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CHAPTER TWO
Brechtian Theatre
We need a theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights
and impulses possible within the particular historical field of
human relations in which the action takes place, but employs
and encourages those thoughts, and feelings which help
transform the field itself (Brecht Brecht on Theatre 190)
Brecht held that drama must be non-Aristotelian to deal effectively
with contemporary social problems. He refused to use the Aristotelian
devices traditionally associated with strong plotting - suspense, reversals
and revelations. These devices, according to Brecht, are actually obstacles to
thinking and judgement. Instead, he uses a variety of devices intended to
alienate the audience's emotion from the action of the play. He proclaims
that the audience is not in chains anymore but is free to think and make
decisions of its own. Accusing the traditional theatre of making the audience
thoughtless, he says:
Human beings go to the theatre in order to be swept away,
captivated, impressed, uplifted, horrified, moved, kept in
suspense, released, diverted, set free, set going, transplanted
from their own time, and supplied with illusions. All of this
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goes so much without saying that the art of the theatre is
candidly defined as having the power to release, sweep away,
uplift, etcetera. It is not an art at all unless it does so. ("On The
Experimental Theatre" 106)
Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz explain that the spectator must be
persuaded "to leave the theatre not emotionally drained but intellectually
stimulated and determined to bring about Marxist reforms"(77). Brecht's
concept of the epic theatre changes the relationship between what and how a
performance is watched, bringing new dimensions of audience. The audience
would have in mind that a theatre performance is being watched, rather than
allowing itself to suspension of disbelief. Russell E. Brown observes,
"Without his [Brecht's] doctrine of Epic Theatre, theatre in both East and
West would be hard to imagine today"(57).
"Epic" is an Aristotelian term for a long narrative in verse on a great
and serious subject related in an elevated grand style. Aristotle ranked the
"epic" second only to tragedy. But, the meaning of the Brechtian term "epic"
is "a sequence of incidents or events, narrated without artificial restrictions
as to time, place, or relevance to a formal plot"(Willett, The Theatre of
Bertolt Brecht 171). The "epic theatre" is called so because it resembles the
epic by its loosely constructed scenes and its tendency to deal with a society
not with a few individuals.
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The epic drama commonly has a series of loosely connected scenes
than a tightly organized plot with a climax. The setting is not realistic but it
suggests the locale and very often they are kept in full view of the audience.
The epic drama makes things look strange to the audience so that the
audience will watch the play sharply and will think and interpret it.
Epic theatre, as Brecht insisted, is aimed at the reason, not the feeling.
He explains:
The epic theatre is chiefly interested in the attitudes which
people adopt towards one another, wherever they are sociohistorically significant (typical). It works out scenes where
people adopt attitudes of such a sort that the social laws under
which they are acting spring into sight. For that we need to
find workable definitions: that is to say, such definitions of the
relevant processes as can be used in order to intervene in the
processes themselves. The concern of the epic theatre is thus
eminently practical. Human behavior is shown as alterable; man
himself as dependent on certain political and economic factors
and at the same time as capable of altering them. (Brecht on
Theatre 86)
Brecht's "epic theatre" was designed to stimulate the audience to
remain alert by reminding them that they are watching a play. He wanted to
keep his audience to keep some distance from the events depicted onstage.
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He asserted that the "epic theatre turns the spectator into an observer, but
arouses his capacity for action, forces him to take decisions [...
I
The
spectator stands outside, studies" (Brecht on Theatre 37). The epic theatre
Brecht envisioned was to rest on three pillars: "new dramaturgical constructs
embracing different raw materials; a new style of production that would deemphasize emotion; and a new spectator who would coolly and scientifically
appreciate this new theater concept" (Fuegi 18).
Brecht aims at a narrative form of drama which means the use of
loosely - connected episodes as distinguished from the conventional form of
plot - construction found in a "well-made play". Each episode in his plays is
designed to be almost a play within a play. The episodes are to be knotted in
such a manner so as to be clearly observed and grasped by the audience. In
accordance with the principles of epic theatre, MCC, for example, consists
of a number of episodes, each presented in a separate scene. There are
twelve scenes each separated from the preceding and the succeeding scenes
by a long interval of time, so that each scene may be regarded as a play
within a play. One does not find the same continuity as found in the classical
plays or in the modern "well-made" plays. Obviously, the reason why Brecht
chooses to break his play into scenes is to provoke an attitude of debate. He
wants the stage of a theatre to function as a tribunal. He does not divide his
play into five or three acts as in a traditional play.
