Epic Theatre and Brechtian Influences in Modern Drama
Epic theatre, influenced by Bertolt Brecht, challenges traditional Aristotelian and Hegelian dramatic structures by emphasizing critical engagement and distancing strategies. It uses historical narratives and didactic elements to provoke social consciousness and active spectator participation, contrasting with traditional dramatic theatre. This form of theatre aims to prompt reflection on contemporary issues through innovative storytelling techniques.
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Chips with Everything (1962) Arnold Wesker Brechtian influences
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) John Willett (ed. and tr.) Brecht on Theatre. 5th ed. Reading: Methuen, 1996. Select Plays: Baal (1923) The Threepenny Opera (1928) Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930) Mother Courage and Her Children (1941) The Life of Galileo; The Good Woman of Setzuan (1943) The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1947) The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948)
A non-Aristotelian dramaturgy 1. Critiquing identification Opposing mimesis and catharsis Epic theatre is non-aristotelian 2. Against the hegelian formula Hegel s Aesthetics (lectures given 1818-1829) Neo-classical formula: mimetic illusion and cathartic identification
What is epic theatre? Towards the epic form e.g Lehrst cke (didactic plays) He who says Yes / He who says No: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEdJL_vL2Ew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om66ElJ9ez8 Epic Theatre derives from Greek. Epos, story. A form of theatre which self consciously narrates. Epic Theatre = Historicised theatre, theatre about the present, but not set in the present. (Distanciation)
Dramatic theatre vs. epic theatre. DRAMATIC THEATRE EPIC THEATRE Plot narrative turns the spectator into an observer, but arouses his capacity for action forces him to take decisions picture of the world he is made to face something argument are brought to the point of the recognition spectator stands outside, studies Implicates the spectator in a stage situation Wears down his capacity for action provides him with sensations experience the spectator is involved in something suggestion instinctive feelings are preserved spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience the human being is taken for granted the human being is the object of the inquiry he is alterable and able to alter eyes on the course each scene for itself montage in curves jumps man as a process social being determines thought reason he is unalterable eyes on the finish one scene makes another growth linear development evolutionary determinism man as a fixed point thought determines being feeling Brecht on Theatre. The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre .
BUT The table does not show absolute antitheses but mere shifts in accent so that we may choose whether to stress the element of emotional suggestion or that of plain rational argument .
The epic spectator The dramatic theater's spectator says: Yes, I have felt like that too-- Just like me--It's only natural-- It'll never change- -The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are inescapable--That's great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world--I weep when they weep, I laugh when they laugh. The epic theater's spectator says: I'd never have thought it -- That's not the way -- That's extraordinary, hardly believable -- It's got to stop -- The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are unnecessary -- That's great art; nothing obvious in it -- I laugh when they weep, I weep when they laugh.
Alienation? Distanciation? Defamiliarisation? Verfremdungseffekt = V-Effekt Verfremdung estranges an incident or character simply by taking from the incident or character what is self-evident, familiar, obvious in order to produce wonder and curiosity . Estrangement effect = estrangement/alienation effect: distancing the viewer from the action; encouraging rational thought and analysis; reducing emotional catharsis. In epic theatre, the dramatic action is structured on the basis of montage rather than straightforward linear flow, and is interrupted by direct address to the audience in songs, choruses and projections. E.g. films that show a montage of events from all over the world . The V-Effekt was achieved in the German epic theatre not only by the actor but also by the music (choruses, songs) and the setting (placards, film, etc). It was principally designed to historicize the incidents portrayed.
Arnold Wesker (1932-2016) Visions don t work ? The role of Wesker s theatre and Centre 42 in 1960s British culture. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2016.1149769 Conscripted in the RAF in 1950. (Chips with Everything) Turned to theatre for 2 reasons: the Observer play competition, for which he wrote The Kitchen, John Osborne s play Look Back in Anger, in which he just recognized that things could be done in the theatre, and immediately went home and wrote Chicken Soup . (Mini Autobiography, 240)
Early career The Kitchen (1957; perf. 1959) Chicken Soup with Barley (1958; perf. 1958) Roots (1959; perf. 1959) I m Talking about Jerusalem (1960; perf. 1960) Chips with Everything (1960; perf. 1962) Their Very Own and Golden City (1961-64; world premiere 1965/UK prod. 1966) The Four Seasons (1964; world premiere 1964/UK prod. 1965) The Friends (1970, Roundhouse)
1960 Oxford address: The Modern Playwright or O, Mother, is it worth it? Centre 42 (C42) project (1960-70): to create a popular audience and centre for the arts. The Roundhouse: C42 s spatial and emblematic home after a series of regional festivals in 1962.
C42 and the Roundhouse art is a common heritage, not the habit of a few ( Vision! Vision! Mr Woodcock - New Statesman, 30 July 1960). Socialism is not merely an economic organisation of society but a way of living based on the assumption that life is rich, rewarding and that human beings deserve it (Fears of Fragmentation, 17). Doris Lessing, John McGrath, Shelagh Delaney, Clive Barker, Lindsay Anderson, Jennie Lee, etc.
Chips with Everything (1962) You re not at home (14). stylised naturalism Harold Dobson: the first anti-Establishment play of which the Establishment has cause to be afraid (Sunday Times, 29 April 1962). Purpose of the play is to prove that the body politic needs purging. We are studying a disease; and what matters is not so much the pain it inflicts as the extent to which it is curable (Kenneth Tynan, Observer, 6 May 1962).
Synopsis 18 scenes 8 weeks of square-bashing Structure. The theatre is a place where one wants to see things happening (Wesker). a series of sketches, snapshots of relevant parts of their training two interactive plots revolution can only be effected by the ruled and never by the ruling class The play warns, through Pip s example, how rebellions were accommodated and defused (Wesker)
Why Chips? Declaration, a collection of essays (1957) Lindsay Anderson's `Get Out And Push : Let's face it; coming back to Britain is always something of an ordeal. It ought not to be, but it is. And you don't have to be a snob to feel it. It isn't just the food, the sauce bottles on the cafe tables, and the chips with everything. It isn't just saying goodbye to wine, goodbye to sunshine. After all, there are things that matter even more than these; and returning to Britain from the continent, today in 1957, we feel these strongly too - a certain, civilised (as opposed to cultured) quality in everyday life: a certain humour: an atmosphere of tolerance, decency and relaxation. A solidity, even a warmth. We have come home. But the price we pay is high
Images of working class acceptance of any thing that s dished up not only fatty food but fatty ideas. Pip. And then I saw the menu, stained with tea and beautifully written by a foreign hand, and on top it said..."Chips with everything". Chips with every damn thing. You breed babies and you eat chips with everything. Personally I have a weakness for fried chips as I have for Barbara Streisand, but I also eat Pommes Lyonnaise and listen to Mozart.
A working-class dramatist writing on the class conflict? Not even Chips With Everything is about the class conflict . A conflict of classes occurs but that s not the play s theme. Chips is preoccupied with what many of my plays are preoccupied with: knowledge versus ignorance, caring versus indifference, tolerance versus bigotry. Ronald Hayman: Because of their clear-cut division of personnel into officers and men and their rigid hierarchy which subdivides both categories into ranks, the armed services have often been used before as an image of society but Chips embodies a more serious, powerful and systematic attack on the class system .
Suggested plays for further reading The Kitchen (1957) Their Very Own and Golden City (1965) The Journalists (1972) In his 1980s Woman plays: Four Portraits of Mothers; Annie Wobbler; Whatever Happened to Betty Lemon Badenheim 1939 (1987) Groupie (2001)
