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Brecht vs. Stanislavski Essay

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Brecht vs. Stanislavski Essay
Brecht Vs. Stanislavski.

To move away from naturalism Brecht methods differs from Stanislavski's in many ways. In order to achieve a un-natiuralistic performance and create an audience that are critical on the play rather than be emotionally attached to the play. Some of these differences between the two practitioner's methods that create these two opposite effects are; Events being episodic, Where the actors go and having a 4th wall.

The two practitioners play about with the order of the events during the play, whether they are episodic or linear. Brecht chose to order his events episodically, meaning that the book may not follow on from the previous scene, but jump about in time. This could be done through flashbacks, snippets of the future, or just generally a whole new story starting within a play. The beginning doesn't have to be at the start, neither does the middle or end have to follow their respective patterns. Several stories can run in conjunction with each other in one play.
At the other end of the scale is Stanislavski's linear approach to plays, and even though he didn't write his own plays himself, every play associated with his method, for example Henric Ibsen's 'A Doll's House,' will still have a linear pathway. Starting at the beginning, then following the events through until you reach the final scene which is the end of the story.

Brecht's episodic scenes goes against naturalism, as our lives out linear, so jumping about in time creates an unnatural time line which is very different from Stanislavski. He would have the time line follow the pattern of our everyday lives, to create a very realistic and believable play. 'A Doll's house' is set it one living room and each scene that takes place in it is linear. Whereas Brecht's play 'A Caucasian Chalk Circle' shows disjointed scenes that don't flow through to one and other. A Doll's house lures us into thinking it is very real and that that could happen to us in the audience that is

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