Bertolt Brecht

Born 1898 and died in 1956

Brecht's attitude to theatre was to take nothing for granted he wanted the audeince to ask question and think about why are these things happening in his plays. He wanted people to examine life and society through his plays. 

Some of his most famous works are:

• Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night; 1918),
• Mann ist Mann (Man is Man; 1924-5)
• Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera; 1928)
• Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the Town of Mahagonny; 1928-9).

The plays are funny, in a rather bleak and cynical way, and present social and political questions.Technically, the plays are (for their time) innovative: the convention of the fourth wall is rejected, stories are improbable, settings exotic, songs serve as commentary on the action in the play.  

Verfremdungseffekt (V-effekt)

To discourage audience from identifying with character and so losing detachment, the action must continually be made strange, alien (Alienation Technique), remote, separate. The V-Effekt helpls to remind the audience that they are watching a play and that what they are watching is not real. The V-Effekt helps to make the audience conentrate less on the charcthers and the rest of the play and concenttrate more on the specfic mmnets in the play which Brecht has made so the audience can question it and work hard to figure out why it is happeing. 

Examples of Verfremdungseffeckt include explanatory captions or illustrations projected on a screen, actors stepping out of character to lecture, summarize, or sing songs and stage designs that do not represent anything and by exposing the lights and ropes, keep the audeince aware of being in a theatre whatching a play.An example of the V-Effeckt in Brecht's plays is in The Caucasian Chalk Cirlce  when Grusche ponders whether or not to take the abandoned baby her dilemma is voiced by the Chorus while she enacts a dumb show.

Daily Tasks

We carried out daily tasks in silence and with narrating. In the silence the daily task was questioned by the auedience. However with naration the audiecne did not question and dont have to work as hard when watching.

Moody Objects

  We walked around the room then got into groups. We created a object in the group and gave the object a mood.

Creating an object with a mood makes the people that look at the object question it and make them want to know know the reason behind the mood. The mood also creates a chance for the object to have a storyline.