While writing his "mature plays", Brecht was developing a new
concept of theatre, which he called "dialektisches theatre", or "dialectical
theatre". Apart from Piscator, yet another powerful impact on Brecht came
from the Japanese Noh plays and the performance of the Chinese actor Me]
Lan Fang and Chinese acting. After being impressed by these highly stylized
conventions, Brecht started writing his mature plays. Brecht wants the
theatre to make use of "dialectical materialism":
In order to unearth society's laws of motion this method treats
social situations as processes, and traces out all their
inconsistencies. It regards nothing as existing except in so far as
it changes, in other words is in disharmony with itself. This also
goes for those human feelings, opinions and attitudes through
which at any time the form of men's life together finds its
expression. (Chatterji XXXI)
Applying dialectics to drama, Brecht wants to emphasize the
"contradictions" in every sphere of life-the individual, family and society.
He believes that "out of this conflict new forces would be released and a new
synthesis emerge" (Chatterji XXXI). "Dialectical theatre" simply means that
the presentation of opposing forces at work in every sphere of human life.
This dialectical approach to theatre involves the portrayal of characters in
dialectical terms as living contradictions or as split personalities. The
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portrayal of such characters, in Brecht's view, could make alienation more
effective, enabling the viewer to analyze the given situation.
The dialectical materialism encourages people to make a concrete
analysis of every given situation, of the special features existing in their
country and the world at any given time. Brecht repeatedly stresses the
importance of the umbilical chord between his aesthetic theory and the
concept of dialectical materialism. The episodic narration is set out carefully
as a "chain of contradictions". By enhancing the awareness of opposites,
Brecht's dialectical method encourages the audience to practise "complex
seeing". The theme of a play, it's setting, it's dialogues, and the
juxtaposition of scenes and songs, are determined by this dialectical vision.
The audience is expected to encounter "the chain of contradictions" in terms
of which the play unfolds and in the end, to form his verdict.
The dialectical pattern is clearly obvious in MCC. In Scene Three, the
actions of Mother Courage are such as to evoke sympathy from the audience.
Her love and concern for her dumb daughter Kaatrin and her decision to sell
her wagon and sacrifice her whole life for the sake of her son arouses
empathy. When she loses her son because of her delay, she evokes
sympathy. The sympathy generated by Mother Courage in this scene is
withdrawn by the alienation technique of the fourth scene. In Scene Four
there is hardly any plot development. It underlines a major political idea.
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Then the plot moves forward rapidly in the Fifth and Sixth Scenes and
this flow is interrupted by the Seventh Scene. In Scene Six, when Mother
Courage loses her sons in the war, She hates war and says: "I'll not see
Swiss Cheese again, and where my Eilif is the Good God knows. Curse the
war!"(55). Scene Seven is a deliberate attempt to interrupt the action to
expose Mother Courage's contradictory attitudes towards war. Mother
Courage, wearing a necklace of silver coins, sings a song praising war:
War is a business proposition:
Not with cream-cheese but steel and lead.
(55)
In her song, she expresses both the positive and the negative aspects
of war. The positive aspects are represented by the business profits and the
negative aspects are represented by the premature deaths of innocent
civilians as well as soldiers. Thus, the audience can see the dialectical
attitude of Mother Courage towards war. In the very opening scene itself
one can observe the contradiction in the character of Mother Courage from
the song which she sings.
First you must give them beer to drink.
Then they can face what is to followBut let 'em swim before they sink! (4)
This one line alone contains the contradiction between Mother
Courage's anxiety to sell her liquor and her awareness that the soldiers who
buy the drinks from her would die soon in the course of the war. If there
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were no war, Mother Courage and her children would starve to death. At the
same time she is aware of the destruction and the bloodshed which the war
would cause. She makes no secret of her hatred of the war even when she
regrets the return of peace.
