Practitioner - Brecht.
History.
Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, practitioner and poet. He lived from 1898 to 1956 and so experienced a very troubled life - he was a german who lived through two world wars. He also experienced lots of political tension and social change as the facist regime rose and fell.
In the late 1800s, before Brecht, theatre was composed entirely of melodramas, theatre was thought of as purely a recreational activity. Practitioners such as the frenchman Antonin Artaud wrote entertaining comedies and tragedies that served the people as an entertaining escape from reality. Brecht once famously said that audiences before him would "hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom."
Brecht wanted his audiences to think in his plays and question their own and the society's views. To achieve this he founded political theatre.
Political Theatre.
The point of politician theatre is quite literally to have a point. Brecht wanted to write and perform plays that would leave the audience thinking about a chosen theme.
For example, the Brechtian play "Oh what a lovely war!", has a very obvious point: it vilifies those in power who start wars whilst questioning the idea of war. It is a very successful political play because the political message is clearly conveyed.
Because it was challenging the main theatre style of the time, Brechtian political theatre received very mixed reviews:
Brecht argued that it was the best type of theatre because it forced his audiences to think about the message behind the play and so it was very good at conveying political messages and questioning the current social and political situation.
Political theatre is fundamentally non-naturalistic so Stanislavsky and Chekhov, who wrote naturalistic plays, disagreed with it. They argued that because it wasn't naturalistic it didn't convey the reality of human situation.
Brecht thought that naturalism itself wasn't naturalistic because the short-time frame of the pieces didn't tell the whole story and so didn't reflect the reality of human nature either.
Brechtian Philosophy.
Brecht saw theatre purely as a method to convey political points and so bring about social change. He therefore disliked the idea of emotional attachment towards characters in plays, because he felt this detracted from the message by introducing a non-objective view from the audience.
The liking/hatred for a character would introduce bias and so skew the message. Brecht wanted all the characters to be like cogs in a larger machine – he didn't care if the characters were played believably as long as the overarching message was excruciatingly clear.
In many ways, this means Brechtian political theatre is the polar opposite of Stanislavsky ultra-naturalism because the characters aren't trying to be believable or likeable – they just want to convey a point. Stanislavsky wrote theatre for the heart but Brecht wrote theatre for the mind.
Brechtian political theatre is often misliked because it is 'theatre without emotion', and so in many ways it is less enjoyable to watch because the audience are less emotionally involved.
I don't agree with this though because even though the audience are emotionally removed from the characters, they become more involved with the message and so it is still enjoyable to watch.
Gest/Gestus.
Brecht defined gestus as 'Gesture + Attitude'. When acting naturalistically, the actor does not consciously think about gestures to use in order to convey their character's personality or emotions.
However, in Epic theatre a gest is a pre-planned, conscious gesture that instantly shows the characters personality and emotions. A gest can be seen in the image opposite which instantly reveals the characters emotions/personality.
In class we played various characters and boiled down their characters into a single tableau composed of just a few physical changes. For example, a shady car-dealer can be played with a fake smile, deadpan eyes and an overexaggerated point to the side. A wealthy arrogant businessman is instantly portrayed through a down-turned mocking smile, a relaxed pose and 'laughing' eyes.
Brecht preferred to use gestus in his plays because it is much better at instantly conveying what a character will be like. One look at the car-dealer or businessman is enough for the audience to entirely judge their character.
This has a huge advantage over naturalism in political theatre because you don't have to waste time introducing this multi-faceted character but can jump straight in to the overarching message.
However, Stanislavsky argued that this is not accurate of how humans behave because gestus often takes things to a highly exaggerated level and so the characters are less believable than ones in naturalism.
Remember though that the purpose of epic theatre is not to be naturalistic or entertaining but to make a point, which gestus helps to achieve.
Brechtian Techniques.
Brechtian political theatre is incredibly non-naturalistic, it has many signature techniques which include:
1. Episodic structure - the scenes are split into small episodes with obvious transitions between them.
2. Placards and statistics - hard hitting facts are projected onto a backdrop or held up on a placard by an actor. This acts as a rug-pulls which reminds the audience that despite the comedy it is a serious situation.
3. Non-linear time - order of events is manipulated in order to make the rug-pulls and facts more hard hitting.
Other very important Brechtian techniques are Gestus and Verfremdungseffekt:
Verfremdungseffekt.
Verfremdungseffekt literally translates as alienating, or distancing. It was Brecht's word for his framing devices. In order to fully emotionally remove the audience from the characters and plot and force them to just focus on the message in an intellectual way, Brecht employed various framing devices. The following techniques are specifically designed to ensure the audience is not sucked into the play (the exact opposite of naturalism):
- The audience are lit just as brightly as the stage – using a blank white wash, the house lights are left on. This means the audience can see one another and also see any technical equipment around them, they are constantly reminded they are watching a play.
- Sets are openly changed – even whilst a scene is going on in another part of the stage, an actor or stage hand will walk onto stage and blatantly change the set. Watching an actor remove themselves from their character or seeing an entirely new person walk on stage instantly reminds the audience what they watch is not real.
- Sets, props and costume are minimalistic – there is no attempt to create a real room for a scene. Instead only those vital parts to the room are brought on – perhaps a chair and a window frame. This is similar to the boiling down of the characters discussed in gestus: Brecht firmly believed only what was strictly necessary should be on stage.
- Actors break out of character or break the fourth wall – actors yawn or look away when not involved, they may talk to the audience. In the introduction of the play, the actors may come forward and blandly introduce their characters to the audience.
- Actors distance themselves from the characters in rehearsal – to distance the audience from the characters, the actors must also be distanced from the characters. Brecht composed lots of techniques to keep the actor and character distinct in rehearsal. One way he achieved this was to make the actors run through the entire play in third person. Rather than say "I did this", they would say "He/she did this." By separating actor from character, the audience clearly see it is a play.
All of these techniques and more work together to produce the sacred verfremdungseffekt.