Brecht research

Background:

Born in 1898, Bertolt Brecht originated in a small German town called Augsburg, where he spent his childhood years. Married in 1897, his parents were of differing religions (his father was a Catholic and his mother was a Protestant) however still decided to get a young Brecht baptised. Brecht was their first son and was baptised as Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brecht. Later in 1900, they had another child, Brecht’s brother, Walter.

Health issues:

As a child, Brecht was regularly ill and struggled with health issues. He had a congenital heart condition and a facial tic. Because of this, he was sent to a sanatorium in order to calm himself down. Although this was beneficial for his health, at the age of twelve, Brecht had a heart attack. He soon recovered and continued with his education.

Education:

At the age of six, Brecht attended a Protestant-run elementary school. After he completed this school, he then attended a private school where he was educated in Humanities and Latin. This part of his life had large significance to his later pieces of work. This is because, at this young age he was introduced to the German translation of the Bible. Many references and quotes from this text can be found throughout Brecht’s work, particularly in pieces such as- ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’. During his time at school, he began writing many pieces and ended up co-founding and editing a school magazine. By his mid teenage years, Brecht was writing for a local newspaper and had written the first of his many plays- aptly named ‘The Bible’. Although he excelled at school, at age eighteen, he was nearly expelled for disagreeing about it being mandatory to defend his country at war. After this, he left school at nineteen and had begun doing clerical work for the war that he disagreed with. However, he was forced to stop this work due to health problems.

Due to this, in 1917, Brecht returned to his education and attended a University in Munich, where he studied medicine. However, the war had had life-long effects on Brecht. Because of this, he decided to dedicate a larger part of his life to theatre and play writing. Throughout 1921, he took many trips to Berlin and attended many rehearsals of popular plays and productions. Throughout 1922, his play ‘Drums in the Night’ premiered in Munich and then later, in Berlin. As a result Brecht earnt his first award for his work- he received the prestigious Kleist prize for young dramatists.

Brecht’s plays and writings hugely show the influence of Brecht’s later studies. In the remaining years of his life, he studied many different kinds of theatre. He focused on Chinese, Japanese and Indian theatre. Also, he showed a great interest towards Shakespeare’s work and other Elizabethan plays. Furthermore, he found large inspiration in Greek playwrights and German dramatists.

Relationships:

Brecht’s sexual relationships with others has fascinated historians and playwrights alike. During his adulthood, he was thought to have had no less than three mistresses at any time. By the age of sixteen, Brecht began to frequently visit a brothel in order to broaden his experiences. After this age, he supposedly began to pursue eight different girls simultaneously. One of these girls was Paula Banholzer, who was the mother of his illegitimate child in 1919. He was known to have experimented with homosexuality and he had stated in his diary the need for both male and female companions.

During 1922, Brecht entered his first fully committed relationship- he married opera singer Marianne Zoff. They had a secure, happy marriage primarily and a year later, their daughter Hanne was born. However, throughout her early years, Brecht had several affairs and spent little time with his wife or daughter. His love of theatre drove him to move to Berlin where he met Helene Weigel- a communist actress. Because of his many affairs with this woman, Marianne moved away from Brecht and began to live with her parents. She stopped corresponding with Brecht completely. At the age of twenty-six, he fathered his second illegitimate son with Weigel. Their child was named Stefan. Because of their relationship and child, Brecht divorced Marianne in order to marry Weigel in 1929.

During 1930, Helene Weigel gave birth to their daughter- Barbara. However, although they had two children, Brecht was definitely not monogamous. There were many more woman in his life and they were largely important for his later pieces of writing. Many of his mistresses even wrote pieces in several of his plays. Weigel was largely tolerant towards his affairs, even when he had a third illegitimate child in 1944. Although Brecht appeared content in his home in Berlin, he was forced to move Zurich in 1933 with his family. He later had to move around the world in order to escape the Nazi rule over Germany.

