Student Essay on Bertolt Brecht's Theatre

Bertolt Brecht's Theatre

(c)2024 BookRags, Inc. All rights reserved.

Essay

Bertold brecht used his plays to teach and educate audiences andm through this, to get a message across. Brecht was a communist, therefore the types of messages related to this belief as showmn in the threepenny opera and the caucasian chalk circle.

Brecht was a dedicated marxist and used his plays as propaganda and to show a bias (in his favour) view on the world and what could be done to change it.

To succeed in making his plays didactic, Brecht employed many techniques producing the Epic Theatre. These techniques were used to keep the audience mentally awake and judgemental. Brecht did not want his audience to react as they would in stanislavski's plays but rather, to stop them from being sucked in and to eliminate the 4th wall. One of many techniques includes eliminating suspense, for example, in the caucasian chalk circle, the prologue is a shortened summary of what occurrs and takes place in the rest of the play, this leaves the audience knowing the ending and less sucked into what is happenning. Another way Brecht suspended suspence was through the use of signs and narration as can be used in The Threepenny Opera.

Brecht did anything he could to detach the audience. When workshopping a scene in class, my group had actors playing multiple parts, changing costume and set on stage and rehearsing lines just offstage but in sight of audience members to detach and remind them that they are just watching a play, these are brechtian technigues.

Brecht changed theatre and created his own to portray communsit messages such as capitolism to audiences throughout Russia and then the world.