Brecht on Theatre.pdf
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Bertolt Brecht's 'Brecht on Theatre' emphasizes the distinctions between traditional and epic theatre, focusing on the latter's goal of social change and audience engagement. He introduces the 'alienation effect' as a technique to prevent audience identification with characters, promoting critical reflection on social issues. Brecht critiques the commercialization of art, advocating for a theatre that instructs while entertaining, encouraging active audience participation and societal transformation.
Brecht on Theatre.pdf
- 1. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic Brecht, B. (1978). Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. United Kingdom: Hill and Wang.
- 2. “Theatre for Instruction” “Briefly, the aristotelian play is essentially static; its task is to show the world as it is. The learning-play is essentially dynamic; its task is to show the world as it changes (and also how it may be changed). With the learning-play, then, the stage begins to be didactic.”
- 4. “Epic Theatre” “The epic theatre works out scenes where people adopt attitudes of such a sort that the social laws under which they are acting spring into sight. The concern of the epic theatre is thus eminently practical. Human behaviour is shown as alterable.” https://allthingsbill.com/product/bertolt-brecht-portrait-illustration
- 5. “To give an example: a scene where three men are hired by a fourth for a specific illegal purpose (Mann ist Mann) has to be shown by the epic theatre in such a way that it becomes possible to imagine the attitude of the four men other than as it is expressed there: i.e. so that one imagines either a different set of political and economic conditions under which these men would be speaking differently, or else a different approach on their part to their actual conditions, which would likewise lead them to say different things. In short, the spectator is given the chance to criticize human behaviour from a social point of view, and the scene is played as a piece of history. The idea is that the spectator should be put in a position where he can make comparisons about everything that influences the way in which human beings behave.”
- 6. “Alienation Effect: This method was most recently used in Germany for plays of a non- aristotelian (not dependent on empathy) type as part of the attempts being made to evolve an epic theatre. The efforts in question were directed to playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. This effort to make the incidents represented appear strange to the public can be seen in the theatrical and pictorial displays at the old popular fairs.”
- 7. “Alienation Effect: The A-effect was achieved in the German epic theatre not only by the actor, but also by the music and the setting (placards, film etc.). It was principally designed to historicize the incidents portrayed. By this is meant the following: The bourgeois theatre emphasized the timelessness of its objects. Its representation of people is bound by the alleged ‘eternally human’. Its story is arranged in such a way as to create ‘universal’ situations. But for the historicizing theatre everything is different. The theatre concentrates entirely on whatever in this perfectly everyday event is remarkable, particular and demanding inquiry.”
- 8. “Alienation Effect: What! A family letting one of its members leave the nest to earn her future living independently and without help? Is she up to it? Will what she has learnt here as a member of the family help her to earn her living? Is it like that with every family? Was it always like that? Is this the way of the world, something that can’t be affected? The fruit falls off the tree when ripe: does this sentence apply here? Do children always make themselves independent? Did they do so in every age? These are the questions (or a few of them) that the actors must answer if they want to show' the incident as a unique, historical one: if they want to demonstrate a custom which leads to conclusions about the entire structure of a society at a particular (transient) time.”
- 9. “Alienation Effect” “Winter of 1936: the first mention in his writings of the term ‘Verfremdungseffekt’… The formula itself is a translation of the Russian critic Viktor Shklovskij’s phrase ‘Priem Ostrannenija’, or ‘device for making strange’.”
- 10. “Alienation Effect: What is involved here is, briefly, a technique of taking the human social incidents to be portrayed and labelling them as something striking, something that calls for explanation, is not to be taken for granted, not just natural. The object of this ‘effect’ is to allow the spectator to criticize constructively from a social point of view.”
- 11. “Alienation Effect” “The A-effect consists in turning the object of which one is to be made aware, to which one’s attention is to be drawn, from something ordinary, familiar, immediately accessible, into something peculiar, striking and unexpected. What is obvious is in a certain sense made incomprehensible, but this is only in order that it may then be made all the easier to comprehend. Before familiarity can turn into awareness the familiar must be stripped of its inconspicuousness; we must give up assuming that the object in question needs no explanation.”
- 12. “A common use of the A-effect is when someone says: ‘Have you ever really looked carefully at your watch?’ I used to look at it to see the time, and now when he asks me in this importunate way I realize that I have given up seeing the watch itself with an astonished eye; and it is in many ways an astonishing piece of machinery. The asking of the question has alienated it, and intentionally so.”
- 13. “To see one’s mother as a man’s wife one needs an A-effect; this is provided, for instance, when one acquires a stepfather.”
- 14. “Epic Theatre” Changes of emphasis as between the dramatic and the epic theatre: Dramatic theatre Epic theatre plot narrative implicates the spectator in a stage situation turns the spectator into an observer provides him with sensations forces him to take decisions experience arouses his capacity for action instinctive feelings are preserved brought to the point of recognition the human being is taken for granted the human being is the object of the inquiry man as a fixed point man as a process thought determines being social being determines thought feeling reason
- 15. “The dramatic theatre’s spectator says: ‘Yes, I have felt like that too - Just like me - It’s only natural - It’ll never change - The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are inescapable - That’s great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world -I weep when they weep, I laugh when they laugh’.” “The epic theatre’s spectator says: ‘I’d never have thought it - That’s not the way - That’s extraordinary, hardly believable - It’s got to stop - The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are unnecessary - That’s great art: nothing obvious in it -I laugh when they weep, I weep when they laugh’.”
