BERTOLT BRECHT RESEARCH PROJECT BERTOLT BRECHT Brecht was

BERTOLT BRECHT RESEARCH PROJECT

BERTOLT BRECHT • Brecht was born in Germany 1898 and died in 1956. • The turmoil of the times through which Brecht lived gave him a strong political voice. • Brecht was heavily influenced by Marxist ideas and he saw theatre as a way to spread political messages about class struggle. • He wanted to make his audience think and famously said that theatre audiences at that time “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”. https: //www. youtube. com/ watch? v=l-828 Kqt. Tk. A

READ THE FOLLOWING TEXT TO HELP YOU FIND EVIDENCE FOR TASK 1 • Why is Brecht so important? • Bertolt Brecht was a theatre practitioner. He made and shaped theatre in a way that had a huge impact upon its development. Modern theatre owes a lot to his methods. • When naturalistic theatre was at its height and acted as a mirror to what was happening in society, he decided to use it as a force for change. He wanted to make his audience think and famously said that theatre audiences at that time “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”. In naturalistic or dramatic theatre the audience care about the lives of the characters onstage. They forget their own lives for a while and escape into the lives of others. When an audience cries for a character or feels emotion through the events happening to them it’s called catharsis. • Brecht was against cathartic theatre. He believed that while the audience believed in the action onstage and became emotionally involved they lost the ability to think and to judge. He wanted his audiences to remain objective and distant from emotional involvement so that they could make considered and rational judgements about any social comment or issues in his work. To do this he used a range of theatrical devices or techniques so that the audience were reminded throughout that they were watching theatre; a presentation of life, not real life itself. His kind of theatre was called Epic theatre. He called the act of distancing the audience from emotional involvement.

FIND EVIDENCE FROM PREVIOUS SLIDES TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: • When was Brecht born? . . . . . . • What significant events do you know of that happened in Brecht’s lifetime? . . . . . . . . • Who was Brecht influenced by? . . . . . • What style of theatre was Brecht against? . . . . • When an audience feels emotion for a character, what is this called? . . • How did Brecht want his audience to react to theatre? . .

THE ‘V’ EFFECT – TASK 2 Research task: What is the fourth wall? (In your own words) Find a definition of the Verfremdungseffekt (Also known as Alienation effect – then put this into your own words) Challenge: In your definition of Alienation, include the following words: emotional investment, message, active members

HOW IS VERFREMDUNGSEFFEKT (THE ‘V’ EFFECT) CREATED? – TASK 2 A theatrical device is a method or technique used onstage which has an aim or purpose. The aim when using the 'v' effect is to ensure that the audience are constantly reminded that they’re watching a piece of theatre. Task – try to match up the definition of the technique to the explanation. If you are unsure, research the technical device for clarity Midway through a heightened scene the action might break for the Narration actor to comment upon their character, ‘Darius felt his anger rise. He wasn’t being listened to and wanted revenge’, before returning to the scene. Direct Address This is used to remind the audience that what they’re watching is a presentation of a story. Sometimes they will tell us what happens in the story before it has happened. This is a good way of making sure that we don’t become emotionally involved in the action to come as we already know the outcome. Third person narration Speaking to the audience breaks the fourth wall and destroys any illusion of reality. Actors have freedom to drop character or talk in context of a characters decision.

MORE DEVICES – TASK 3 Conduct research on the following devices to get a clearer picture of what may feature in a Brechtian piece of theatre. Write definitions and search up videos to get demonstrations of the technique e. g. Direct address is when a character look and directly speaks or interacts with the audience. An example being in Deadpool when he look sat the camera and says ‘cue the music’ as if talking to the production team(1: 26): https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=ONHBa C-pfsk • Use of Placards • Multi-rolling • Use of stereotypes and archetypes • Minimal set/costume/ props • Song and Dance • Gestus • Montage

BRECHT QUOTES – TASK 4 Quotes can tell you a lot about a person’s philosophy and how they lived. Quote 1: Conduct some research and find 5 of your favourite quotes that Brecht famously said. Then provide an explanation of what YOU think about that quote. What is he saying? Why do you think he said that? Do you agree/ disagree? What does it make you think about? Quote 2: Quote 3: Quote 4: Quote 5:

STIMULI – TASK 5 A stimuli is a trigger that inspires a piece of creative work. It can take many various forms: • An image • A piece of music • Some Lyrics • A quote • A piece of video of film Some examples could include: • A quote E. g. “Power is not given, it has to be taken” • A Social/moral/political idea E. g. System Failure • A song E. g. “Oh You Pretty Things” – David Bowie Brecht wants his theatre to have a social, moral or political motivations for stimulus: • E. g. system failure – obviously hinting at global warming but is there focus on this issue you would like to explore? Are there things that people aren’t quite aware of? Find something that interests YOU! • Consider images, videos and other research Challenge: How can you use the Brechtian devices to enhance the social/ moral/ political message of your perfromance?

STIMULUS RESEARCH FINDINGS – TASK 5 What interests YOU? Find a stimulus of your choice and use it to trigger ideas for your performance. If necessary do some further research. (Don’t forget to post the links of the websites you’ve used – this can be useful for the future. )

MIND MAP – TASK 6 Taking your idea for performance; explore the option of devices for scene ideas start to create a mind map. The more detail the better! I have given you one as an example. Eg. Use of Archetype s Eg. Greta Thunberg and Donald Trump in a meeting/ Boxing match debate: Who wins? BUT WHY? Performance Concept Once complete: highlight your most interesting ideas and conduct further research to develop it – e. g. what speeches can you find from Thunberg/ Trump? Can you form this into a debate script? What are the characteristics of each character?

USEFUL RESOURCES AND VISUALS Useful Websites: https: //www. bbc. co. uk/bitesize/guides/z wmvd 2 p/revision/1 • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=l-828 Kqt. Tk. A An introduction into Brecht https: //www. britannica. com/biography/B ertolt-Brecht • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=c 7 fq. MPDc. K XM Crash Course – Brecht https: //www. superprof. co. uk/blog/thebrechtian-method-and-epic-theatre/ https: //www. dramaclasses. biz/bertoltbrecht-techniques-and-facts https: //getrevising. co. uk/diagrams/brech t-techniques-2 • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Kkqw. H 5 bp. Z x. A How to implement Gestus • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Ik. THGQr. Ub Kk. Verfremdungseffekt

SAVE YOUR WORK! Make sure you save your work, it will be very helpful for when you complete your C 01 Devised Performance in Yr 11