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.

Take Me Out

In this lesson we decided that the Nazi speed dating was not working and was not sitting well with us, so we wanted to explore other ways we could be speed dating whilst adding a little X factor to our scene. We decided in a moment of genius to have Hitler appearing on a Nazi version of Take Me Out. This works fantastically and we are soon devising an exciting and involving piece. We immediately loved the idea and started looking at how Paddy McGuinness welcomes people on the show and we decided to incorporate that. We thought this would make it a lot funnier and a lot more topical we all agreed this was a brilliant step forward in our piece and that it would drastically improve our scene. We rehearsed and decided that Hitler would come up to the song ,I'm too sexy for my shirt' ,we also agreed that he would say some outrageous statements that we would ask the audience clapped and that the girls would say reasonable statements and we would request the audience to boo! We also decided we would have one girl, who thought that Hitler hadn't killed enough Jews and we thought Hitler could ask the girls what they would do with his industrial size ovens. The starting point made for a shocking yet hilarious scene, at the same time exactly what I wanted to get from my audience along.

Preparing for our Protest

In this protest lesson we finalised what we would be doing for our protest we decided that we would bring in our native clothes. We would have pictures and signs, The pictures will be of our various groups that we are representing and signs will be questions such as 'Would you sit next to me on the bus?' or 'Would you call an ambulance for me if I was hurt?'. This was clever because were trying to get people to question themselves, because we do all judge people by how they look. We decided to have a tally using postet notes to get the general reaction of the school populous. In this lesson we also decided that we would a firm, but calm approach to people. This protest works extremely well with our play, because it allows us to explore people reactions to various situations and it also allows us to understand more, how we can approach various political subjects. I think this was an invaluable exercise whilst studying Brecht, because it gives you a feel for politics.

The Audiences Feeling

I found this picture and I think this is how the audience should feel, laughing on the outside, but crying at the fact they are laughing. Unfortunately I could not upload the photo because of technical difficulties, but it a picture of a young boy in clown makeup crying reservadly

Nazi Speed-Dating

In this lesson we decided to look at our newspaper article which was the former head of the EDL becoming a member of a Muslim organisation. To do this we thought we would go back to 1938 and look at what it would be like if Hitler fell in love with a Jew namedly Anne Frank. We thought we would have Hitler doing some not see speed dating in Starbucks where he meets, a disabled person, a gay, black person and a Jew. We decided to make it Brechtian that we would have a black girl playing the Jew a white girl playing the black girl, and a girl playing the gay man. We scripted out little conversations between them and tried them several times. We also had possible idea of segregating the audience from black and white to make them think about the history and how they have moved on from that terrible time. We tried these ideas a few times however they did not sit particularly well, we did, on the other hand show them to jack, and he suggested that perhaps we might introduce the show and segregate the audience on their moment of entrance. He also suggested I may give a speech at the beginning saying that we would specify we allowed; no flash photography, no phones and no Jews in the auditorium. I thought this was very Brechtian and would add to the shock value of our scene and allow people to think.

Protest Preparation

In this lesson we return to our protests and decided that we would do stop and search laws and how some people view them as institutionally racist. Unfortunately this didn't last long and eventually after some deliberation we decided to look at how people judge others based on the way they look particularly focusing on race and religion. After the deliberation in this lesson we decided we will perform in the reception area and that we would all bring in clothes from our native countries to question peoples morals in terms of others.

Brecht's Characterisation Continued

Following on from the previous two posts, we looked at how Brecht deals with characterisation in a similar way to, say, Comedia del Arte with a use of over the top stock characters. We also looked at the physicalisation of these characters and how many can seem similar, such as the pregnant lady and business man, and how these are all stereotypical archetypal characters. We each took a character and played out a scene involving those characters, where at some point, we would find out that these characters were effected by a strike that was happening elsewhere. It was interesting to see how these characters reacted when played almost as caricatures. This certainly was an insight into how Brecht intended theatre to be viewed.

Special Brew Drunk

We paired up as girls and boys, and both given the chance to manipulate the other. so one had to stand still, whilst Jack instructed them on what to do to the other to create a character, such as bottom out noes forward and crooked back. The women together with doing various other things and to imagine a coin clinched in between their buttocks allowing to walk in a certain way. This is the start of our look at Brechtian characterisation.

Introduction to Brechtian Characterisation

We paired up as girls and boys, and both given the chance to manipulate the other. so one had to stand still, whilst Jack instructed them on what to do to the other to create a character, such as bottom out noes forward and crooked back. The women together with doing various other things and to imagine a coin clinched in between their buttocks allowing to walk in a certain way. This is the start of our look at Brechtian characterisation.

