Quick questions on Brecht and epic theatre: HSC Drama elective

Bertolt Brecht (1898 to 1956). German playwright, director and theorist. Born Augsburg, Bavaria. Active in Weimar Berlin theatre from 1922.

Brecht's epic theatre develops in Weimar Germany (1918 to 1933), a period of intense political and artistic experiment. The Weimar Republic was unstable: the 1923 hyperinflation, the 1929 Wall Street Crash, mass unemployment, and the rise of the Nazi Party shaped the artistic climate. Berlin in the 1920s was a centre of Expressionist film, the Bauhaus, modern music (Weill, Eisler, Schoenberg), and politically engaged theatre (Erwin Piscator's documentary stagings).

Brecht distinguished epic theatre from dramatic theatre. The distinction (from "Notes to Mahagonny", 1930) lays out two ideal types:

The central technique. The German word combines "fremd" (strange) with the verb prefix "ver-" to produce "verfremden" (to make strange) and "verfremdung" (the making strange). English translations vary: "alienation effect", "estrangement effect", "distancing effect", "v-effect". The German is the standard reference.

The other central concept. A "gestus" is a physical and social attitude embodied in a moment of action. The English translation often given is "gist" or "gesture in the social sense". A gestus is not a private psychological tic but a public action that reveals the social relations between characters.

The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), 1928. Music by Kurt Weill. A radical reworking of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728). Set in a fictional Victorian London underworld. Macheath ("Mack the Knife") marries Polly Peachum; her father plots his arrest.

Brecht worked closely with composers (Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau), designers (Caspar Neher), and actors (Helene Weigel, his wife). The Berlin Ensemble (1949) was the laboratory in which the late Brecht plays were staged.

Brechtian epic theatre has been one of the most influential traditions in twentieth and twenty-first century theatre. Influence has shown up in:

Section II essays on Brecht typically ask candidates to analyse the conventions of epic theatre, discuss specific plays, or evaluate Brecht's contribution to political theatre. Strong essays cite Brechtian terminology precisely (verfremdung, gestus, epic theatre), name specific plays and scenes, and engage with the political aims, not only the formal techniques.

Plot. The audience is involved. The audience's reason is exhausted.

Music by Kurt Weill. A radical reworking of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728). Set in a fictional Victorian London underworld.

Set in the Thirty Years War (1618 to 1648). Anna Fierling (Mother Courage) trades from a cart, following the armies. She loses her three children (Eilif, Swiss Cheese, Kattrin) across the play.

Shen Teh, a prostitute in a fictional Chinese town, is rewarded by visiting gods for being a good person. She buys a tobacco shop. The pressures of business force her to invent a male cousin, Shui Ta, who is ruthless.

Galileo and his retraction before the Inquisition. The play examines the social responsibility of the scientist. Brecht revised the play substantially after Hiroshima.

A gangster parable of Hitler's rise. Set in 1930s Chicago vegetable trade. The play insists that Hitler's rise was resistible: nothing about it was inevitable.