Research Proposal

Introduction/Background

"Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it."
Bertolt Brecht. Bertolt Brecht is one of the most influential theatre
practitioners of the last century. He developed Epic Theatre as a socially and
politically engaged theatre which concentrates on mans potentials for
growth and his capacity to effect social change. It was conceived in direct
contrast to the conventional realistic theatre as it was meant to appeal to the
audiences reason not feelings, and evoke critical attitudes not simple
empathy. Brechts despised the conventional audience looking for emotional
thrills and identifying itself with helpless heroes and heroines on the stage.
He felt that such an audience lost its ability to think or judge and merely
drifted in pity and empathy. The audience saw man as a known entity, his
fate settled and finished. Their emotions were stirred, then exhausted, and at
the end they were reconciled to their imperfect world. But Brecht wanted to
awaken his audience, to make them think, compare, questions, and see the
implications of the play for their own world instead of losing themselves in
the psychological problems of the leisured class which were usually the
themes of the most realistic plays. To this end, Brecht used various
techniques and developed his theory of the Alienation Effect (also called V-
effects) and introduced theatrical devices that were designed to challenge
the audiences unthinking emotional involvement with productions. What he
developed was a non-Aristotelian drama that was anti-theatre, anti-illusive
an anti-realistic.

His technique of alienation includes elimination of most conventional stage

props, use of charts, slides, and messages flashed on screens, direct
involvement of the audience through characters who step out of their roles
to function as commentators, and many carefully planned incongruities.
Finally, Brecht requires that actors work in a new way: they must not identify
with the dramatic characters but, on the contrary, must always demonstrate
that they are playing a role.

The epic style is a deliberate attempt to break with traditions, to move away
from the struggles of a single individual and consider instead the dynamics
of social change. It is called epic in order to indicate its broad sweep and
mixture of narrative and dramatic. The epic theatre revolts against the
traditions of Ibsenian realism concerned with the personal problems of a man
and his wife in a home. Epic drama calls for a larger arena of actions, which
shows the dynamics of social forces at work.

Heidi M. Silcox in his essayWhat's Wrong with Alienation? says that though
Brechts project was laudable, it seems to have disaffected theatergoers. He
is of the view that such effects can alienate some members of the audience
not only from the specific scenes, but from the entire play as well. It has also
been said that he misunderstood the nature of empathic emotion and
because of this he failed to realize that empathy can more effectively
achieve the didactic goals that he sets for the audience of his plays. This
kind of criticism was anticipated by Brecht, as in 1927 when epic theatre was
still in its initial stage of development he wrote,

The essential point of the epic theatre is perhaps that it appeals less to the
feelings than to the spectators reason. Instead of sharing an experience the
spectator must come to grip with thinking. At the same time, it would be
quite wrong to try and deny emotions to this kind of theatre.

Objectives

1) To critically evaluate the use of V-effect in Brechts epic theatre to get

rational response of the audience.
2) To compare and contrast two type of spectatorship empathetic verses
critically detached.
3) To analyze the effectiveness of epic theatre as a powerful means of
bringing social change.

Research Problem

Brechts use of alienation devices in his epic theatre to keep the audiences
emotionally detached from the actions of the characters ran the risk of
getting a hostile response from them not just towards a specific scene but
the entire production as well.

Methodology

In order to explore the relationship between V-effects and expected

spectators /readers response in Brechts epic theatre, qualitative approach
will be used. The research will be based on both primary as well as
secondary sources. As a primary source, translations of two plays of Brecht
will be analyzed by the researcher with close focus on alienation devices and
their effects. The research will also include a survey using questionnaires to
record the spectators response to alienation devices after watching a
Brechtian play on video. Secondary sources will include Brechts own
reflection and theory of epic theatre as well as other writers critique of his
theory and practice to investigate the substantiality of the hypothesis.

Bibliography (maximum 2)

1) Willett, John. The theatre of Bertolt Brech. London: Eyre Methuen,1959, 1967,1977.
2) Silcox, Heidi M. "What's Wrong with Alienation?." Philosophy and Literature34.1 (2010): 131-
144.