In LG, Brecht makes the plot itself dialectical. In this play, Galileo's
good scientific spirit is reconciled by his bad actions. Here, Brecht
introduces two opposing forces at work- Galileo's good scientific knowledge
and his bad actions due to his submission to fear. He favours the kind of
drama that converts a spectator into an observer and stimulates his ability to
react. He dissuades the emotional identification between the spectator and
the stage. For this reason, Brecht rejects the Aristotelian precepts in his epic
theatre. The principle of three unities insists that a play should have no
subplot; should not cover more than twenty-four hours and should not have
more than one locale. But, Brecht sets the theory of his epic drama as
episodic narrative, spread over a long period of time, which is a violation of
the three unities. Mother Courage herself travels with her family and wagon
from place to place, and even from country to country. Different things
happen to her at different times and at different places.
The purpose of the episodic narrative is to reveal the conditions in
which people live. Brecht introduces a form of drama, in which "the play
presents itself as discontinuous, open-ended, internally contradictory,
encouraging in the audience a 'complex seeing" (Eagleton 65). He attempts
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to oppose the Aristotelian theory and practice by his non-Aristotelian epic
dramaturgy. The gist of Aristotelian views of drama in his Poetics is that a
tragedy must evoke the twin emotions- pity and fear in the minds of the
spectators resulting in the achievement of catharsis or cleansing of emotions.
For instance, the audience is moved while watching the play Oedipus Rex
or Prometheus Bound. Brecht is bitterly critical of a theatre in which the
spectators lose themselves and accepting the end that is not theirs. Epic
theatre is opposed to cathartic emotional release. It makes man an object of
enquiry and inculcates in him a questioning mentality. Brecht, in fact, wants
such a theatre, which would convert the spectator a rebel by sowing within
him the seeds of revolutionary changes that would sprout up outside the
theatre.
John Elsom differentiates the Aristotelian theatre from a Brechtian
theatre:
In Aristotelian theatre, Brecht argued the dramatic emphasis is
upon what is going to happen. In 'epic theatre' the stress is
upon why the event has happened, what caused it and how it
can be prevented from happening again. (118)
To attain this end, Brecht uses the concept of
"verfremdung" mainly
under the influence of the Russian formalist theory of "defamiliarization".
Willett has translated "verfremdung" as "alienation". Raymond Williams has
translated it as "distancing" and also as "estrangement" or "making strange".
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Brecht uses the term "alienation" to replace the Aristotelian term "emotional
identification". So he comes out with a radical change in the concept of
theatre by using the key term "alienation".
"Alienation" is not mere breaking of illusion or making the audience
hostile to the play. In Introduction to Man alone: Alienation in Modern
Society, Brie Josephson and Mary Josephson define alienation as "an
individual feeling or a state of dissociation of self, from others and from
world at large [ ... ] "(13). It is a matter of detachment making familiar
objects unfamiliar. Brecht explains, "alienation effect consists in turning the
object of which one is to be made aware [ ... ] from something ordinary,
familiar, immediately accessible, into something peculiar, striking and
unexpected"(Brecht on Theatre 143). The value of this concept lies in the
fact that it "offers a new way of judging and exploiting those means of
achieving critical detachment which he had hitherto called 'epic' " (Willett
The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht 177). Basically, alienation is a method to
control audience's response so that they do not lose themselves in the
presentation on the stage and to convert them into critical observers.
According to The New Oxford Dictionary of English, alienation is:
"the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to
which one should belong or in which one should be involved [...]"(43). It
also defines alienation effect as " an effect, sought by some dramatists,
whereby the audience remains objective and does not identify with the
Me
actors"(43). What happens on the stage is nothing but a drama. Characters
on the stage can take decisions easily. Brechtian alienation poses questions,
regarding the nature of the decision and the method of taking the decision.
An individual dramatist should not decide and tell the audience what
is good and what is bad. But, he should make the audience take such
decisions. A good dramatist should present a problem before the audience,
make them think about it and let them take decisions over the problem. In
the Short Organum, Brecht insists that the main business of the theatre is to
expose the story and its communication by means of "alienation". In Brecht
on Theatre, Brecht discusses:
die verfremdungs effect (the alienation effect) performs this
function. It provides a bond of alienation between performer
and audience. It's purpose is to [ ... ] alienate the social gest
underlying every incident the mimetic and gestural expression
of the social relationships prevailing between people. (36)
"Distancing" does not mean that the audience should be detached
from their feelings; the real intention is rather to make them feel different
emotions from the feelings expressed and experienced by the characters on
the stage. If Mother Courage in MCC expresses her sufferings and
misfortunes, the audience is expected to experience anger at the social
causes of the sadness of Mother Courage. Complete identification with a
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character is stopped in a Brechtian Theatre where "sympathy is acceptable
[ ... ] but not empathy" (Eddershaw 14).