Angry Elbow

For this exercise we lined up along the line from left wing to right wing reflecting our personal politics. I was the furthest right in the group, although perhaps a little too far to the right, though I do stand up for everything I believe and I am certainly very interested in politics and I believe this term will be very fascinating, looking at how politics are explored in theatre. Many people have opposing views in the class which allows us to intricately explore the whole range of political ideologies from right to left in depth, making an interesting political dynamic in the class which we can explore carefully throughout this devising process allowing us to be unbiased and a well rounded as a group.

Right Wing/ Left Wing Excercise

For this exercise we lined up along the line from left wing to right wing reflecting our personal politics. I was the furthest right in the group, although perhaps a little too far to the right, though I do stand up for everything I believe and I am certainly very interested in politics and I believe this term will be very fascinating, looking at how politics are explored in theatre. Many people have opposing views in the class which allows us to intricately explore the whole range of political ideologies from right to left in depth, making an interesting political dynamic in the class which we can explore carefully throughout this devising process allowing us to be unbiased and a well rounded as a group.

Introduction to Political Protest

We originally were told about protest, an I thought that it would be interesting to protest against something controversial, but we couldn't agree on which side to protest for, on our idea of Israel versus Palestine, so I thought it might be clever to have two on each side as two of us actually supported Palestine and two of us Israel. Unfortunately Jack didn't want this is, he wanted a performance piece of political pressure that could go on throughout the school, again making people question their beliefs.

Verfremdungseffekt Research

These are some interesting facts, that I found out about Verfremdungseffekt. The distancing effect, more commonly known (earlier) by John Willett's 1964 translation the alienation effect or (more recently) as the estrangement effect (German: Verfremdungseffekt), is a performing arts concept coined by playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht first used the term in an essay on "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting" published in 1936, in which he described it as "playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. Acceptance or rejection of their actions and utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, as hitherto, in the audience's subconscious" The term of Verfremdungseffekt is rooted in the Russian Formalist notion of the device of making strange or "priem otstranenie",which literary critic Viktor Shklovsky claims is the essence of all art. Not long after seeing a performance by Mei Lanfang's company in Moscow in the spring of 1935, Brecht coined the German term to label an approach to theater that discouraged involving the audience in an illusory narrative world and in the emotions of the characters. Brecht thought the audience required an emotional distance to reflect on what is being presented in critical and objective ways, rather than being taken out of themselves as conventional entertainment attempts to do. Shklovsky is perhaps best known for developing the concept of ostranenie or defamiliarization (also translated as "estrangement") in literature.He explained the concept in the important essay "Art as Technique" (also translated as "Art as Device")which comprised the first chapter of his seminal Theory of Prose, first published in 1925. He argued for the need to turn something that has become over-familiar, like a clichè in the literary canon, into something revitalized: "The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important." (Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 12) The distancing effect is achieved by the way the "artist never acts as if there were a fourth wall besides the three surrounding him, the audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator at an event which is really taking place." I also discovered what methods he used to alienate the audience: . Mask (and unmasking). . Bizarre objects and sets, which were representational rather than literal. . Set in fictional places to allow you to examine the culture of a pre-existent country. . Music, Poetry and Singing.

Verfremdungseffekt

For our introduction to Verfremdungseffekt we looked at creating physical objects with our bodies, personifying them as we went for example: an angry motorbike, shy toilets and the seductive bed during this bed scene we also found out the singing is a very Brechtian way of communication. This was very clever way of creating scenery, as Brecht does not use scenery. With your own bodies, using this the effect allows you to create any object on stage as quickly and cheaply as you wish, whilst giving the audience something to think about and alienating them from everyday life by personifying their household objects and we also getting characteristics which can be used to tell a story, on another level can be used to give someone's inner dialogue. The V-effekt also carries on into many other areas of theatre, such as a bizarre situation which couldn't exist in everyday life or such as objects being used incorrectly or not for their primary purpose. This effect is very clever for: unnerving the audience or making the audience think, alienating the audience, giving the audience to think about, or just giving them something to laugh at. This is a very clever technique can be used in all areas of theatre and is a very interesting thing to look at.

Introduction to Brecht

Today we were first introduced to Brecht and his work, ideologies and theories. Jack started off by explaining that Brecht did not believe in an idle audience, that he believed an audience should be active and forced to be involved in any piece of theatre they see immersing them in their theatrical world. We then moved on to look at Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (or V-effekt) which would translate as distancing effect or estrangement effect, as it is often translated. We saw how this can lead people to think about their own moral compass and can draw people further into the theatrical world that they're experiencing, again not allowing them to become lazy as an audience but forcing them to become involved. We also saw how Brecht openly invites the audience to see scene changes, costume changes, character changes and manual operations. He also doesn't believe in using props rather objects that subscribe to this V-effekt From his introduction I can tell that, although I will enjoy performing Brecht, I will not agree with his theatrical philosophy, as I believe that you should go to the theatre to be entertained, to see realism and that you are absorbed by the realism of a scene not the surrealism and also believe that set, lighting and props integral for making a piece look professional rather than like a GCSE-style performance which I worry that this may end up being.