1. And the epic performance technique
Bertolt Brecht
And the epic performance technique

2. Dialectical Realism
Realist theatre that seeks a dialogue in which two or more points of view on what “really happened” are welcomed, discussed, and assessed on stage
As we saw earlier, Stanislavsky’s System is also inherently dialectical: it argues that all acting is a process of making double, of getting inside a character’s head while also watching that character from outside
What’s the difference?

3. “Epic” theatre, “Double” optic
Brecht’s theatre theory takes the “double optic” implicit in the System and makes it explicit!
Stanislavsky invites performers to use a “dual perspective” in order to prepare their roles; Brecht asks performers to show that dual perspective to audiences as they play their characters
The difference: how and what the audience sees!

4. Epic technique: acting “strange”
actors play “naturally,” but only up to a point (“Alienation Effects” 95)
they remain aware of themselves as actors throughout, and signal that awareness to us at key moments in their performances
Brecht’s actors show us how and what they know about their characters; they “check the truth” of their characters against those characters’ “given circumstances” – their social contexts
Epic technique thus invites audiences to examine our own reactions to characters critically, too!

5. What does this stuff look like?
Here’s Meryl Streep performing “The Song of the Grand Capitulation”:
Where are the moments that surprise you?
How do those moments make you feel?

6. Epic technique: empowering audiences
Brecht’s theatre is all about audiences!
We are never to forget that we are in the theatre; we are also never to forget that watching theatre is a social responsibility
At an epic performance, the act of “looking at” the stage becomes a political gesture
Ideally, we become witnesses who question the action on stage, its given circumstances and basic assumptions, and our own actions and assumptions in turn

7. Verfremdungseffekt: in sum
the body of techniques by which Brecht pushes realism – the theatre of regular people struggling to survive in ordinary situations – to be socially aware
it is a metatheatrical practice that invites directors, actors, and producers to demonstrate the processes through which theatre crafts and displays certain kinds of truths, making some truths seem more “real” than others
the V-effekt is a way of looking “at” the theatre; it asks spectators as well as actors to adopt a “doubled” vision
It invites us to think about the historical, political, economic, and other factors that shape the choices characters make – these are Brecht’s “given circumstances!”