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.
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