-Brecht was born in 1898, Germany and the misfortune of being just 16 when the first world war began in which he assumed the role of a medic
-In 1933, whilst still in Germany, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and so do to his anti-semetic and anti-communist views, Brecht fled Germany as he was both Jewish and Communist.
-However Germany removed Brecht's citizenship and so for some time he was a stateless citizen, though he was able to move to America
-In 1941, Brecht attained American citizenship, however due to his communist views, Brecht had issues living in America as the world was just starting to open up to a very long Cold War in which America would come to defend against communist due to a rivalry in beliefs
-He wisely returned to Europe in 1947 and formed the Berliner Ensemble, Brecht's work was very much about being an ensemble and being able to work together
-His Strong political, anti-war views often meant that his shows had meaning and power and his revolutionary ideas were able to change the theatrical landscape
-Epic theatre - he wanted audiences to be distant from emotional involvement; he wanted to show a presentation of life, not real life itself
-Against cathartic theatre as Brecht felt it takes the ability to judge once the audience care for characters
-Verfremdungseffekt - wants audiences to be engaged and excited but emotionally distanced, breaks the fourth wall
-Brechtian Thechniques; Narration, breaking role, speaking stage directions, directly addressing the audience, using placards, multi-rolling, minimal props/costume/set, symbolic props/lighting, song and dance, montage, non-chronological narrative, freeze frames or tableau
-Spass, German word for fun, fast paced
-Gestus, gestures, usually to represent a person
For our exploration of epic theatre and Brecht we looked at an extract from 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle', a play written by Bertolt himself about the story of a young woman whom after finding a baby, aims to become a better parent than it's wealthier birth parents. The first influence that I had over any of our extract was applying the Spass aspect to the opening lines of the singer; whilst everyone was reluctant to sing it, I suggested that as an ensemble we perform a dance behind the Singer whilst he opens the show. As a group I believe we created Brechtian theatre very well as our scene was packed with techniques; shortly after the dance we set the scene with a freeze frame, we broke role every time we spoke a stage direction, I broke the fourth wall as the Mother-in-Law to wink at the audience after a certain line, we all had minimal costume as we ended up wearing our character's names on our clothes, our set largely comprised of labelled pieces of paper and many of our cast multi-rolled. I believe Tom gave the best example of Multi-rolling in our group as at points he ended up having a conversation with himself, this allowed him to bring gestus into our piece, Tom would point at one of the four names on his chest each time he assumed a role to indicate to the audience which Character he was playing at that time. I am also pleased with the way in which we performed Brecht as it was well perceived by the audience whom found it comical and so for that, I believe we were successful. However, taking a larger view, I don't think that I enjoy Epic theatre, more so because of the way our pieces were done but I enjoy being engaged and emotionally invested in characters, I feel it gives performance more power. On the other hand, I also accept that most Epic theatre probably isn't just packed with every technique as ours was and enforces more of a verfremdungseffekt effect and therefore more is engaging; Brechtian techniques also lend themselves nicely to other forms of modern theatre which I enjoy such as within Musicals. As an actor, I found that not so much being emotionally connected to the character I was playing, made it feel very much like children's theatre in which we also used narration, multi-rolling, the breaking of the fourth-wall, song and dance and spass/fun; this did not enable me to feel so comfortable in practice as I often felt we were over-acting, in retrospect we probably wasn't overacting, I just tried to give the piece as much energy as possible to properly fulfill epic theatre and Brecht. In the future, I believe I will use Brecht in many ways however more subtley, his techniques are good for creating powerful contemporary theatre however I would prefer to create theatre in which we aim at engaging the audience.
