Brecht Research

The most influential playwright of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht was a conduit for the impact of German expressionism on later modern drama. Brecht’s first play, Baal, written in 1918 but not produced until 1923, tells the story of a boorish and primitive poet who, from being a society sensation, degenerates into a rapist and murderer. The policeman who tries to arrest Baal summarizes his career as follows: “Started out as a cabaret performer and poet. Then merry-go-round owner, woodcutter, millionairess’s lover, jailbird and pimp.” Baal is at the same time a natural outgrowth and a parody of Strindberg’s dream plays and the expressionist Stationendrama (See August Strindberg for a brief discussion of these plays). The play prefigures Brecht’s later fascination with outcasts and social hypocrisy. In 1924, Brecht moved to Berlin, and soon thereafter began working with the communist director Erwin Piscator, who practiced a form of epic theater, in which he engaged contemporary social and political concerns. Brecht developed his own theory of the epic theater on the basis of his work with Piscator. Whereas Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Anton Chekhov revised the notions of plot and character drawn from Aristotle, Brecht claimed to be creating an entirely non-Aristotelian theater, which he called epic rather than dramatic. This project entailed a wholesale reconsideration of plot, character, and many other elements of the traditional theater. The version of Aristotelian theater that Brecht was rejecting derived from the work of Goethe and Schiller, who saw epic and dramatic poetry as entirely distinct in type: the epic focused on the past and “man working outside himself,” while the dramatic focused on the present and the “personally limited suffering” of the “inwardly directed man.”[1] Brecht wanted theater to address the concerns that had traditionally been seen as epic: that is, history, in the dual sense of the pastness of the past and of the individual’s engagement with social forces. Brecht’s goal of creating an epic theater was closely linked to his political commitment to Marxism. Brecht became drawn to communism around 1926 and proclaimed himself a Marxist in 1928. In that same year, he had his first international success with The Threepenny Opera, an adaptation of the eighteenth-century Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, which Brecht wrote in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann, who co-wrote several of his early plays and after the war participated in his theatrical company, the Berliner Ensemble. Brecht set the opera in the criminal underworld of Victorian London; in it, he satirized the respectable bourgeoisie as no better than the gangster Macheath (Mac the Knife). Brecht intended the songs to distance the audience from the action, to “take up a position,” but the music also arguably contributed to the humor and good fun of the play, which is Brecht’s most popular but not his most politically effective.

Performance 2 Evaluation

Performance evaluation Overall I think the performance in front of the of the school went much better, primarily because of the fact that we were probably more comfortable in front of our peers, rather than our parents and friends, because we knew that the parents, may not understand some of the gags, or the private jokes of the students. We also did not know how they would react and perhaps we had worries, that they may have found some elements a little too offensive, which they did, and we did not know how they would react, or if they they would act on their offence. I think the performance went well,because the play was amusing, yet it allows you to think about your personal beliefs and morals, and humour mixed with questionable morality is always a very effective and successful way of exploring various controversial issues. I think all the sketches went well and they all had some kind of impact on the audience, which in their own way put across our overall point. I must admit, although I'm probably biased, that I did very much enjoy our Take Me Out scene. I thought it was effective, well rehearsed and allow the audience to view their own moral fibre through what they found amusing and through the empathy they experienced with certain characters or the lack thereof. I think our scene was also probably the most shocking out of all the scenes, with many references to such things as: burning homosexuals and Hitler having not killed enough Jews. This was a shock to the audience and this was portrayed by their varying reactions, but I believe it did make them think about the question proposed 'Do We Become More Rightwing in Times of Economic Hardship' after all if it wasn't for the hyperinflation in Germany after World War I Hitler would've never seized power. I think it also explores how attitudes change throughout time and how we're developing as a nation in a moral sense, which allows us to appreciate different people of different races, sexual orientation, or backgrounds. Although our piece was controversial, I enjoyed the way it was interspersed with moments of humour, which I think the audience appreciated, although I think they often found themselves laughing at things which they didn't feel comfortable with finding amusing, which is an extremely clever tactic for making one view ones own moral compass. This idea was then punctuated by Ashley's speech at the end written by Jack Hughes. In this performance we also decided it would be more Brechtian to have Maya playing two characters and that we would play I'm too sexy. We also decided I looked scarily like Hitler when filmed, so we filmed my opening speech. Another group I particularly enjoyed was the dentist scene, as this was the only scene that made me want to laugh out loud. I was consumed by Jackie's performance as the Russian dentist, I think it was a very clever idea and meticulously thought out. I think Maya did very well stepping in at the last minute and I think she didn't let the group down at all. I think the flow between the scenes was as best as it had ever been and this added an aesthetic efficiency to the play. I must admit, having spoken of flow, I am still not sure why we skipped to the end of the song. This threw me massively in terms of my solo, and I think it had been better than that. Overall I think this was a well rounded performance, although I do not believe it was entirely ready.

