Bertolt Brecht and Epic Theatre

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Bertolt Brecht attempted to fight what he saw as a corrupt capitalist society with his best weapon: Theatre. By implementing a style of theatre that invoked audience engagement in a novel way, he hoped to call attention to the crookedness of German society and ignite a revolution. He called his technique Epic Theatre, which needed the participation and cooperation of both spectator and performer to be effective. Epic Theatre is structured in a certain way so that the audience may apply critique to the world around them after leaving the performance.
Brecht began his career with small steps, writing theatre criticism, short stories and directing here and there. Once he started writing plays his career took off;, his works gaining a lot of popularity across Germany. He moved to Berlin after this and found more success there, creating Man is Man, his first officially recognized epic drama and the famous Lehrstucke, a series of plays intended to teach. The Lehrstucke required no audience, teaching the performer as well. They often used repetitive choruses and were intended to demonstrate an acceptance of poverty. His productive days in the capital city were short lived however because in 1933 Hitler rose to the position of chancellor. The Nazi party strictly controlled what kinds of media were and were not allowed, many of the creators of the disallowed media being persecuted as a result. Many authors in particular sought to avoid capture and so self-exiled in order to protect themselves and their own creative freedom. Brecht was one of those, leaving Germany for Denmark. He moved from place to place across the world but did not let this halt his writing career. He continued to work every place he went and eventually in 1948 he was a...

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...ion to this the actors were fed their lines just before walking out onto the stage and performing them. With Brecht’s style of short lines and many characters sharing the spotlight, going without a script was practical. It also allowed the distance to between actor and role that was necessary, disallowing the actor to spend time getting to know their character and developing their emotions. Going script-less ended up aiding both actor and audience in the Epic Theatre experience.
Epic Theatre was a novel concept and ambitious in nature. It aimed to provoke thought, opinion, judgment, deliberation and discussion. An audience equipped with a new perspective on the world around them, eyes opened to the injustice of the governmental system, is then motivated to push for change. Brecht used his theatre to perpetuate change and dismantle a wicked capitalist German society.

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