Name : Brecht
Aim : destroying the illusions
His teaching compared to Stanslafski :
Asked to be critical as an actor an audience in your viewing of your performance as unlike Stanalaffskis teaching there will be less psychological impact as you are not tasked with creating the illusion in which you are in the style of Stanalaffski.
Less about imitating reality and more about shaping it.
Bertolt brecht
Born 1898 germany
Actors should not be so emotionally involved - will not learn anything
epic theatre - influences were travelling fairs and Elizabethan theatre.
Aim to clear the distinction between dramatic and epic theatre which distances the audience - makes them look objectively
Epic theatre is antithesis of Dramatic thrate ( opposite )
epic wants the audience to be critical observers, realise the characters are actors,stage world not attempting to be real
dramatic theatre is the complete opposite
about social change - impact the audience and performer socially.
To imitate or mimic ?
He who only imitates and had nothing to say On what he imitates is like a poor chimpanzee, who imitates his trainer's smoking and does not smoke whilst doing so. For never will a thoughtless imitation be a real imitation.
Meaning : if you don't take something away from it ( have nothing to say about it ) it was unsuccessful and a waste of time.
Techniques ;
Montage - using momtage to keep the audience alert. Putting the scenes in an unrelated matter makes you constantly aware.
Gestus - attitude of acting which was employed in Epic theatre. Brecht admired that Charlie Chaplin was in control of his own movements actions and gestures.
Verfremdungskeffekt - the V effekt
- this means to alienate the audience but the translation is not very accurate so the word distancing is more accurate ( brechts aim ) because if the audience are distanced they can be objective.
brecht wrote that he wanted to make the incidents represented on stage appear strange to the public. *Research brecht and alienation*
The effects of these techniques / actor and characters
- to not get too attached to the characters on stage but instead focus on the meaning of the story.
- actors would step out of their roles and speak in third person when in character and speak stage directions to remind the audience that they are actors
- he often used a different actor to play the protagonist in the second half of the play from the first to again reinforce this distancing and lack of attachment
In our first exercise We played the number game in which we had to say numbers in order without any planning. This creates distance between us. In our second exercise we were tasked with the tablo of disaster,we showed this by holding onto eachother for dear life with one person losing their grip at the end of the chain of people. Upon viewing the picture of our presentation of disaster I felt that my facial espression left an emotional impression and purpose of the tablo making it more active ( tablo is more active and has purpose rather than a still image ) I feel that as a group us being chained together but losing grip at every ' link ' presented the effect of disaster as well as the loss a disaster causes however it didnt present disaster to its full capability . In the other group I liked the use of levelling to present the different levels of distrustion.
In our final exercise we had to use one of the Brechts plays and create tablo to present the difference between 2 characters - one being stuck up and selfish and the other being good natured and charitable, to show this I decided we should have a person fallen over and both women reacted differently eg the good person helps them up as onlookers smile at her whereas the bad person walks away and looks down at them in disgust leaving onlookers to look up at her in disgust - frowning
Homework - find a juice newspaper story
moral - the further a story is continued by people the less emotional value it has
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