In the 1940's, theatre was very naturalistic. It was something that showed the real world or what posh people wanted to show.
Brecht took a different, creative route and came up with the verfremdungseffekt. He would take real situations but make them different and more interesting, yet strange.
For example;
Someone could show a character that has been raped and have that real emotion there for the audience to feel sympathy for them. But Brecht would take that same situation but then add a clown in the background to create laughs as well. It was the idea of making theatre different and changing the ways things were to be more different. It would create laughs from the audience after seeing the clown as well as feeling sad at the situation of the character. It would make the audience question themselves and think about what is actually going on. It caused conflict in the minds of the audience to the point where they would question what to think.
Brecht was also very didactic, he would tell you (within the play) what you should be thinking and why you should think that. He didnt let an audience leave a play thinking about what they saw or about the situation. This was the idea of verfremdungseffekt, he made things so different and strange that an audience would be left questioning certain things if he hadn't made if clear what he wanted them to think.
You are developing a clear understanding of Brecht's intentions for Epic Theatre, and an understanding of what Verfremdungseffekt is. The section about the clown is taken from my original Brecht workshop, and is an illustration given by Peter Brook rather than something Brecht actually did.
ReplyDelete