MY BOY BRECHT!

"Gestus" ... "Guess what?!" ... "NO! Gestus!"

Gestus is one of Brecht's teachings which is all about working with a combination of gesture and attitude an example of this is a solider who's gesture could be a salute; without costume we can already identify that he has a military background but just from that we can't yet tell his attitude.
But when we add another aspect in this case dead bodies his attitude is presented as the solider just over looks them and kicks (another gesture) them gently to the side this presents his attitudes to war being mundane and the dead not significant.

This therefore shows that the gesture of a character revivals their attitudes so to recognise a character in Brecht theatre you need to establish their gesture. However to reveal an attitude you need the character to interact with a another person or object to fully understand the attitude. E.g is a character dainty fidget who works in a salon picks up a coat and holds it away from her body indicating her attitudes or dislike towards the owner of the coat.

So when looking at Brecht's technique of Gestus it has shown me how to present my character when performing "the price" in week 6 as the character I will be given will have to show his attitudes in a clarity so the audience can recognise the themes of the play.

Who the **** is Brecht ? 6/11/12

Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898, and died in 1956 and followed his own attitudes of taking nothing for granted and a passion for people to learn and that to be portrayed in theatre through the audience asking questions. Brecht wanted people to examine life and society thus creating political theatre and its true origin.
In terms of performance he wanted the audience to be reminded what they were watching and why they were watching in terms of the performance content thus meaning the audience would learn not connect with the story emotionally thus meaning its presents itself as an opposite to the suspension of disbelief theory meaning audiences minds and alert and always processing information meaning audiences identify and don't connect like a Stanislavsky performance a practitioner of naturalism.

One of Brecht's methods that I learnt today was the "verfrendungseffekt" or "the v effect" , "alienation technique"  which consists of actions/techniques that remind the audience / actors That they are watching a performance and why they are there.

So when looking at this pervious strategy it's obvious when watching Brecht's work this technique is already being used , not during the performance but before and within the title so the audience know what is going to happen so its no longer a question of how in conventional theatre but now why. For example "the apple is eaten by John" this presents our knowing to what is going to happen but  why? Is it because he is hungry or is there a deeper meaning and this is what Brecht is all about.

From looking at Brecht this lesson I have learnt a lot and I feel I have found a new love within this aspect of theatre and I'm looking forward to exploring it deeper.