1. BERTOLT BRECHT
1898 – 1956
Playwright
Director
And
Actor

2. Born 1898 – Augsburg,
south Germany
Becomes a medical student
serves as medic in WW1 and the sees horrors of the wounded and many of his school friends are killed.
1917 – decides to study drama instead and sickened by the excesses of the war he turns to theatre to change the world
He had been reading Karl Marx and felt Marx’s political and philosophical ideas were close to his own
He wrote many plays and had a love of collaborating with designers, musicians and artists

3. He becomes a renowned Writer and Director
His work has had a profound impact and influence on developments in theatre throughout the
20th and 21st centuries

4. Brecht’s Plays
Bael (1918).
Drums in the Night,
Jungle of the Cities (1923)
A Man's a Man (1926).
Mahagonny. In 1927
The Threepenny Opera. (1928)
The Lehrstuck ( )
teaching plays
The Measure Taken (1930).
The Mother (1932)
The Severn Deadly Sins
The Roundheads and the Peakheads
Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
Galileo (1939),
Mother Courage (1939),
The Good Man of Szechuan (1941),
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)
Caucausian Chalk Circle (1943). Hangman Also Die (1943
The Days of the Commune (1949), 

5. Influences on his work

6. Admired Elizabethan theatre
An almost bare stage with the audience standing round it
Political and personal events unfolding in swiftly changing scenes
Gripping stories of Kings and their lives presented for a semi illiterate audience
Performance that would have taken place in daylight ( makes audience aware
they are watching a play )

7. The performances of Travelling Fairs
Tales of heroic deeds
A singer/ narrator
Stories with a moral purpose and added pictorial illustrations
Accompanying music on a barrel organ

8. Significant changes in performance from his ideas

9. He believed in people’s ability to change.
Theatre was about exploring the
landscape of society not individual characters
He rejected the traditional theatre for it focused on
the individual,
their psychology
their personal crisis

10. Theatre should be about exploring the political
‘His desire for a theatre that through it’s expression of particular opinions and attitudes could effect change in the material world.
The change he sought was based on his belief that the oppressed working class had to be empowered to alter their miserable lives
through structured political action.’ ’
Mackey, Sally Cooper,Simon (2000). Drama and Theatre Studies . cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. 316.

11. Theatre is there to instruct through
Theatre should be an event-
lights in the theatre remain on
audience sit at tables be able to drink etc
(like in a club or sporting event)
Theatre is there to instruct through
entertainment and inspire people to ask
why and what can be done to change
the world

12. Develops Epic Theatre
He searched for a form of theatre that would project the crisis in society and the individuals place within it.
He wanted a questioning attitude from both his actors and audience
He described his epic theatre as
“narrative drama about the state of society”

13. Epic theatre –is not realism
events and people are depicted within their social and political environment
Characters are often representative of their social group/class – they do not have personal names but are called
e.g. the peasant – the soldier -

14. Epic
He defined epic theatre as challenging the dream world of dramatic illusion
He wanted a spectator who was awake and alert
He wanted to pose problems that would lead the spectator to action with a task to achieve in the real world

15. How does it challenge the work of Stanislavski and realism

16. Key points Brecht emphasises The message must be clear
The audience must remain critically aware and not become emotionally lost in the tragedy of an individual character
Stanislavski emphasises the inner feelings the inner soul of individual character

17. Similarities Stanislavski Search for truth Integrity and a response
to the modern world
Ensemble playing
Hard work and dedication
Close reading of the text
Brecht
Search for truth
Integrity and a response to the changing modern world
Ensemble playing
Hard work and dedication
Close reading of the text

18. Different Emphasis Stanislavski Emphasises
the inner feelings the inner soul
What are the characters’ motives
He wants to know why something is so on a personal level
How can we understand this character from his personal emotional experience
Brecht Emphasis
outward signs such as in social structures of society
He wants to know what are this characters' social motivations
What are the social conditions making them behave this way
What conditions are prevalent in society and can we change them

19. What would you see
Simple staging – clear white stage lights – few but well made props
Back projection of slides –with titles for each scene – that tells you what is going to happen or where and when the action takes place
Each scene is self contained
Characters are sometimes named but often archetypal – e.g. the peasant – the farmer of class or social grouping
There is a usually a narrator or chorus that tells part of the story as it progresses or comments on the action

20. What would you see Actors playing multiple roles
Actors often speaking directly to the audience
The action is interrupted by a song that comments on the ideas in the play or moves the action on
Sometimes characters are in half masks
The blocking( movement and position of the actors on stage ) is very specific and emphasises the social and class relationships

21. The Subject Matter
(Epic)
Narratives are displaced in time and place
Political parables
Epic story telling
The Political Purpose/Message and Dramatic Intention
Heavily influenced by political ideals of Karl Marx
To arouse in the audience a need for change
To keep an audience thinking.

