My understanding of Epic Theatre is that it was a theatrical movement becoming really known in the mid 20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, one including Bertolt Brecht.
One of the main goals in Epic Theatre was for the audience to be aware fully that they are watching a play, blocking them from being emotionally attached to the story. Epic Theatre was almost like an indirect to Konstantin Stanislavsky's form of theatre as his approach on theatre was much more naturalistic. This was mainly because Brecht wanted to change Stanislavsky's type of theatre as he disliked his approach of a shallow spectacle, manipulative plots and heightened emotions of melodrama.
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Monday, 12 November 2012
Mother Courage work and process
Mother Courage is a play produced by Brecht in 1941.
For all of his plays, Brecht made gestures of things to do, not orders, meaning he wanted to hear what other people had to say and wanted everyone in the cast and audience to have a voice. I learnt that his style of theatre creates a feeling of belief along with disbelief. This is because he creats believable things but in a way that can also be looked at as being unreal.
Unlike other styles of theatre, Brecht mainly wanted the actors to be the centre of everything. He asked the actors to do nsound effects with their own sound effects, not effects off a player or recordings.
Furthermore, through Brecht's work, the audience experience what actors are doing on stage and in reality. not being emotionally attached, just involved into asking questions as to what is going on. An example would be in Mother Courage, where it has narration throughout the play. This is to allow the audience to know what's happening on stage instead of wondering themseleves what are the actors doing.
He also looked at theatre and asked 'How can we make theatre, untheatre and what message can we send?' I understood that through his work he didn't design plays to entertain, he designed plays to challenge audiences of all backgrounds, he was never specific.
In Mother Courage his wife at the time Helene Weigel said 'He didn't want the actors to learn their lines, he wanted them to read the book, understanhd their character and live it.' It's said that he also wanted the audience to remain in critical distance, this would almost alienate them fully from the play. His main objective in plays was to tell the story from the beginning to an extent.
To continue, Brecht believed that his plays were never finished unless they were actually performed. Even though the script was complete the final piece would only be complete at the end of a sharing. This is shown in Mother Courage as the play was written in 1939 but produced in first performed in 1941 so Brecht believes that it was complete then. According to a close friend of Brecht, he always wanted to produce work of through dialectic methods. Another important thing I learnt today about Brecht is that he was really keen on 'building to tell a story' and in my view that means he wanted things to build up and let movements such as physical pieces build to unfold a story.
Lastly, in his last few years of his life, his theatre, Berliner Ensemble, received acceptional reviews and was recognised as a true success.
For all of his plays, Brecht made gestures of things to do, not orders, meaning he wanted to hear what other people had to say and wanted everyone in the cast and audience to have a voice. I learnt that his style of theatre creates a feeling of belief along with disbelief. This is because he creats believable things but in a way that can also be looked at as being unreal.
Unlike other styles of theatre, Brecht mainly wanted the actors to be the centre of everything. He asked the actors to do nsound effects with their own sound effects, not effects off a player or recordings.
Furthermore, through Brecht's work, the audience experience what actors are doing on stage and in reality. not being emotionally attached, just involved into asking questions as to what is going on. An example would be in Mother Courage, where it has narration throughout the play. This is to allow the audience to know what's happening on stage instead of wondering themseleves what are the actors doing.
He also looked at theatre and asked 'How can we make theatre, untheatre and what message can we send?' I understood that through his work he didn't design plays to entertain, he designed plays to challenge audiences of all backgrounds, he was never specific.
In Mother Courage his wife at the time Helene Weigel said 'He didn't want the actors to learn their lines, he wanted them to read the book, understanhd their character and live it.' It's said that he also wanted the audience to remain in critical distance, this would almost alienate them fully from the play. His main objective in plays was to tell the story from the beginning to an extent.
Lastly, in his last few years of his life, his theatre, Berliner Ensemble, received acceptional reviews and was recognised as a true success.
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Brecht and more..
To begin with, Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, producer and poet and his interests in combining music and drama led to a collaboration with German composer Kurt Weill in The Threeepenny Opera, written in 1928.
His attitude to work and life was that you should take nothing for granted and that you should be appreciative of everything that comes your way. His main objective in Theatre was that he wanted that audience to not be emotionally engaged but for them to ask questions about events and movements that were happening on stage and he feeled as if people should examine life and society in performances not always the story.
Furthemore, he knew that by creating a fourth wall, the plays that he created would want the audience to feel as if they're watching a play, not wanting them to believe it's real. this would be the opposite to Stansilavsky's method of suspension of disbelief.
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