BRECHT

Initial Discussion Notes
- "quirky"
- "light-hearted"
- "Loserville did a lot of Brechtian style of performance"
- born in 1898 in Germany
- was a medic in World War 1 - became a pacifist, appalled by war
- moved to Berlin to search for a career in theatre
- fled Berlin in 1933 when the Nazis rose to power
- Nazis formally removed his citizenship

Brecht's Influences
Brecht became resident in the USA in 1941. However, he was called before the House of Un-American Activities Committee, who were an anti-communist committee. Brecht was accused of writing "a number of very revolutionary poems, plays, and other writings." (http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/bertolt_brecht_testifies_before_the_house_un-american_activities_committee_1947.html)
Brecht returned to Europe in 1947 and formed the Berliner Ensemble.

Brecht had a strong, political, anti-war voice. He had great courage to express his peronal voice in the world of theatre and developed a unique style of performance.

Epic Theatre
Naturalistic theatre acted as a mirror to what was happening in society. Brecht wanted his audience to think - he was quoted that audiences should "hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom."
Brecht was against cathartic theatre. If the audience believe in the action onstage and become emotionally involved, they lose the ability to think and judge. He wanted audiences to be emotionally distant.

Brecht used a range of theatrical techniques to remind the audience that they were watching theatre; a presentation of life, not real life itself. THIS IS EPIC THEATRE.

Verfremdunseffekt
Often called the alienation effect. Brecht didn't want the audience alienated, just distanced. He wanted audiences to be engaged and excited, but not emotionally involved with the characters. This always involved breaking the fourth wall, and other techniques such as:

Brechtian Techniques
- narration
- coming out of role
- gestus
- spass (fun)
- speaking stage directions
- non-linear narratives
- freeze frames (tableaus)
- directly addressing the audience
- using placards
- multi-rolling
- minimal props/costumes/set
- symbolic props
- symbolic lighting
- song and dance
- montage

The Caucasian Chalk Circle
We were given a scene from The Caucasian Chalk Circle, a play by Brecht himself. The task was to construct and perform the scene utilising the Brechtian styles discussed, and to ensure a focus to the acting style that is Epic Theatre.

My group consists of:
- Danny
- Meg
- Tom
- Kai
- Carl
- Ellie
- Dom

Our initial approach was a readthrough of the scene, to gain some understanding of what the narrative of the scene was. After completing this, we set on choosing characters, and as there were many more roles than there were actors, we found that before we even really began, we were using Brecht's technique of 'multi-rolling'.

Tom was away for our first lesson on this, and so we chose his characters for him, and filled him in when he returned. However, upon finalising the character list, Kai was unfortunately absent from the second lesson, where we were to finish staging the scene. Therefore we decided that as it was our last rehearsal before the performance day, we will give Kai's parts to Tom who attended the second lesson. This was to ensure that we could successfully perform the piece without any confusion next lesson. The final character list is as follows:

The Singer - Harry
Mother-In-Law - Danny
Lavrenti - Carl
Grusha - Ellie
The Monk (Nun) - Meg
One of the Women - Dom
Another Woman - Kai Tom
First Woman - Dom
A Very Old Peasant - Tom
Third Woman - Kai Tom
The Musician - Carl
A Peasant - Tom
The Guests - Carl, Dom, Tom, Kai
An Old Woman - Dom
A Man - Carl
Dying Man/Yussup - Harry

We began staging the scene by including another Brechtian style, dance. Brecht apparently enjoyed using song and dance in his plays, and we felt we had to honour that, even though ours seemed somewhat more modernised. I begin by narrating the Singer's lines whilst the rest of the cast do a short choreographed static dance to express joy before the scene has even begun. This is to excite and engage the audience, but also to remind them of the distant life of the theatre compared to their own lives. After finishing my lines, I take my placard off that reads 'The Singer', another Brechtian technique, and place myself under a dust sheet that represents a mosquito net, as the script reads. My position is on two chairs, spread to represent a bed, with my feet facing the audience. At the foot of the 'bed' is another placard that reads 'Dying Man/Yussup'. Even though I am playing multiple roles, it is clear enough to show the new character I have become. I then read the stage directions below the Singer's lines, in a neutral voice, to illustrate that when lines are spoken in this way, they are in fact the stage directions. We decided that for each of our characters lines, if stage directions follow them, that character shall read them, unless a narrator would be more suitable, to which case I read them, from the confines of the dust sheet (mosquito net).

Here is the props list that we devised upon completing two run throughs of the entire scene. The list consists of the props we found within the scene from the stage directions. The paper cakes will be crumpled balls of  paper on a tray, a simple yet effective use of minimalist props.
The paper bottles represent the bottles that the Nun gives out. Firstly, we changed the Monk to a Nun as the performer was a female, Meg, and we felt that we could integrate more comedy from the idea of an American preacher-style Nun.

The bottles are made from paper as Brecht used a technique known as minimal props, and alongside the idea of labeling the characters using placards, we felt that to represent items, we merely use paper and mark on them what they represent.

