European Theartre

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht is arguably the most revolutionary force in twentieth-century theatre. His most well-known concept is verfremdungseffekt (translated as the “alienation” effect), and it completely changed the way actors thought about and created theatre. The key to this concept was that Brecht did not want audience members’ emotional involvement to prevent them from thinking about the social and political issues presented in a play. More importantly, he wanted thoughtfulness to provoke action and partaking. Through music, song, and theatrics, Brecht’s “epic theatre” becomes a world where actors recognise the deceptions of the medium and connect directly with the audience. His ideas challenged the power of realism and changed traditional ideas of what theatre could be.

 Epic Theatre

Epic Theatre is the term used to describe Brecht's theory and technique. His plays were 'epic' in that the dramatic action was periodic - a montage of scenes (tabloids), abstract staging, and the 'alienation effect'. All basics contribute to Brecht's overall purpose which was to comment on the political, social and economic elements that affected the lives of his characters. In Brecht on Theatre he outlines the differences between Epic and Dramatic.

Dramatic Theatre	Epic Theatre
Plot	Narrative
Implicates the spectator in a stage situation	Turns the spectator into an observer
Wears down his capacity for action	Arouses his capacity for action
Provides him with sensations	Forces him to take decisions
Experience	Picture of the world
The spectator is involved in something	He is made to face something
Suggestion	Argument
Instinctive feelings are preserved	Brought to the point of recognition
The spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience	The spectator stands outside, studies
The human being is taken for granted	The human being is the object of the enquiry
He is unalterable	He is alterable and able to alter
Eyes on the finish	Eyes on the course
One scene makes another	Each scene for itself
Growth	Montage
Linear development	In curves
Evolutionary determinism	Jumps
Man as a fixed point	Man as a process
Thought determines being	Social being determines thought
Feeling	Reason

Biography

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany, on 19th February, 1898. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Munich before becoming a medical orderly in a German military hospital during the First World War. This experience reinforced his hatred of war and influenced his support for the failed Socialist revolution in 1919.

When he was 16, the First World War broke out. Originally passionate, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army”. On his father's approval, Brecht search for a loophole by registering for an additional medical course at Munich University, where he enrolled in 1917. There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in Brecht an admiration for the revolutionary dramatist and cabaret-star Frank Wedekind.

 From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919). Brecht was drafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic; the war ended a month later.

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was written in only three weeks in 1941 whilst in exile in Helsinki, Finland awaiting a visa to enter the US. The play was not produced on the stage until as late as 1958, and not until 1961 in English. In spite of this, Brecht never envisioned a version of the play in Germany, intending it for the American stage all along.

The Threepenny Opera is a musical Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theatre am Schiffbauerdamm.

 By 1933, when Brecht and Weill were forced to leave Germany by Hitler's Machtergreifung, the play had been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages. Songs from The Threepenny Opera have been widely covered and become standards, most notably "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife") and "Seeräuberjenny" ("Pirate Jenny").

Getting to know BRECHT!

To understand the idea of Brecht and to fully comprehend he’s technique, we explored various exercises such as GESTUS. Brecht was famous for a particular style of acting called GESTUS. The combination of gesture and facial expression and body language is purposely used to create meaning and communicate a message to the audience. In this exercise we had to pick a partner and choose a nursery rhyme, then we had to stand across the room from our partner. Next we were told to mime the nursery rhyme we had chosen, then we had to mime it as if our lives depended on it. That exercise showed the difference between Dramatic Theatre and Epic Theatre; Dramatic Theatre is more natural and realistic and being truthful while Epic Theatre is heightened emotion of melodrama.

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui



Brecht's 'The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui' is a parody, exposing the methods used by Hitler to gain power and cause so much devastation. Because of this, many of the characters of the play are satirised, most evidently the Actor. Also, in order to clearly convey the play as a parody, some of the situations within the play seem ridiculous to an extent, such as the 'Cauliflower Trust' being so named, and the fact that in the scene 8; the trial scene, it appears obvious to the audience that the judicial system is being manipulated by the gangsters. Here Brecht is depicting that this was the situation at the time of Hitler's rise to power, yet his ascent was not contested.

Given the script of scene 8, we as a class appointed roles to everyone then proceeded with reading and understanding the text. In this scene Brecht is basically trying to spell out to the audience how corrupt the government is. He does this by using hypocriticalism for example Giri was intimidating the witness Fish and also He had the doctor poison him in court room in front of everyone. That was really good way of conveying the message of corruption because normally that wouldn't be allowed in the court room.


This is a link to a video on youtube of The Resistible Rise of Artuo Ui
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AJQlRmJvLA

This is a picture I took during rehearsals, in this picture Giri is telling the prostitute who is in the witness box what to say:

 

In this picture, everyone in the court room has fallen asleep due to the fact that the trail has been going on for a long time: 

In the final picture, everyone in the court room has fallen asleep expect from the judge who is held a gun point by Mr Giri and standing next him is the prostitute that he is in cahoots with:





 

Threepenny Opera

 It is set in a slightly-old-fashioned Victorian London, the play centres on Macheath, an unethical criminal.

Macheath (Mack the Knife) elopes Polly Peachum. Her father is displeased with her decision, which controls the beggars of London, and he is determined to have Macheath hanged. His attempts are delayed by the fact that the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, is Macheath's old army companion. Still, Mr Peachum exercises his influence and eventually gets Macheath arrested and sentenced to hang. Macheath escapes this fate via a deus ex machina moments before the execution when, in an uncontrolled mockery of a happy ending, a messenger from the Queen arrives to pardon Macheath and grant him the title of Baron. The Threepenny Opera is a work of epic theatre. It challenges predictable philosophies of possessions as well as those of theatre.

  Week one of rehearsals as group were just reading the script over and over again, we didn't get it up and running till week 3. During those few weeks we established our individual characters also created a world for them; this allowed us to get a picture of how the play should sort of look like. My character's name is Jimmy and he is part of the ensemble, there were so many ways I could play with this character.

I decided to make my character really dirty and unhygienic, although he lives in London he has a Newcastle accent which make it really funny because everyone else is proper cockney. Also part of character preparation I watch the 1989 version on youtube this really helped develop me to develop my character; it gave me an idea of how I should play my character. Also I did a few exercises like going home as my character and interacting with people getting a feel of how my character speaks to people and reacts to different situations.

There an exercise that we did that is often used in drama school 'Blowing the Whistle'; the rules of the exercise was that we'd run our piece and every time the whistle was blown we had to change up the way we said our lines and do something different. It was intriguing, because we were put on the spot and we had to think fast; some people found difficult you could see some people were getting frustrated and some people didn't really change much. From watching other people do it I learned to just do whatever comes to my head and don't think about it too much because then I psyched myself out.