Yolo and Swag are Problems

Brecht - Mini Research Project

Chris Choi

Notes

Historical Background:

Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898, February. He was raised in a normal family and he wanted to have a normal structure of education. He was a really weak person when he was young; however, he grew up to be a really confident person who had good leadership among other people. After he came back from army, he went to Berlin to do a show case. At that time, he was chosen by Max Reinhardt to join Deutsches Theater. He start working hard and understand what he needed to do. After he finished his experience in the theater, he wanted to start making theories and actually make novels. Famous novels are Threepenny Novel, and Stories of Mr. Keuner. His theory is mainly “Alienation and Gestus”
Political aspects:

Bertolt Brecht stated that:
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
According to what he mentioned in this quotation, he was actually reluctant towards politics, and his shows were against the society and government. He didn’t really like society.

Epic Theatre:

Bertolt Brecht created a Epic Theatre to show audiences that are based on catharsis and concepts of conflicts. He always wanted to criticize the ideology of government. It aims to awaken the audience from the entertainment of theatre, to critically analyze the themes presented.

Alienation/Gestus:

It is a theatrical technique that helps define the emotion within a character and the context they are in. It is the combination of a gesture and a social meaning in one movement, stance or vocal display. It can be alienating and jar the audience, as it is an unusual and non realistic way of forcing them to see the bigger picture of a situation. It is sometimes referred to as the 'social gestures ', as it is an action that allows the audience to understand something specific about the social circumstances presented on stage. In addition, alienation means that alienation effect is a theory that was created by Bertolt Brecht. Brecht discovered ways of discovering a new set of devices. For examples, there were telling of parable, to confound an audience’s comfortable identification with characters and story as encouraged by conventional realism or naturalism.

Use of narration:
Not only was Brecht a writer, director and producer, but he was also a great poet. He wrote many songs for his productions, mostly in collaboration with Kurt Weill. The purpose of song in his plays is not to heighten the emotion of the scenes but as a means to commentate or narrate what is going on. It is also a form of alienating the audience. He used narration to clarify his idea and his purpose to give audience. Overall, his main aim is to make the audience fully understand the detail of lines and everything.

Production elements: The threepenny opera, life of Galileo, Baal, happy end, and the decision.

Quotes:
Two of Berthold Brecht’s most famous quotes are “People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.” and “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.”

Bertolt Brecht Essay

Brecht was born into a world of conflict and contradictions, on 4th August 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria. He worked in an army hospital after studying medicine at Munich University from 1917 - 1921. This extreme work exposed him to the sight of wounded soldiers and all his life he was said to have never gotten over the smell of death. Also, this experience in the army influenced his ideology of theater in the future. Brecht was a famous German playwright and poet. Brecht started to write political poetry and plays about social issues from an early age. He was branded a troublemaker at school and was expelled for writing anti- war poems. His rebellious attitude in school continued to influence his work in theater. He later developed an ‘ anti-war’ sentiment in response to the horrors he saw. He had an ‘anti-bourgeois’ attitude that reflected his anger at the way society had experienced the war. He had an interest in Marxism as a way forward for the stability of Germany. Soon after, he developed an interest in the movement in art and literature known as ‘Expressionism”. Brecht had a huge reluctant attitude toward society. As his background shows, he wrote many anti-war poems and stories to express his feeling toward society. Bertolt Brecht quoted that “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”1According to his quotation, it suggests that he believed that society was corrupted and full of wickedness. His political view was reflected on ‘Epic Theater’. Epic Theater is type of theater that was mainly based on Brecht’s ideology and theories. In Brecht’s theories, Epic Theatre were directed against the illusion created by traditional theatre in which the audience witnessed a slice of life. This simply means that he wanted audience to believe the story and characters in the play were real. Instead he encouraged spectators to watch events on stage dispassionately and to reach their own conclusions. To prevent specters from becoming emotionally involved, Brecht used a variety of Verfremdungseffekt (Alienation or estrangement affect). This was achieved through such devices as; unfamiliar settings interrupting the action with song and announcing the contents of each scene through posters. Therefore, his main idea of creating Epic theater is to suggest ‘naturalistic ‘ and tried to recreate real life on stage to make audience to feel sympathy toward characters. Also, he wanted actors to ‘demonstrate’ rather than ‘become’ a role. He saw them as storytellers, who could pay many parts and have a view of the characters they were playing. He saw character being determined by circumstances.