"Alienation" effect can be achieved through various devices.
"Hi storicizing" is an important device used by Brecht to achieve alienation
effect. He uses "historicizing" as a means to make the present condition look
peculiar and strange and thereby signaling the need for social change. He
wants to examine the contemporary German social system from the
viewpoint of the German social system prevailing in the period during the
Thirty years war. He also wants to show that the Germany of his own day
was hovering on the brink of an abyss which would bring about obliteration
to Germany. He exploits the history of the Thirty years war to suit his own
needs. The dramatis personae of his plays are not historical personalities but
fictitious persons. But in Marlowe and Shakespeare's historical plays, the
characters are historical personalities. Talking about the character Mother
Courage, Piscator says, "his [Brecht's] Mother Courage is a timeless figure.
I'd have tried to portray her more historically by showing the Thirty Years
War" (qtd.in .Willett, The Theatre of Erwin Piscator 188).
In fact, Brecht believes in historicizing a play. By setting the text in
the past, Brecht offers his audience the historical relativity of events and
helps the process of social transformation in his country and elsewhere.
Brecht makes use of the technique- historicizing, to make the present
conditions look strange and to suggest the need for social change.
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In CCC, two groups of Russians claim right for a valley. To solve the
dispute over the valley, a story is told. During a civil war, the governor's
baby is abandoned by its mother and brought up by the servant girl Grusha.
Grusha sacrifices much for the sake of the baby. In the climax, Grusha was
charged with having stolen the late governor's child. Azdak places the
governor's wife and Grusha in a chalk circle with the child. The verdict of
Azdak is that one who pulls the child out of the circle can own it. The
mother pulls violently and gets the child out of the circle. But Azdak prefers
to give the child to Grusha rather than pulling it out violently. The chorus
sings the moral:
But you, who have listened to the story of the chalk circle,
take note of the meaning of the ancient song:
that what there is shall belong to those who are good for it, thus
the children to the maternal, that they thrive;
The carriages to good drivers, that they are driven well,
And the valley to the waterers, that it shall bear fruit. (237)
This is reminiscence of the biblical parable- the story of Solomon.
King Solomon's verdict is that when there is one child and two mothers, let
the child be cut into two and given to both of them. One of them accepted
the verdict and the other pleaded not to cut the child and that woman was
given the child.
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Brecht has brilliantly exploited the parable to tell the strong message
that as "the children to the motherly", "the carts to the good drivers", "the
valley to the waterers", land must go to the hands of the tillers. Exploitation
of labour of the working class formed the backbone of the prosperity of the
capitalists. The workers had nothing but their hard labour to sell. The rich
were getting richer and the poor poorer. Brecht held the Marxist view and
questioned these disparities. Using a past story, he deals with the
contemporary social issues. The method of story telling and narrating the
past events helps keeping the distance between the actor's performance and
the audience and between the actor and his role. Brecht emphasized the view
that "narrating a story on the stage was really at the same time a
'dialecticizing' of the events"(Brecht on Theatre 282). Demetz argues that
the idea of narrating the past
disregards the psychology of the audience and the pragmatic
relationship of stage to spectator. Brecht cannot alter the fact
that his epic theatre creates the past event here and now. The
artful immediacy of presentation endangers the entire
technology of pastness. (4)
Brecht uses fable and history in his plays in order to achieve
"complex seeing" for generating the alienation effect. Complex seeing is
nothing but thinking above the flow of the play. In LG, he sets history to
work and treats it as a contemporary event. The volatile point in the history
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of Galileo is the intersection of science and religion. Science and religion are
two different entities and there is always a conflict between the two. The
history of Copernicus, Galileo and blood-donation, eye-donation that were
considered a blasphemy- these are instances of this conflict. Science is an
organized knowledge obtained through careful observation of facts whereas
religion is just a belief beyond human knowledge. Hence, naturally, the
conflict arises. Being a Marxist, Brecht believes that religion is the opium of
people and the root cause for all evils. He highlights the theme of the conflict
between the church and the scientist in LG.
