Brechtian Methods

Narration and Songs

Using popular songs that other people know but changing the lyrics is a massive Brechtian technique. Song is a major part of our production and includes a lot of this. Learning this was hard for me as I don't enjoy dancing and singing but I know it comes with being an actor so I tried my best to learn it and engage with the performance.

Epic theatre relates and rely's largely on song that "interrupts"at key junctions to get the message across to the audience in a more influential manner, one that will relate to the audience.  

The point of Brecht's narration technique was not to add more emotion to what the audience were watching, but just as another means of narration, it can also be used to juxtapose certain situations. For example in our piece we had a scene about Hitler and his evil ways being narrated in a voice like it was a children's book. Those two forms do not go together yet we put them together to distance the audience from any characters and emotion they might begin feeling. 


Alienation Technique 

Alienation technique can be most astutely translated to "making strange effect" and it's goal is to make the familiar become unfamiliar, to strip something back to it's bare minimum to the point where it is barely recognisable. The aim is to make every day casual events, become "Epic". This technique was steadily poduced by Brecht in the 1920s/30s, it forces the audience to defamiliarise themself with the situation they are presented with and see deeper into the social and political context of it. It, "estranges" us.

We used this a lot in our piece, by using human bodies as props and furniture, the audience weren't allowed to feel comfortable and get into the scene, they were forced to realise this is a person pretending to be something else. 

Brecht didn't appreciate the realm of escapism produced by most theatre makers, it's heightened sense of emotion was seen by Brecht of a way to hide from reality and not face up to the truths of society. Brecht dismantled the illusion of conventional plays by making an emotional disconnect between the actors, characters and audience. Brecht believed that only once you took emotion out of it, you could then truly judge a performance on what you have seen and question society's morals. 

Didactism 

di-dac-tic; 
adjective 

1. Intended for instruction; instructive teaching. 
2. The art or science of teaching. 

Brechts plays are didactic, he intends to teach a moral lesson in his pieces whether it be about politics, society or the economy. Bertolt Brecht's desire to educate the audience and performer is said to have stemmed from his Marxist beliefs. In a lot of his theatre, the dictism lies in a lot of the characters and him being a Marxist, he often seems to portray the "bourgeois" society as wrong. 

Breaking the Fourth Wall

A fourth wall is used in most conventional theatre, It is an imaginary wall that the performers use to block out the audience and pretend as though they are not there.

The audience never acknowledge this wall or the fact that they are being watched, in naturalistic theatre that is, the whole point of it is a suspension of disbelief. Brehct wanted to detract this notion of a fourth wall, he believed in interaction with the audience, asking them into the world of the play as it is made obvious that these characters are not real, hey are merely representations of social characters.

In my opinion, by taking away the fourth way and pushing those boundaries, all it does is open up another route for the audience to be enticed by the action taking place and not to cower away from asking questions about what they are watching, as the actor invites you in the audience should feel obliged to use their brains and not just accept everything shown to them. 

Our piece used the fourth wall most in the closing scene, where Laura began talking to the officers but then went to talk to the audience, yet that was the part of our performance which was naturalistic therefore the two forms of acting juxtaposed itself to create a really effective moment on stage. The audience were allowed to become emotional during the scenes of "A", "B", "C" and "D" but they were still reminded that this was a Brechtian piece of theatre when all four actors removed their plaquards and with it removed the physicality of those characters.