudolus. Neither cast nor script of this comedy by Plautus seems particularly bothered by any notion of the fourth wall, and the play is rife with both blatant and subtle character acknowledgement of the audience. Indeed the notion that the fourth wall is some sort of impenetrable barrier between performer and audience seems absurd when one examines the aims of theatre and performance as a whole, and Pseudolus circumvents and breaches this supposed barrier with a variety of means

How Brecht achieves producing this state of consciousness is more subtle and elegant than the previous technique of having actors walk out with blatant placards to remind the audience that they are watching a play. One of the marks of Brecht’s epic theater is his alienation effect, or “a representation which allows [the audience] to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar” (Brecht 1948, 8).

There is no theatre without an audience. The audience is as much a part of the playmaking experience as the artists—so how do we incorporate them more actively into what we do? We must work with them – and I’ve learned, in so doing,

In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.

In Brecht’s essay “The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre,” he explains how “once out of the cloakroom [the audience] take their seats with the bearing of kings” (39). The audience expects to have the production cater to them, and as a paying audience they expect nothing less. Consequently, the production puts the audience out of their comfort zone, because the performance on longer caters to their aesthetic needs. The audience feels even more out of sorts because the experience is not artistically executed to appeal to them. The guide plays off of the fear of the middle-class audience, specifically their fear of standing out. He essentially says, see what happens when you don’t follow the leaders and those who have agency. The guide presents the idea of them being alienated from the rest of the spectators if they were to interject in the violence that was happening in each of the rooms. He raises the question of who is in control and how much authority the audience actually has over the production and the people in the

The next part of analysis is breaking of the fourth wall. The Office uses this technique often. One of the ways a character can break the fourth wall is by using it as an introduction. In the first episode of The Office each character went into an interview and it previewed what their character would be like (“Pilot”). Another way of using this technique is to share their thoughts and emotions. Jim would explain how he has feelings for Pam, but unfortunately she was engaged to someone else (“Gay Witch Hunt”). Nonverbal expression was a technique Jim used a lot in the show. When he worked at the Stamford branch, the office workers there made fun of Jim for always smiling and looking into the camera (“Gay Witch Hunt”). The Office had a creative take on this technique. In the last episode, the show hosted a questionnaire for fans to come in ask them whatever they wanted (“Finale”). This is unique for situation comedies because it blurs the lines of the fourth wall.

This book is designed to examine the relationship between scenography and performance, and is another collaboration of works by different experts. Although it does mention different types of space in the first section after that the purpose of the text is to highlight the possibilities for theatre in the future thanks to technological advances and new media. This again meant that it was only the initial section of the resource that I felt able to use for my work. Thanks to how it breaks up space I was still able to apply this to my analysis of Freeman (2017). Its ability to divide space into its different theoretical capabilities helped me to do the same with the performance and see how they had utilised the space to the advantage of the story. A clear description of what performance space is and how it can be applied to a performance is given in this book. “The potentials of spaces for performance are necessarily spaces where reality and illusion are both a simulation of the material world but also, and simultaneously real” (Oddey and White, 2006: 15) highlights how the space can be used for both the real and the illusionary in theatre and helped to tie my section about space into the analytical framework of phenomenology which our group also discussed.

If the world of theatre can be accredited for anything, it would be for drama’s constant criticism of societal structure. Through it’s epic use of comedic and dramatic storytelling, theatre subconsciously inspires the minds of it’s audience to genuinely analyze the inner workings of their community’s sturcture. Some playwrights successfully incorporate this masterful mind game through their humorous and entertaining comedies; Others entice by their jarring and encompassing dramas. No matter the style, playwrights are constantly attempting to challenge the minds of their audiences and bring truth to light through their art. A phenomenal and extremely direct example of this comes from Moliere’s most

Shakespeare has a difficult task entertaining the rowdy Elizabethan audience, especially during the exposition of the play, which sets up the entire plot. The audience needs to be engaged and invested in the play, otherwise many of the Elizabethan audience would throw food and furniture on stage or vandalize the theatre in response. Shakespeare employs a variety of techniques throughout the exposition of the play in order to do this, by creating tension between characters, introducing scandalous plots and unresolved issues right at the beginning of the play leaving the audience waiting for an answer. This essay will explore Shakespeare’s techniques and methods of engaging his Elizabethan audience.

Audience behaviour has always been a complex but nonetheless essential part of the material framework for theatre or theatrical events. In its extreme forms (e.g., at live wrestling matches, at exuberant and spirited plays, etc.) is more easily identified and also gives the passive observer some inkling as to where the boundaries for decent behaviour in the given society really are. Audiences are increasingly becoming involved in a multi-layered assortment of activities and affections (greatly contrasting in importance and fervour). It is interesting to note that the audience is now intrinsically intertwined with familiar social relations. There is an unravelling of the difference

A play is the fundamental part of theatre, it’s an event that people go and witnesses. There are two major types of plays, comedies and tragedies, and every play should have a beginning, middle and an end. A play’s structure also known as dramaturgy, the vertical axis where it revolves around the characters and the action, while the horizontal axis consists of the time and plot. Plays exists in a worldly structure the preplay, play and the post play. Preplay is when the advertisement for the play beginnings, the producer tries to attract an audience by renting out giant billboards, and making posters so they can get the people interested, and will be more likely to attending it. The theatre does this to try and get peoples attention without this no one would even know if a play was going on. Advertisement is need theatre to make money. Play consists of four parts exposition, conflict, climax, and denouement. Its the moment when we as an audience step into a different world, it’s not until the post play that we re-enter the real world. It’s where the actor’s re-enter the stage and takes a bow it signals the end of the performance to both the audience and the performers. But it doesn 't end, the people in the audience go out and has conversations with other people and that might interest other to go see it or even see it again. We still look at Aristotle works today. They are the most influential pieces in the western history, they are the core building blocks of a theatre