- 16. “Opera with Innovations” “The avant-garde are demanding innovations which are supposedly going to lead to a renovation of opera; but nobody demands a fundamental discussion of opera (i.e. of its function), and probably such a discussion would not find much support.”
- 17. “Opera with Innovations” “Values evolve which are based on the fodder principle. And this leads to a general habit of judging works of art by their suitability for the apparatus without ever judging the apparatus by its suitability for the work. People say, this or that is a good work; and they mean (but do not say) good for the apparatus. Yet this apparatus is conditioned by the society of the day and only accepts what can keep it going in that society. We are free to discuss any innovation which doesn’t threaten its social function - that of providing an evening’s entertainment. We are not free to discuss those which threaten to change its function, possibly by fusing it with the educational system or with the organs of mass communication. Society absorbs via the apparatus whatever it needs in order to reproduce itself. This means that an innovation will pass if it is calculated to rejuvenate existing society, but not if it is going to change it.”
- 18. “Opera with Innovations” “The trouble is that at present the apparati do not work for the general good; the means of production do not belong to the producer; and as a result his work amounts to so much merchandise, and is governed by the normal laws of mercantile trade. Art is merchandise, only to be manufactured by the means of production (apparati). Even if one wanted to start a discussion of the opera as such (i.e. of its function), an opera would have to be written. We have seen that opera is sold as evening entertainment, and that this puts definite bounds to all attempts to transform it.”
- 19. “The Instructive Theatre” “Generally there is felt to be a very sharp distinction between learning and amusing oneself. The first may be useful, but only the second is pleasant. Well: all that can be said is that the contrast between learning and amusing oneself is not laid down by divine rule; it is not one that has always been and must continue to be. Undoubtedly there is much that is tedious about the kind of learning familiar to us from school, from our professional training, etc. But it must be remembered under what conditions and to what end that takes place. It is really a commercial transaction. Knowledge is just a commodity.”
- 20. “The Instructive Theatre” “All those who have grown out of going to school have to do their learning virtually in secret, for anyone who admits that he still has something to learn devalues himself as a man whose knowledge is inadequate. Learning is often among the concerns of those whom no amount of concern will get any forwarder. There is not much knowledge that leads to power, but plenty of knowledge to which only power can lead.”
- 21. “Theatre and Knowledge” “Art and science work in quite different ways: agreed. But, bad as it may sound, I have to admit that I cannot get along as an artist without the use of one or two sciences. In my view the great and complicated things that go on in the world cannot be adequately recognized by people who do not use every possible aid to understanding. I cannot without further ado conjure up an adequate picture of a murderer’s mental state. Modern psychology acquaints me with facts that lead me to judge the case quite differently, especially if I bear in mind the findings of sociology and do not overlook economics and history.”
- 22. “Experimental Theatre” “Piscator’s theatre was ‘the most radical’ of all such attempts… Piscator saw the theatre as a parliament, the audience as a legislative body. Piscator’s stage was not indifferent to applause, but it preferred a discussion. It didn’t want only to provide its spectator with an experience but also to squeeze from him a practical decision to intervene actively in life. Aesthetic considerations were entirely subject to political. Piscator was even ready to do wholly without actors. A whole staff of playwrights worked together on a single play, and their work was supported and checked by a staff of experts, historians, economists, statisticians. Piscator’s experiments broke nearly all the conventions. They were striving towards an entirely new social function for the theatre.”
- 23. “Experimental Theatre: There are three aids which may help to alienate the actions and remarks of the characters being portrayed: 1. Transposition into the third person. 2. Transposition into the past. 3. Speaking the stage directions out loud.”
- 24. “Experimental Theatre” “The solution here aimed at is only one of the conceivable solutions to the problem, which can be expressed so: How can the theatre be both instructive and entertaining? How can it be divorced from spiritual dope traffic and turned from a home of illusions to a home of experiences?”
- 25. “Rational and Emotional” “The rejection of empathy is not the result of a rejection of the emotions, nor does it lead to such. The crude aesthetic thesis that emotions can only be stimulated by means of empathy is wrong. The emotions always have a quite definite class basis; the form they take at any time is historical, restricted and limited in specific ways. The emotions are in no sense universally human and timeless.”
- 26. “The modern theatre mustn’t be judged by its success in satisfying the audience’s habits but by its success in transforming them. It needs to be questioned not about its degree of conformity with the ‘eternal laws of the theatre’ but about its ability to master the rules governing the great social processes of our age; not about whether it manages to interest the spectator in buying a ticket - i.e. in the theatre itself - but about whether it manages to interest him in the world.”
- 27. “The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication” “In our society one can invent and perfect discoveries that still have to conquer their market and justify their existence; in other words discoveries that have not been called for. The radio is one-sided when it should be two. It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him.”
- 28. “Elements of Illusion” “What counts in a realistic portrayal is carefully worked out details of costumes and props, for here the audience’s imagination can add nothing.”