A Brecht's House

This week (14th - 18th May) again was a very bitty week, with Thursday and Friday off we only have had 3 lessons this week and we are a member of the ensemble down with Georgia in the UK rather than me this week so it has been slightly more difficult this week.

Tuesday was a theory lesson in which we covered many things. Firstly we look at the differences between dramatic theatre (things such as panto and many modern western theatre pieces as well as movies following close to this too). So we were given a table which compares it next to Epic Theatre (or Episodic Theatre as Spencer said). Here is that table for those who want to reference to it:

Dramatic Theatre	Epic Theatre
Plot	Narrative
Implicates the spectator in a stage situation	Turns the spectator into an observer but
Wears down	arouses his capacity for action
Provides him with sensations	Forces him to take decisions
Experience	Picture of the world
The spectator is involved in something	He is made to face something
Suggestion	Argument
Instinctive feelings are preserved	Brought to the point of recognition
The spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience	The spectator stands outside, studies
The human being is taken for granted	The human being is the object of inquiry
He is unalterable	He is alterable and able to alter
Eyes on the finish	Eyes on the course
One scene makes another	Each scene for itself
Linear development	In curves
Evolutionary determinism	Jumps
Man as a fixed point	Man as a process
Thought determines being	Social being determines thought
Feeling	Reason

The thing that stuck me is the utter difference in it all, where Epic theatre throws away the character and focus' more upon what and how society will see this piece and making an audience think instead of feel (Head over Heart), finishes each scene in a cliff hanger (as if an series of Episodes), and right at the beginning of each scene tells you what is going to happen whereas we have dramatic theatre which wants people to be emotionally attached to the piece, and maybe the audience is involved in the piece somewhat and that man in the piece is unalterable. What is in the script is what you play. So this is something completely different to what I have ever seen done. We also learnt about Aristotle's 3 Unities which are: The unity of action, The Unity of Place and The Unity of time. The Unity of Action says that a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few sub-plots. The Unity of Place says thata play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place. Finally The Unity of Time says that the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours (plot wise of the script). Which is something which many pieces that use Dramatic Theatre follow, whereas Brecht shatters this concept and chooses to ignore it. Dramatic theatre also sees the person as unalterable as if he is part of society and he is playing the role society gives to him. Whereas Epic Theatre sees it as society creates the people and ideas similar to Marxism which is quoted as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.”

One of the masks (Nora is now the Joker apparently?!)

Wednesday, we talked about the Talent show for some 30 minutes which seems to be full steam ahead and in the last 1hr and a half of the lesson we were told to try and perform Doll's House in a Brecht style. In a nut shell we failed pretty badly, we had the theory and what we wanted to do with the scene but we didn't seem to have the means of performing it. We had ideas for masks, narrator, scene titles, music, Gestus, attitude, political message and how the scene would pan out but we some how were unable to act it out and when we did it didn't seem right and seemed more like A Doll's House placed in a west-end show, as well as a Commedia piece.But I don't get why we struggled so much, but we'll see what happens next lesson I guess.

That's it for this 3 hour Theatre week. I want to get this Brecht's House nailed. Maybe with the full ensemble we can get it better!

Richard #1