22. The Staging Style Adopted
The proscenium arch
Epic as opposed to dramatic( Aristotelian)
Swiftly changing scenes
Design Elements
Realistic selective detail
Very well made props
Costumes made to look well worn
Technical Elements
Hard white light that can be seen by the audience
The half curtain
The revolve

23. Role Of Actors And Performance Style
Getsus
The actor is in role not a character
The actor as demonstrator
The actor as the main source of distancing
The use of gestus
The Actor Audience Relationship
The role of the narrator/chorus. Direct address
The isolating of songs as a form of comment
The abolition of illusion
The audience encouraged to smoke and drink
Audience Response
They be alerted to the need for change
To observe rather than empathise

24. Epic theatre –is not realism
events and people are depicted within their social and political environment
Gestus
Montage
Verfremdungseffekt
(look at things /actions with new understanding)
Design
Music

25. Directorial Interpretation/ Production Style
( Gestus )
(Montage)
(Verfremdungseffekt)
The director as part of the team
The use of music to comment on the action
Very refined and specific detail
The blocking -clear and carefully constructed stage pictures that help explain the ideas and characters’ social relationships

26. THE PLAYWRIGHT Structured episodically
People shown within their social and political environment
Many scenes that tell a part of the story in a self contained way
Awareness of past events
Tell audience what's happening through scenes titles or labels
Use of parables

27. The Actor
Epic theatre is not realism so the Stanislavsky naturalistic acting style is not appropriate.
The actor must stand outside the character
The actor moves away from the inner life of characters towards the way in which society has taught them to behave towards each other.

28. Gestus is about putting over a clear message
It uses a range of outward signs developed by the actor to show social relationships.
These include:
stance – and voice
physical body and facial expressions
use of gesture

29. Gestus- what is it? A style of acting in which the main focus is:
The outward signs of social relationships
These include
Voice physical and facial expression.
The effect is to shift the focus of characters towards the way they behave towards each other
Brecht wrote his plays so they would force the actor to adopt the correct stance
The movements are worked out in rehearsal and remembered by the actors for their performance

30. DIRECTOR

31. DIRECTOR
Blocking very important must clarify the structure and the character relationships in the play
Use all the stage and support the audience to develop a critical attitude
Bring out the social, political and economic ideas in the plays

32. DESIGN
No illusions
No fourth Wall
Minimal props
Set changes in view of audience
Use of half curtain

33. Simple stage design with the half curtain and everything seen by the audience no illusions

34. Mother Courage

35. Music Working with Composer Hans Eisler

36. COMPOSER
Brecht intentionally breaks interrupts the action at key moments with songs and messages
Music and songs should express ideas and themes of the play and give a separate comment on the action and ideas
Music should help distance the audience by providing contrast
The word and the tune clash which will draw more attention to the words

37. Early productions influenced by expressionist art
Note how the walls, doors and windows leans at odd angles to demonstrate the distortion in the social structure.
‘Drums in The Night’

38. Mother Courage And Her Children Use of a few well made props

39. The Life of Galileo

40. Why Epic is not realistic or naturalistic.
The action is constantly broken up in to episodes
A narrator interrupts to address the audience
Songs interrupt to comment on the action
All these are constantly breaking the dramatic tension

41. How By analysing the play you determine the basic story line.
Break down the story into smaller elements until each scene becomes the expression of one simple basic action which you can put into a simple sentence
E.g
‘Evil Step Mother Plots the death of Snow white’

42. Montage Short scenes of an image or an idea
Draws attention to the content
Emphasis on the visual-
Each scene carefully arranged so all moments could be read and understood even by a deaf person
The designer drawings of the stage ( like a film storyboard does today)
Cut from one scene to another image subject/idea
And a new meaning or understanding is created by both the different scenes and their ideas images having been placed next to each other

43. Verfremdungseffekt Make things seem strange or different”.
Use the word distancing not strange
With the use of devices to make things appear in a new light,
so we consider them with intellectual objectivity, robbed of their conventional outward appearance.
challenge habitual perceptions

44. Verfremdungseffekt
Brecht gives the example of a child whose widowed mother remarries, seeing her, for the first time, as a wife.
In the plays a V-effekt may be produced by the comment of the Singer or narrator
In ordinary dialogue (as in Galileo's “now I must eat”: suddenly he is seen not as the great scientific innovator but an ordinary, hungry man

45. Production of Mother Courage
in Germany at the
Berlin Ensemble Theatre

46. Traditional Barrel Organ
That would have been at the fairground entertainments

47. You tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tw5w6Jdwtc
An introduction to Brechtian theatre by the National Theatre
Robbie Williams sings Mack the Knife
Commentary on epic theatre
Meryl streep as m Courage
Tv show
Extract Meryl Streep singing ( push comes to shove)
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at Nottingham
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at abbey theatre
Recent version of Caucasian chalk circle with new compositions
Short intro Caucasian