The dust sheet, alongside the two chairs, make up the dying man's bed, which is set stage left, allowing the majority of the scene to take place centre-stage. The bed has a placard on the foot of the construction, to indicate which character is inside the bed itself. In this image, a duvet is being used, as the dust sheet was currently in use.

This image shows Grusha (Ellie) and her 'baby'. Keeping with the theme of minimalist props, we are using a pillow with BABY written on a piece of paper that is stuck to the front, to indicate what the pillow actually represents.

Each actor will have placards that have their characters names written on them. We decided as a cast that we should each have different ways of illustrating what character we were playing. For example, I have one placard stuck to me, as the Singer, but after I am finished, I rip off the placard and get in the bed construction, which features a placard at the foot of the creation, indicating that I am the dying man (Yussup). Tom's idea was to have all the character names that he is playing written on one placard, that is stuck to his body. He would then circle the character he is about to play. The concern was that an audience might get confused once more than one character was circled. However, Tom stated that he would define the circle to ensure it was clear what each character was. As well as this, he had differentiated the characters to a great extent, vocally and physically, to illustrate the immense difference between them, just in case the placard might not be clear.

These three images show the start of the production. I am standing on the far right of the image, as the Singer, indicated by my placard. The rest of the cast are seen posing in three dance moves that are a part of the choreography we have created for the beginning of the piece. Brecht used song and dance in his Epic Theatre techniques, and so we decided to feature a small movement piece in ours, to supplement the singing at the beginning, which we have changed to a narration to a beat. Later on in the scene, a drunk peasant (Tom) sings to the musician's (Carl) jazz beat. We decided that a song needed to be in it,m however there is no indication of the tune for the songs that Brecht has written into the script, therefore we decided to devise our own, chilled jazz beat that Carl pretends to play on his paper ukulele, but makes the sounds with his mouth. Tom then decides when to join in with the singing before being kicked out by the Mother-In-Law (Danny), as the narrative progresses.

02/03/2015
For our exploration of Brecht, 'epic theatre' and his other techniques that supplement his ideas as a practitioner, we had to perform a scene from his play 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle'. The play is about a women's discovery of a baby, and her aims to be a better parent for that child than its birth parents. The first idea we came up with was adding 'Spass' to the Singer's lines at the start of the scene. We found that everyone was not too keen on singing the lines, and without any indication of rhythm of pitch from Brecht, Danny settled on the idea of having the ensemble perform a short, repeated routine of dance moves whilst I, the singer, spoke the lines in a comedic an engaging fashion. This immediately grabbed the attention of the audience, who were at first confused by the random dance that opens the performance, but the choreography supplemented my dialogue, and also utilised Brecht's technique of dance and song in his plays. I feel that this was an effective, engaging and enlightening opening to the piece, but also a solid introduction to Brecht's style, its abstract but interesting nature, and an overall enjoyable experience. As a group, I feel that we achieved the style of Brechtian theatre successfully, and used many of his techniques in one scene. I feel that even though in normal productions this would not be the case, only a few of his techniques would be used, for educational purposes and to use as many as we could in the limitation of one scene, allowed us to develop our understanding of each technique. One technique in particular shone in our group, and that was speaking the stage directions. I had the idea of the character who has stage directions that follow their last line should read the direction, to allow the other characters to position themselves according to that direction. This also allowed for a more fluent piece, as there were little to no stoppages to look at who was saying what line. The other technique that shone was the use of placards. We each took on different ways to represent each character we played, as we multi-rolled a fair bit in total. I had one placard sellotaped to my chest as 'The Singer', and I ripped that off after my introductory dialogue and became the dying man, to which a placard was placed at the foot of the constructed bed (made with minimal props) to illustrate that I had become the 'Dying Man/Yussup'. Personally, I feel that Tom's idea for multi-rolling worked best. He had each named character written on one sheet of paper, which was sellotaped to his chest. He then pointed to each character as he became that persona, and differentiated his vocals and movements enough to clearly indicate the shifting characters, making it easier to understand for the audience.

Overall, I feel that I enjoyed the study of Epic Theatre this past week, as it has educated me stronly in the Brechtian theory, and I feel that I can use some of his techniques in my work later in my study of Performing Arts. Brechtian styles lend themselves well to musicals, which I have a passion for, and therefore I feel that it somewhat suits my style of performance. However, I feel that I prefer other avenues of performance to Brecht, but I would not neglect its use in theatre, as I feel that it is a strong style that should not be ignored in the world of theatre. In our performance, I did feel at times that we were over-acting our lines, and although it works on the technique of 'Spass', it did not seem to suit our acting style as a company. Although we would likely use techniques such as minimal props, placards, and the occasional spoken stage direction, the over-acting made me feel as though the performance was less of an acting experience and more of a group of budding actors shouting dialogue for a laugh from the audience. In reflection, we were likely not over-acting the piece, we were merely trying to fit in all the techniques Brecht used into one scene, and this meant that energy levels were high, which detracted from the more serious notions of performance that we may be used to. Therefore it has been an interesting and engaging experience studying Brecht, and I definitely would like to pursue that study further given the chance. I would like to revisit something similar, and create a performance that made us feel more successful in our own performance as actors and as a company.