Hail the Returning Hero?
Due to political in-fighting
between the East and West, Brecht and Weigel leave the US stateless, so…
•Swiss bank account
•Austrian passport
•West German publishing contract
•East German theater company
Final Acts
•Starting a national theater:
Berliner Ensemble
•Building an ensemble
(collaborating again!)
•Practicing pure Epic Theater
for first time
•Other people’s plays: are Epic
techniques versatile?
•Championing others/training
next generation
•Artists as builders of new
country
•Government intrusion/tastes
Final Plays
•No time to write—too busy
running theater
•Adaptations
•Model books
•The Caucasian
Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circlen
•From a 14th c. Chinese story
•bb’s first version about
goodness of character better than pureness of race (Nazis)
•Can be played naturalistically
1956
Revelation of Stalin’s crimes
1956
Revelation of Stalin’s crimes
No speeches,
Too many wills
Politics even surround his
death.
Brecht’s
Legacy: Epic Theater
“…my plays have to be properly performed if they are to
be effective, so that for the sake of (oh dear me!) a non-aristotelian
dramaturgy I had to outline (calamity!) an epic theater.”
Bulletin notice to Berliner Ensemble members, 1955
“I have the impression—and not for the first time—that
the Ensemble is misjudging the work of our young directors. …Not only have our
young directors learned their so-called trade here with us; in addition, they
are learning a very special kind of theatre, which is still in the process of
development and gives me too plenty of difficulties. Thus every production is
still an experiment and will, I hope, continue to be one.”
Yeah, but what is Epic Theater, really,
and how do we make it?
Common misconceptions
about Brecht’s Stagecraft
about Brecht’s Stagecraft
Everything he did was brand-new
He wanted to offend or alienate the audience
He wanted to wipe out on-stage illusion and emotion
He had a set of theories that he stuck to, and we have
to, too!
“The aim is not
how to avoid illusion—
everything is
illusion… the illusion that is composed by the flash of quick and changing
impressions keeps the dart of the imagination at play.”
ACTOR: Does getting rid of empathy mean getting rid of
every emotional element?
PHILOSOPHER: No, no. Neither the public nor the actor must be stopped from taking part emotionally; the representation of emotions must not be hampered, nor must the actor’s use of emotions be frustrated. Only one out of many possible sources of emotion needs to be left unused, or at least treated as a subsidiary source—empathy.
“Feelings and emotions may well be a part of the
experience for the audience, but… the activity will
have a social purpose—perhaps to show who’s guilty, or how to avoid such an
accident in the future… The purpose served must justify the effort made.”
Theories Schmeories
·Sense of humor
·Love of America/Orient
·Love of fun/sport
·Shakespeare’s freedom, minimal sets &
dual audiences
·Intellect/reason leading to action
·Emotion/empathy not endpoint
·If it works, it’s in!
“A man with one theory is lost. He needs several of
them, four, lots! He should stuff them in his pockets like newspapers, hot from
the press always, you can live well surrounded by them, there are comfortable
lodgings to be had between theories. If you are to get on, you need to know
that there are a lot of theories.”
Okay, but what are these theories and techniques,
anyway?
DRAMATIC
THEATRE
plot
implicates the spectator in a stage situation
wears down his capacity for action
provides him with sensations
experience
the spectator is involved in something
suggestion
instinctive feelings are preserved
the spectator shares the experience
the human being is taken for granted
he is unalterable
eyes on the finish
one scene makes another
growth
linear development
evolutionary determinism
man as a fixed point
thought determines being
feeling
EPIC THEATRE
narrative
turns the spectator into an observer
arouses his capacity for action
forces him to take decisions
picture of the world
he is made to face something
argument
brought to the point of recognition
the spectator stands outside, studies
the human being is the object of enquiry
he is alterable and able to alter
eyes on the course
each scene for itself
montage
in curves
jumps
man as a process
social being determines thought
reason
Dramatic
theater audience says:
Yes,
I have felt that too.
That’s
how I am.
That
is only natural.
That
will always be so.
That
person’s suffering shocks me because there is no way out.
This
is great art: everything in it is self-evident.
I
weep with the weeping, I laugh with the laughing.
Epic
theater audience says:
I
wouldn’t have thought that.
People
shouldn’t do things like that.
That’s
odd, almost unbelievable.
This
has to stop.
That
person’s suffering shocks me, but there might be a way out.
This
is great art: nothing in it is self-evident.
I
laugh over the weeping, I weep over the laughing.