Brecht’s final moments:

In August 14, 1956, Brecht died of a heart attack. He provided some rather unusual instructions for his dead body: he wished that a stiletto would be placed in his heart and that he would be buried in a steel coffin in order to keep away worms.

 

Epic Theatre:

Primarily, Brecht experimented with many techniques, such as: Dadaism (A movement that originated during World War 1, where artists showed their disgust about propaganda being spread. Disturbing images were displayed to show this disgust) and expressionism. But he soon begun to develop a unique style that was tailored for his own vision. He hated particular dramas where the audience was made to sympathise with the hero and not analyse his flaws thoroughly enough. He believed that this was a waste of audience. He believed that when the audience was forced to feel, they did not think adequately about what was truly going on in the play. He famously stated that the naturalistic natures of such plays made the audiences “Hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”.

In naturalistic plays or dramatic theatre, the audience is allowed to forget their lives and simply care more about the characters on stage rather than any deeper meaning behind the play. When an audience shows great emotion for a character it’s called catharsis. Personally, Brecht despised catharsis theatre. Due to such emotional investment from the audience, he believed that they lost their ability to judge objectively and to think about the play in front of them.  His belief was that audiences should remain distant from the emotional attachments that the play presented them with, so they could make rational judgements about the issues presented in his work.

To create this feel within the audience, Brecht used many theatrical techniques throughout his productions. These were used to remind the audience that they were really only observers upon the drama, and were not a part of it. His depiction of theatre was called Epic Theatre.

Epic theatre was so different to dramatic theatre in many ways. Dramatic theatre has a strict plot, at the theatre, the story is laid out for us from beginning to end, where all the issues are resolved. However, epic theatre has little of this tidiness. It finishes leaving stories unresolved and questions unanswered. This leaved the audience full of questions and queries about the issue addressed in the play. Usually, epic theatre was an inspiration to the audience. Brecht believed that dramatic theatre was just entertainment and thought that it only emotionally effected the viewers and remained with them only for their time in the theatre.

Techniques:

Alienation:

Brecht’s most well-known and most used dramatic technique was the technique of alienation towards the audience. Brechtian theatre uses alienation in many ways. He uses alienation to simply get the deeper message across to the audience, without getting them invested in any unnecessary, distracting emotional ties. Epic theatre commonly breaks the fourth wall to make the play more interactive towards the audience. This makes them active members rather than just observers, this ultimately makes them think more, which is Brecht’s final aim. There are many different techniques which are used within alienation to create a wider thinking audience. For example:

Coming out of character:

Usually a technique shunned by many other practitioners, coming out of character means simply saying or doing something that your character would not. You may revert back to your own personal traits, or simply forget lines. However, Brecht uses this technique skilfully. He uses the character break to remind the audience of the theatrical manner of his plays. This reminds them that they are not watching real life and are simply watching a production. For example, midway through a scene, an actor may break character to remark upon his characters feeling or intentions. This is beneficial towards Brecht’s Epic Theatre as it still portrays these emotions and interactions successfully to the audience, yet it still reminds them that it is not real.

Narration:

Similarly to breaking character, narration is used to remind the audience that they are simply watching a presentation of the story, rather than being part of the story themselves. Plays without such narration make it easier for the audience to feel closer and more connected with the story and its characters. This may appear beneficial, but remember that Brecht wishes for a more intellectual view after the play, not an emotional one. Sometimes, many plays will narrate at the beginning and may even tell the audience what is going to happen (although not necessarily alienation, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet narrated the ending of the play before the characters are even introduced). This is an interesting way of making sure that the audience doesn’t get emotionally involved with the story and the characters- as we already know the outcome of the play.

Placards:

A placard is an additional prop that is presented onstage. It is a piece of written information for the audience to read themselves. They could be as simple as holding up a banner or a card. In more modern plays, PowerPoint or Microsoft presentations can also be used to the same effect. The information on the placard is usually informative and tells the audience something they didn’t know. The information must also deepen our understanding upon the play and its characters. For example, the musical ‘Miss Saigon’ used a slideshow to effectively demonstrate the loss of lives in the Vietnam War. This was effective as it primarily introduced many unseen themes that run throughout the play. It did not simply comment upon the war itself, but deepened our understanding of how the War killed thousands and of the social and political issues that came with war.

