When naturalistic theatre was at its height and acted as a mirror to what was happening in society, he decided to use it as a force for change. He wanted to make his audience think and famously said that theatre audiences at that time “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”.
In naturalistic or dramatic theatre the audience care about the lives of the characters onstage. They forget their own lives for a while and escape into the lives of others. When an audience cries for a character or feels emotion through the events happening to them it’s called catharsis.
Brecht was against cathartic theatre. He believed that while the audience believed in the action onstage and became emotionally involved they lost the ability to think and to judge. He wanted his audiences to remain objective and distant from emotional involvement so that they could make considered and rational judgements about any social comment or issues in his work. To do this he used a range of theatrical devices or techniques so that the audience were reminded throughout that they were watching theatre; a presentation of life, not real life itself. His kind of theatre was called Epic theatre. He called the act of distancing the audience from emotional involvement the verfremdungseffekt.
Brecht definitely wanted his audience to remain interested and engaged by the drama otherwise his message would be lost. It was emotional investment in the characters he aimed to avoid.
His approach to theatre suits work which has a political, social or moral message.
"Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it."
This quote by Brecht means that theatre should not represent society but rather that theatre should influence and mould society so the audience is left thinking.
20/09/2017
Today we worked on a piece of drama about 4 people involved in a car crash. In my group, we started off with three of us in the car, whilst I also narrated the scene stating: "It was just an ordinary summers day, when the three girls were driving down to the beach... when suddenly a giant deer ran across the road" Midway through this, the character acting as the deer ran across the stage and we all fell onto our backs to show we were injured. Jessica, who was playing the car driver stood up and looked at the audience saying "I wanted to save the deer but I ended up killing my friends instead." The aim of this scene was to add narration as this separates the feeling of a magical world and reminds the audience they are watching a piece of theatre. We showed an episodic piece, that portrayed a message about driving without caution and wearing a seatbelt but didn't let the audience form an emotional attachment as we stepped out of role to describe the scene and gave eye contact to the audience.
This quote by Brecht means that theatre should not represent society but rather that theatre should influence and mould society so the audience is left thinking.
20/09/2017
Today we worked on a piece of drama about 4 people involved in a car crash. In my group, we started off with three of us in the car, whilst I also narrated the scene stating: "It was just an ordinary summers day, when the three girls were driving down to the beach... when suddenly a giant deer ran across the road" Midway through this, the character acting as the deer ran across the stage and we all fell onto our backs to show we were injured. Jessica, who was playing the car driver stood up and looked at the audience saying "I wanted to save the deer but I ended up killing my friends instead." The aim of this scene was to add narration as this separates the feeling of a magical world and reminds the audience they are watching a piece of theatre. We showed an episodic piece, that portrayed a message about driving without caution and wearing a seatbelt but didn't let the audience form an emotional attachment as we stepped out of role to describe the scene and gave eye contact to the audience.
After this we worked on a piece about a political matter in which we chose to do Animal Rights. We started off our scene in a line as we stamped our feet protesting and chanting "Stop animal cruelty! Stop animal cruelty!" We followed this with each character stating facts about animal cruelty such as the use of injecting animals for testing of cosmetics and the animals being caged in the zoo.
We then split into twos, so two of us were protesters and the other two characters were members of the government. Jessica and I whom were the protesters, approached Alex and Phoebe whom were the government stating our arguments to stop animal cruelty. To end this, Phoebe stepped out of character and faced the audience and closed on the statement: "Stopping animal cruelty will affect the society and the people involved, which way will you decide?" Ending on this statement left the audience questioning their own beliefs and this proved that Brecht's technique and aims were true, as the class started a debate after our piece about "Are animals and humans lives equal?"
We then split into twos, so two of us were protesters and the other two characters were members of the government. Jessica and I whom were the protesters, approached Alex and Phoebe whom were the government stating our arguments to stop animal cruelty. To end this, Phoebe stepped out of character and faced the audience and closed on the statement: "Stopping animal cruelty will affect the society and the people involved, which way will you decide?" Ending on this statement left the audience questioning their own beliefs and this proved that Brecht's technique and aims were true, as the class started a debate after our piece about "Are animals and humans lives equal?"
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