The diagram that shows difference between dramatic theater and epic theatre2

Gestus is simply a theatrical technique that helps define the emotion within a character and the context they are in. It is the mixture of a gesture and a social meaning into one movement, stance or vocal display. It allows the audience to understand something specific about the social circumstances presented onstage. In addition, alienation is something that is a magic ingredient of Bertolt Brecht’s show. He wanted the show to be clearly identified with characters and story should be encouraged by conventional realism or naturalism.

In his Epic Theater, He used many different techniques to attract audiences attentions. First, he would start the line ‘Once upon a time..’. This means that he wanted the show to be fairy-tale style. In addition, he also used a fable, a parable, a well known story. The reason why he used a famous story is that he aims to awaken the audience from the entertainment of theatre, to critically analyze the themes presented. Secondly, he used narrator to present the variety of opinions and standpoints of each collective unit within the group. He also used narration to clear his idea throughout the show. Overall, his main aim is to make audience fully understand about the show and simply observe what characters lines. From the book, “Bertolt Brecht is still alive”, his quotation has shown that “Narration is something that brings theater to another world and it is something that explains the director’s thoughts clearly.”3 This quotation indicates that Bertolt Brecht widely used his narration to express his thoughts and give a clear idea to audience.

There are two famous quotation from Bertolt Brecht and these quotations are still well known among drama students and actors. First quotation is “Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.”4 This mainly means that trying is worth more than being afraid. This means that if you try to do creative things, then you should go for it no matter what. This quotation is simply based on his childhood when he was not supportive or interested in how society was and had reluctant ideology toward society. He tried to create his own theory in order to make reasonable for himself. The second quotation is “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” This is the most favorite quote of Bertolt Brecht. This suggests that if you gain something new then you will lose something. This quotation inspired many other actors to improve on their idea.
Quotation: “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are”5

Bibliography (APA format)

Brechtian Theatre. (n.d.). Brechtian Theatre. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.slideshare.net/ghalcrow/brechtian-theatre

(n.d.).Goodreads. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/541442-the-worst-illiterate-is-the-political-illiterate-he-doesn-t-hear

Tan, M. (n.d.). Quotation from Bertolt Brecht . BrainyQuote. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/bertoltbre385239.html

Kusel, S. (n.d.). Bertolt Brecht > Quotes. Bertolt Brecht Quotes (Author of Mother Courage and Her Children). Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/26853.Bertolt_Brecht

Tom, C. (n.d.). Beautiful Trouble.Beautiful Trouble. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/alienation-effect/

Brecht 's Concept of Gestus and it 's Relationship to Charlie Chaplin. (n.d.). Allvoices. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6091515-brechts-concept-of-gestus-and-its-relationship-to-charlie-chaplin

Brecht, B., & Wintzen, R. (1967). Bertolt Brecht, (Éd. rev. ed.). Paris: P. Seghers.

Bibliography: (APA format) Brechtian Theatre. (n.d.). Brechtian Theatre. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.slideshare.net/ghalcrow/brechtian-theatre (n.d.).Goodreads. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/541442-the-worst-illiterate-is-the-political-illiterate-he-doesn-t-hear Tan, M. (n.d.). Quotation from Bertolt Brecht . BrainyQuote. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/bertoltbre385239.html Kusel, S. (n.d.). Bertolt Brecht > Quotes. Bertolt Brecht Quotes (Author of Mother Courage and Her Children). Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/26853.Bertolt_Brecht Tom, C. (n.d.). Beautiful Trouble.Beautiful Trouble. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/alienation-effect/ Brecht 's Concept of Gestus and it 's Relationship to Charlie Chaplin. (n.d.). Allvoices. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6091515-brechts-concept-of-gestus-and-its-relationship-to-charlie-chaplin Brecht, B., & Wintzen, R. (1967). Bertolt Brecht, (Éd. rev. ed.). Paris: P. Seghers.