Styles of Acting - Brecht (and evaluation)

Brecht

·         Was born in 1998 in Germany.

·         During World War 1 he was a medic and he then became a pacifist due to the effects it had on people.

·         He moved to Berlin in search of a career in theatre.

·         He citizenship was removed when he moved to America.

·         He was a communist and due to that was put into the House of Un- American.

·         He then moved back to Europe in 1947 and formed “The Berliner Ensemble”.

Epic Theatre

·         He wanted to make his audience members think when watching his pieces.

·         “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”.

·         Brecht was against Cathartic theatre

·         He wanted to distant his audience from emotional involvement.

·         He has a range of theatre techniques to remind the audience that they were watching theatre.

Verfremdungseffekt

·         Aka the alienation effect

·         Brecht didn’t want this in his audiences to be alienated, just distanced.

Brecht Techniques 

·         Narration

·         Coming out of role

·         Speaking stage directions

·         Directly addressing the audience

·         Using placards

·         Multi – rolling

·         Minimal props/Costumes/set

·         Symbolic props

·         Symbolic lighting

·         Song and dance

·         Montage (a series of short scenes put together)

·         Spass (fun!)

·         Gestus

·         Narrative which jumps around in time (non-linear)

·         Freeze Frames or Tableau 

Evaluation of Brecht piece

For me performing a small part of a Brecht performance in his style was weird to me, personally due to the fact that I found it rather difficult to read the script and understand what was going on. However when taking on the task, I thought I would see how many of his techniques I could take on, in the piece I was able to multi role and wear symbolic props (monk,peasant & another woman). Personally I though it would be a slight comedy so I thought it would be rather funny to take on the role of a monk and change people's expectations of him. At first I was going to try an Asain like voice as Monks are commonly found in parts of Asia. However to change the expectation of this character I thought it would be a good idea to have a Chavy/London accent in attempt to add a bit of comedy to it, however I think that it didn't really work that much as I didn't hear much of a reaction from the audience.