Acting styles-Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was born in Germany during the year 1898. He was a medic during the first world war but was appalled by the horrific scenes he faced this lead to him to Berlin where he pursued a career in theatre. Brecht fled Germany in 1933 as the Nazis came to power and he lost his citizenship due to him being a communist.
In 1941 Brecht became a resident of the USA but was called before the Un-American Activities Committee. Although this hardly worked out for Brecht as the committee was very anti-communist so he returned to Europe in 1947 and formed the Berliner Ensemble. The fact that Brecht had lived through two world wars meant that he had a strong political voice. His voice was used mostly in the theatre where some of his ideas changed theatre forever.


When naturalistic theatre was at its great height and performances reflected on what was going on in the world around everyone Brecht made the famous statement "hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom" showing how he wanted to engage the audience.
Brecht was against cathartic theatre which meant if the audience were believing the action on stage and became emotionally engaged they'd lose the ability to think and judge, this point I strongly agree and disagree with as it makes sense that if you are emotionally attached to a character you wouldn't judge them if they done something wrong or think about a different side to them.
The way his performances were done were quite weird to a modern day audience member, he wanted the audience to know they were watching a performance of real life not from real life itself. He done this mostly by using many techniques and making sure the audience didn't get emotionally attached. He called this Epic Theatre.


Verfremdungseffekt also known as the alienation effect,is what Brecht used a lot in his performances. It's where you're feeling engaged and excited but distant from the characters. This technique always involves breaking the fourth wall, other techniques he'd use to do this are:
-Narration
-Coming out of role
-Speaking stage directions
-Placards
-Directly addressing the audience
-Minimal props/set/costume
-Symbolic props and lighting