Bertolt brecht

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Bertol Brecht was a playwright from the late 1800's who sought to put a message out through his theatre performances. Brecht used many dramatic devices and techniques to do this in a very different and individual process, so that the audience would not become attached to the characters he used in his scripts. Why you ask is it important for the audience to remain unattached to the characters? Using the Caucasian chalk circle as an example to explain why this is important, how its works, and what other dramatic devices Brecht uses.

Original name Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, born. Feb. 10, 188, Augsburg, Germany. German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of regular theatre and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for Marxist causes. Brecht was, first, a superior poet, with a command of many styles and moods. As a playwright he was an hard worker, a restless piecer-together of ideas not always his own (The Threepenny Opera is based on John Gays Beggars Opera, and Edward II on Marlowe), a sarcastic humorist, and a man of rare musical and visual awareness; but he was often bad at creating living characters or at giving his plays tension and shape. As a producer he liked lightness, clarity, and firmly knotted narrative sequence; a perfectionist, he forced the German theatre, against its nature, to underplay. As a scholar he made principles out of his preferences, and even out of his faults.

Brecht was opposed to Aristotelian drama and its attempts to attract the Audience into a total identification with the hero, resulting in feelings of terror and pity and, ultimately, an emotional bond. Brecht didnt want his audience to feel emotions, but instead to think. Brecht argued that plays should not try to make the audience believe in or identify with the characters on the stage; instead, a play should follow the method of epic poetry, which is to make the audience realize that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of past events that it should watch with critical detachment. Brechts epic (narrative, non-dramatic) theatre is based on detachment, on the alienation, to disrupt the viewers normal or run of the mill perception by introducing elements that will suddenly cause the viewer to see familiar objects in a strange way and to see strange objects in a familiar way (Fuegi, p8). This was achieved through techniques that reminded the audience that they were being shown a demonstration of human behaviour in scientific spirit rather than an illusion of reality. The audience must be reminded that it is watching a play, and that the theatre is only a theatre and not the world itself. The clearest of his alienation devices was the projection of captions preceding the scene so that the audience knew in advance what would happen and could therefore concentrate on how it happens.

Some of the techniques of Brechts staging included music as an important part of the performance; actors whose songs were intended to narrate rather than emote; an overt moral purpose to the production underscored by clear and realistic physical acting. Brecht insisted that actors demonstrate their social attitudes through the physical disposition of their bodies.

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Three-dimensional set pieces, machinery and in particular the revolving stage were used, although lighting often used to trick the audience was refrained from.

The audience was free to come and go at will. Spectators were actually free to watch rehearsals Often Brecht would ask such casual observers for their suggestions and if they were good ones he would adopt them (Fuegi, p ). Indeed, before rehearsals Brecht did not have a final text of the play but he did have a clear notion of the style he wished to impose (Fuegi, p 0).

Brechts influence on twentieth-century theatre was greater than other key Dramatists except Stanislavski. Modern theatre has been most influenced by the settings and costumes of Brechts productions, and contemporary design shows the influences of his staging. Brecht attempted to reform theatre by departing from the conventions of theatrical fantasy and using drama as a social and ideological forum for his Marxist views. However, these views have reduced Brechts influence in Western theatre, and his Formalist techniques became unpopular with Stalin and his artistic advisor, Zhadanov. It would become ever clearer that Brechts stage work was basically opposing to Stalins conservative cultural policy with its strong endorsement of Stanislavski and literal realism (Fuegi, p 84). Furthermore, Nazi Germany was opposed to Brecht as a decadent and had his citizenship revoked. Therefore, Brecht lived in exile, and his influence on contemporary theatre is problematic.

Written in exile during the Second World War, the story subverts an ancient Chinese tale - echoed in the Judgement of Solomon - in which two women claim the same child. The message of Brechts parable is that resources should go to those who will make best use of them. Thanks to the naughty judge, Azdak, one of Brechts most vivid creations, this story has a happy outcome the child is entrusted to the peasant Grusha, who has loved and nurtured it.

The excerpt introduced, is found toward the end of the play. There are obvious part that exemplify Brechtian techniques, such are; The singer and chorus tell the audience what is to come in the play so they expect it, and are not as much wondering what will happen, more so how will it get to that point, and why. When Azdak has two cases going on at once, people become distracted from the real cause of the play and are not so sympathetic toward the people involved. There is a song of chaos, this is an alienation technique, which entertains the audience with its humour, as it is an unnecessary place to have the cast break out in song.

There are no real relevance to the people in this excerpt of the play, as they are merely something to make a break in the play and to show that Azdak is not always a fair judge. Azdak is the only character who really is relevant to the play, this is shown as he is in the text for quite some time before Grusha re-enters the scene. The characters are not given names otherwise the audience would no longer see them as one dimensional characters and they would feel they got to know them.

There are two opposing forces in the play which help to alienate the audience this is the singing and the dialogue, also the humour and the seriousness of the message that Brecht is trying to put across. With the dialogue in the excerpt Brecht has used the upper class accent and the lower class accent, you can tell that there are differences in the people.

Sometimes the effects aren't reasonable and don't always turn out the way you wanted them to, and Brecht shows this in his text. The message Brecht is putting across in his play is that resources should go to those who will make best use of them.

Brecht used many dramatic devices and techniques to do this in a very different and individual process, so that the audience would not become attached to the characters he used in his scripts. Why you ask is it important for the audience to remain unattached to the characters? I have shown you within this essay that the reason for Brechts plays were to get a massage across and if people are reading into characters and story lines they miss the message entirely.

Bibliography

Fuegi, John (187). Bertolt Brecht Chaos, According to Plan. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 187.

Brecht on Theatre. Ed. John Willet. London Eyre Methuen Ltd, 17.

International Brecht Society http//polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/german/brecht

Moonstruck Drama Bookstore http//www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc15.htm

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