Epic Theatre Techniques
·Realism (no, really)
·Gestus, gestus, gestus
·Historicization/Cultural Distance
·Alienation
Historicization =
Alienation Effect
•History as like us
•History as not like us
•History is written by the
winners
•Everything is political
Alienation Effect
•Schlovski’s priem ostranneniya
•“scientific” or curious look at elements at play
•process by which we make the normal look strange and the
strange look normal
•often achieved through contradictions or odd juxtapositions eg “Mother Courage’s
scream” or through direct address
•“Things that make you go “Hmmm.”
•
“Alienation” is meant to awaken, not offend.
It is an invitation to participate, to be curious about something.
Dramaturgical Alienation Effects
•Anything that reminds us we are
in a theater
•Anything that makes us look at
something afresh
•Changing rhythms
•Switching between verse &
prose
•Contradictions or odd juxtapositions
•Dualities in character/actor (like Mei Lan-Fang)
•Narration/placards/projections
•Direct address to
audience/breaking 4th wall
•“Commenting” through music or gestus
•And about 1000 more techniques…
“It was out of respect that Brecht introduced the idea of
alienation… Alienation is above all an appeal to the spectator to work for
himself… Alienation can work through antithesis, parody, imitation, criticism,
the whole range of rhetoric is open to it. It is the purely theatrical method
of dialectical exchange.”
—Peter Brook
“Alienation effects have long been known in the theatre
and in other arts. The fact is that we always get an alienation effect when art
does not sustain the illusion that the viewer is face to face with nature
itself. In the theatre, for instance, the objective world is alienated by the
convention of versification or by a highly personal style or by abrupt shifts
between verse and prose or between the serious and the comic. I myself make use
of alienation effects (including the old ones mentioned above) to show that the
nature of human society is not all that natural… that is to say, not as
self-evident or unquestionable as one might think.”
Designing for Brecht
·Spare sets
·
·Minimum images
·
·Configurable/transformable
set pieces
·
·Practical
props/costumes
·
·Normally-hidden
stagecraft, including lighting instruments and set changes, revealed
·
·Placards/slides/video/narration
and/or songs announcing what is to come or otherwise interrupting action
Directing/Acting Brecht
You might see:
·Characters that
range from broadly drawn to naturalistic
·
·Actors stepping
out of character for parts of show
·
·Direct address of
audience/breaking 4th wall
·
·Unusual or
surprising delivery of lines (many forms)
·
·Dialectical
stagecraft—contradictions or “inconsistencies” in characterization/staging to
get to greater truths
Break down scene
into these parts:
· Humor and
irony
·
· Political/social point/position of scene and character
·
· Conduct of character—where
is person wrong? Right?
· Define the character by class, not psychology
· Forget
“consistency”—play relationship
of the moment
·
· How do you want audience to react?
“People don’t act on the basis of only one motive but
always out of various motives that are in part contradictory.”
“[I] can not say that the dramatic writing which I call
‘non-aristotelian,’ and the epic style
of acting which goes with it, represent the only solution. However, one thing
has become quite plain: the present-day world can only be described to
present-day people if it is described as capable of transformation.”
Rehearsal Techniques
•
Relaxation to create loose body
• Give
scene a title (like a newspaper headline)
• Third
person retelling
•
Past-tense telling
• Speak
stage directions or otherwise narrate
• Translate
verse into prose (or vice versa)
• Translate
prose into native dialect
• “Marking”
in rehearsal
• Changing
roles with other actors
• Imitating
others in their roles
• “Not but”
• Playing a
scene “wrong”
• Tap
dancing while reading verse
•Playing the relationship of that moment
only (may contradict with the next moment) or even better, playing
contradiction within one moment
• Creating
and breaking patterns
• Isolating
moments
“When your work is complete, it must look light, easy.
The ease must recall effort; it is effort conquered or effort victorious. From
the outset of your work you must adopt the attitude that aims at achieving
ease. You mustn’t leave out the difficulties, but must collect them and make
them come easy through your work. For the only worthwhile kind of ease is that
which is a victory of effort.
Observe the ease
With which the mighty
River tears down its banks!
The earthquake
The earthquake
Shakes the ground with a relaxed hand.”
“When your work is complete, it must look light, easy.
The ease must recall effort; it is effort conquered or effort victorious. From
the outset of your work you must adopt the attitude that aims at achieving
ease. You mustn’t leave out the difficulties, but must collect them and make
them come easy through your work. For the only worthwhile kind of ease is that
which is a victory of effort.
Observe the ease
With which the mighty
River tears down its banks!
The earthquake
The earthquake
Shakes the ground with a relaxed hand.”
No
Culinary Theater!
“The proof of pudding is in the eating.”
Was this “meal”
revolutionary, life-changing, and nourishing?
Or was it just a fancy-feast of nothingness?