Performance 1 Evaluation

Performance evaluation 1. The first performance was to our year group, this was good as they understood many of the jokes and understood many of the references. Although it also made them think, as many of them came up to me afterwards questioning the play and wondering if we gone too far. People definitely thought ours was the most offensive out of all three of the performances, which I believe Jack would think is quite an achievement! People that I spoke too often said they thought ours was the best, and I believe the reason for this is that we had lots of laughs, lots of emotion and we also managed to go a lot further than any other groups, thanks to Jack. When the audience first came in it was nice to play to lots of people who you know and can have jokes with. I think that play was the best we ever did it, we got lots of laughs, but it also had a real depth of emotion to it. I think the scene changes were efficient, perhaps not flowing, but efficient and I agree with Jack, the song at the end was utterly abysmal! The audience of our peers, were a very active audience that became very involved in it, and reacted in the way that I believe Brecht would want them to react, having said that perhaps some of them were not offended enough! Just before this show, we decided that me and Eva would escort Jackie off after the three black men started shouting at her. This works because me and Eva were supposed to be discriminative and this was an effective characterisation for us. We also ended up taking Ben onstage to tie him up with Kai, Michael and Ben and just for an extra measure I shouted 'We've had too many interruptions!' and 'Tie zem up!' When watching the other groups, I found Caroline's the most interesting. I definitely learned something from Caroline's and overpowering I thought the opening was spectacular, we came in, bombarded by loud music in a dark room, the chalk on the walls added to this effect of an underground rave which was all very intimidating and overpowering. I thought the audience interaction, was very well done and I loved the hilarity of the sexual songs that Seth had written for the girls to sing. This was a spectacular, though there was one word and this was the funniest word of the week, and that word was Mao! Tim's group I didn't particularly enjoy, I think 1 of the reasons was, and everybody said this, it wasn't Brechtian and all of it was scripts about politicians, so I think it became a little dull after a while and also, I don't think it explored the question, or made me think. This allowed me to think about how we could make our peice better

Protest Evaulation

Our protest went well, though not as well as it could have, I believe. The reason for this, was that we were not organised enough. The protest started off as we had prepared, though it wasn't sitting well with me as if let some of the questions were redundant. So instead we started asking people if they judged people by how they looked and then questioning their response. After Simon Stevens and Stuart Worden both confirmed they judge people based on looks I decided to change to question to 'Why do you judge people based on their looks?'. This worked the best out of all of them and showed how adaptation is necessary, something we can take on into our piece. We got some interesting responses and I found that I saw a different side to the population of the BRIT, a side which quite frankly disgusts me. Overall it was a good time and we got some interesting insights into political reactions and believes of a variety of people.

Final Rehearsal

In this rehearsal we decided that my first introduction will be in German. Jack also decided it might be a little inappropriate to separate people by race, so we decide to separate them in terms of right wing and left wing. This required Osin to dress up in a tutu and fairy wings, we also decided that me and Eva Braun will be taking coats at the door. This was very shocking for the people to enter and to find themselves approached by a transvestite and two Nazis. In this rehearsal we also decided that Maya would no longer play the girl and Paddy McGuinness only one part and that she would interview a random member of the cast. In this rehearsal we finalised what we would use and Jack said that instead of playing the introduction to Take Me Out we could instead be dancing and singing in a small reserved way to start with and gradually building up. This is very effective and alienating to people in an extreme way from what they would imagine Hitler doing. We also decided how we would end the piece and that we would have Ben Mcdoughal tied with the rest of the black men on stage. We then were given parts for the song 'Brown Paper, White Paper' and told to learn them. I also got a solo which I think is using the V-effect to its limit, as I would be dressed as hitler. We also decided Jackie would be the Peanut guy.

The video

This is the afore mentioned video I studied of Hitler. I found some of the believes in the early years unbelievably similar to that of Marxism, in fact in one of his speeches he says 'Marxism machete frei' meaning 'Marxism makes freedom'. http://youtube/AnpTWKKWQ1o">

Hitler Research

Research for Hitler I watched ten minutes of some of his speeches clipped together and noticed some fascinating things; first of all he started all of his speeches with crossed arms, something you don't associate Hitler with. He is very animated and I will use this in my speech. I found out some fascinating things about Hitler, including the fact that there is no recorded footage of his apparently soft conversation voice and that the only reason why his speeches were filmed is so that he can view them and get maximum response from his audience. His voice box has subsequently been recreated and has shown how soft his voice genuinely was. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a costume designer has supplied me with costumes before and I managed to get hold of some Nazi regalia from her. I also managed to get hold of a moustache, some brown dye and some spirit done to ensure it stayed firmly in place. One thing I did notice was that majority of people seem to think Hitler had black hair and black moustache, whereas in fact his hair was a very similar colour to mine, it is just that in black and white photography is made it look black. The problem with doing this research is that as it is not Stanislavskian work, but Brecht, therefore I cannot put into place all of what I want; this is one reason why I prefer naturalistic theatre.