Furthermore, if a placard was being used to let the audience further interpret a character, it must not simply say what they are feeling. Their feelings would be shown from the acting and a placard stating how they were feeling would tell the audience something that they already knew. Instead, placards are used effectively to portray a character when they tell the audience otherwise unknown pieces of information about the character. This may be the cause of their emotion or some information to help the audience form a more informed viewpoint about the characters.

Speaking the stage directions aloud:

This particular technique was used more in rehearsals rather than in actual plays. It was frequently used in rehearsals to remind the actors that they must distance themselves from their character. It reminded both the audience and the actors that they are simply watching/creating a play. This helps to make the audience further analyse the actions of a character in a more objective detail.

Direct address:

Direct address is where an actor speaks directly to a person in the audience. This is a common break of the fourth wall and is used in many styles of theatre as it can provide a more comical side of a play. This technique can be used to make the audience feel closer to the characters and action. However, naturalistic plays would usually never use fourth wall breaks.

All of these techniques are included in the wider theatre technique of Alienation. This is because they simply alienate the audience. The audience would most likely not expect any such techniques to occur, so feel confused and bemused towards the nature of the play. Although many playwrights portray confusion from the audience as a bad thing, Brecht uses this confusion to make the audience think about what is going on throughout the play.

Brechtian staging:

Multi-roling:

Multi-roling is where an actor plays more than one different characters onstage. The different characters may be shown in the way the actor moves and acts for each character. They could lower their voice, change their body language and gesticulate differently. A costume change may also be used to present the change of character easily. However, it must still be prominent that the same actor is playing multiple characters. Because of this costume change must be to a minimum and perhaps one or two significant garments change, but no more as this may obscure the view of the actor. The audience can clearly see that an actor has taken on more than one role which makes them more aware that they are watching a presentation of events.

Split-role:

This is nearly the opposite of multi-roling. Split-roling is where more than one actor plays the same character. For example, the main character may have a few actors who rotate their roles after each scene. This effectively inhibits the audience from getting an emotional bond with this character as they are only being represented by actors and are not real people. It stops emotional attachment upon characters which further allows the audience to truly think about the plays meaning itself, rather than being caught up with emotional views.  

Minimal costume/set/props:

Due to the nature of Brechtian theatre, set, costume and props are all kept simplistic and representational. A more interesting, elaborate costume or set may create a more natural feel and may lose the sense of theatre rather than real life. A more empty stage still shows the audience that they are simply being presented events rather than watching television. Although Brecht did not commonly use complex props, there have been examples of some props becoming a ‘member of the family’. These props may be more important than some of the characters in his plays. Such a complex prop would simply be used for authenticity. 

Lighting:

Brecht believed in keeping the lighting as simple as the set. He did not want the lighting effects to overshadow the true meaning of the play. Usually, he commonly used harsh light as he thought it “Illuminates the truth”. He wanted every part of the production to be seen and often, the audience will see the production personnel in action on the stage rather than hidden. This is unusual as most production crews stay unseen to make sure the illusion of naturalism remains intact. Brecht however, thought that if the audience viewed the crews, it would further cement the belief that they were being shown a production rather than being invested in one.

Symbolic props:

There are many examples of props being used in various ways. Similarly to multi-roling, re-using props for different items shows the audience that this is simply a production. A suitcase may become a table or a podium etc. This further shows the audience that they are being presented with events.

