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Bertolt Brecht

Picture
Bertolt Brecht was a very influential director and playwright.  Through his use of Epic Theatre he changed and influenced Theatre for many generations. 


RESOURCES

BOOKS:

Brecht, B. (1978) Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed and trans. John Willett, London: Methuen
Brestoff, R.(1995) The Great Acting Teachers and their Methods, A Smith and Kraus Book, USA. 
Booker, P. (1988) Bertolt Brecht: Dialectics, Poetry and Politics, London: Croom Helm
Mitter, S. (1992) Systems of Rehearsal: Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski, and Brook, London:Routledge
Mumford, M. (2009) Bertold Brecht, London: Routledge
Tourelle, L. & McNamara, M. (1998) Performance : A Practical Approach to Drama, Melbourne: Heinemann


WEBSITES

Brecht - Wikipedia

Brecht - Actor training - Routledge

BRECHTIAN TECHNIQUES  - Mask; Design; Techniques

TECHNIQUES SLIDESHOW

Epic Theatre  - Theatre Links

Brecht - Theatre Links  

FIVE TRUTHS - link to HL Solo


STUDY GUIDES
Mother Courage Study Guide
Caucasian Chalk Circle Study Guide



Brecht's Key Theories

  • GESTUS - to mean all or one of the following: socialised gesticulation as opposed to psychological facial expression; contextualised and alterable comportment; and the rhetorical artistic gestures of a performer. 
  • VERFREMDUNG - V- EFFECT - defamilarisation - Artistic strategies such as making lights, set and musicians visible; disrupting flow by narration, song and direct addressing and other techniques such as historicization.  
  • HISTORICIZATION -  H - EFFECTS - presenting an event as a product of history; showing differences between part and present; guided by Marxist philosophy
  • EPIC THEATRE - all those devices used to engage the SPECactor. 
  • DIALECTICS - the play of opposites as a tool for understanding by using his V effects. 
  • REALISM - Socialist realism - that formal experimentation was crucial to the pleasurable and historically specific mastery of contradictory social reality 
(Mumford: 2009)

VERFREMDUNGEFFECTS - V EFFECTS

  • Narrating parts of the play rather than narrating them.
  • Using songs to comment on action.
  • Having actors interrupt the action of the play to speak directly to the audience, explaining or narrating events
  • Having actors come onto stage carrying a placard announcing the time and place of the action or any other information.
  • Having actors show their characters, rather than being wholly transformed into their parts. 
  • Retelling the story of the play with serval different endings.
  • Not presenting an illusion of reality on stage.

(Tourelle & McNamara :1998)

Introduction into Brechtian Theatre - National Theatre

Brecht's Five Truths - National Theatre video outlining how an actress would preform a piece using Brechtian techniques

Catherine Rankin - 2022