Other Brechtian devices:

Song and Dance:

This is a more unusual technique employed by Brecht. However, it is an effective way of alienating the audience. It fully shows the audience that they are watching theatre as such a song and dance would not seem natural in any way. Commonly in Brechtian theatre, the lyrics juxtapose the style of the music itself. The lyrics could be dark and have a more sinister tone to them. However, the music itself may be upbeat and happy. This is effective as it further distances the audience form the characters. A very famous line from his work is “Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank or he who founds one?”. This line would have been sung over a more upbeat arrangement of music. This encourages the audience to listen carefully and truly understand the meaning of the song and dance piece.

Montage:

In the modern era, montage is a phrase that is more readily associated with cinema than theatre. However, in the past, montage was more related to theatre and film together. Brecht consciously borrowed the idea of such montage from silent movies. Many of Brecht’s plays were influenced by montage and used this technique in several areas. Similarly to a cinematic montage, a theatrical montage is a series of small, self-contained scenes that have been immediately grouped one after another. They commonly use juxtaposition to further highlight the issues with clarity and understanding. They are similarly used as montages in films nowadays, they can also allow for the audience to focus on more minute details in the play.

Brecht was largely influenced by a film director- ‘Sergei Eisenstein’. This director had many classic examples of montage in film, however, Brecht was most interested in the ‘Odessa Steps’ sequence in Eisenstein’s famous 1925 film, ‘Battleship Potemkin’. This famous sequence depicted a runaway baby carriage hurtling down a steep set of stairs. Eisenstein effectively uses montage to create a suspenseful atmosphere.

Spass and Gestus:

Spass:

‘Spass’ is a German word which literally translates into English as ‘fun’. Brecht’s ultimate goal was to make his audiences to think more thoroughly. He later realised that laughter also evoked thought throughout theatre. Because of this, Brecht created a new technique called ‘Spass’- the use of comedy to create further interest and thought from the audience. Although a lot of his performances had a rather dark tone and topic, Brecht realised that comedy was an effective way of engaging the audience and forcing them to think about the issues arisen in the plays. According to his theory, even dark and meaningful theatre could benefit from moments of comedy.

Furthermore, Spass was also an effective way to break the tension in more serious scenes. As tension rises in plays, the audience naturally feels more attached to the characters and the story. However, Brechtian theatre dictates that the audience should not feel attached to the characters as it would draw away from the plays main themes. Because of this, Brecht needed to find an effective way of breaking the tension to stop the audience from following the story closely. Spass turned out to be an excellent way to do so. It may be in the form of a comical song, physical comedy, slapstick or even a stand-up routine. Because of the comedic nature, Spass may appear rather silly to the audience. However, it often makes a strong comment upon the social issue that it is based upon. For example, Spass may use black comedy to make the audience laugh at many serious topics. This is very effective as the audience will laugh because of the comedic nature, then they will question why they laughed. This will create controversy which will further make the audience think deeply about the issues brought up in the play.

Gestus:

Another Brechtian technique that is commonly used in Brechtian theatre is ‘Gestus’. This is a clear character movement or gesture that simply captures the moment or attitude rather than delving into emotion. According to Gestus, every single motion and gesture was important. To focus upon this idea, Brecht and his cast closely studied photographs of his plays to ensure that each movement was effective and clear. They wanted to make sure that each gesture was so clear that the audience could understand the story by the gestures alone.

Because of the abstract nature of his plays, Brecht did not want his actors to become a character onstage. Instead, he wished for them to simply portray them as a type of person, rather than a specific person. His characters in the plays are largely stereotypically representative of all real life people. For example, a corrupt boss who smokes a cigar whilst his workers starve represents all bosses who benefit through the exploitation of others. Because of this, Brecht commonly refers to his characters by standard name, such as- ‘The Boy’ or ‘The Doctor’. The audience will interpret the character through their social role. This aids them to understand the character instead of feel an emotional attachment towards them. Because of this, it is far easier for the audience to judge the character rather than empathising with them.

Gestus is not just focusing on the gesture itself, but the social connotation of such a gesture. For example, a soldier marching and saluting across the stage is simply a gesture. However, if he was doing so while marching across a stage strewn with dead bodies, it would be a Gestus as a comment upon what kind of person he represents.