Holding the Marxist view of history, Brecht felt that the spectators
would be stimulated to transform the contemporary society only through a
re-enactment of history on the stage. Several dramatists borrowed materials
from the English chronicles and history. Marlowe, Shakespeare and many
others have used history for their plays. When converted into dramatic
action, history enables the playwright to freely insert whatever he wants.
Shakespeare tampered with the chronology of the events whenever it served
dramatic purpose. He believed that history would provide valuable lessons
for the present and the future.
The play MCC clearly illustrates the use of historicising as a device to
achieve alienation. This play presents a broad historical sweep. It shows the
chaotic world that the thirty years war caused and the harmful effect it had
upon the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people who are in this
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play represented by Mother Courage. Brecht really wants to depict the
tremendous harm which a war causes to the common people and the
disruption which it brings about in the lives of the common people. He
chooses the Thirty Years war as only a symbol of war in general and Mother
Courage's plight as a symbol of the exploitation of the common s people by
the ruling elite. He believes that war is an unmitigated evil and he wants his
audience to draw appropriate lessons from the Thirty-Years War.
The Marxist view of history holds capitalism responsible for war and
also as the greatest benefactor of war. The dreadful facet of capitalism was
discernible in the First World War. This war, which was inspired solely for
profit motives, took a toll of nearly ten million innocent lives. Brecht's aim
is to tell his audience the evil consequences of war that always results from
the vested interests of the capitalists. Brecht wants to provoke his audience
to think about the ruthless exploitation of the proletariats. He thinks that, if
the spectators inculcate Marxist view of history in their minds, they would
realize the evils of capitalism and would revolt against the capitalist class
and would establish what had been widely described as the "dictatorship of
the proletariat" (Marx and Engels 18).
Episodic narrative is another technique adapted by Brecht so as to
alienate the audience. For instance, in MCC there are twelve scenes and
these scenes are separated from one another by a long interval of time. Each
scene contains a different episode. But the continuity of the play is
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maintained by the dominant theme-war and its evils. The long interval of
time between one scene and another is a violation of the unity of time.
Mother Courage, the protagonist and her family are travelling from place to
place-from Germany to Poland then to Moravia, Italy and Bavaria. The unity
of place is violated here. All these fragmentary scenes are not interwoven
into a single pattern. Each scene stands alone and by itself as a play within a
play. Thus, the unity of action, too is violated in this play. Thus, structurally,
Brecht introduces an episodic narrative play departing from the Aristotelian
conception of drama and many other familiar types of drama.
Brecht's epic theatre is realistic in a sense but he is not a realist as
Zola is. French writer Emile Zola insists that everything on the stage of a
theatre must seem real to make a play realistic. So, Zola's concept of realism
is to place real furniture and real beer on the stage instead of canvas and
empty glass. Eric Bentley explains that Zola's theatre is a "theatre of
illusion, phantasmagoria, and it might even be maintained-escape"(The
Brecht Commentaries 45). Whereas Brecht's epic theatre is artificial
because he uses slides, film projections, printed curtains in the place of real
buildings and real furniture on the stage.
Brecht's brilliant use of language is also very important. He does not
want a figurative language but a simple and restrained one. He avoids
theatrical language except in very special circumstances. The speech of
Arturo Ui in the play Ui is theatrical. In almost all his major plays, the
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language is very simple and direct. Moreover he uses the third Person, the
past tense, the art of pantomime and a refined language for alienation effects.
It is an actor's role if talked about in the third person and his actions talked
about in the past tense; automatically he gets alienated from his role and
renders his action not as self-expression but as history. In CCC, Brecht
alienates Grusha's actions using the above technique so that the audience
may not lose themselves in their vicariousness.
In Shakespearean theatre, music and songs reflect the very mood of
characters and scenes, add to the romantic, humorous and musical value of
the play and diffuse the prevailing atmosphere of comedy as well as of
romantic love. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night opens with strains of music,
which touches the lovesick soul of Duke Orsino, "If music be the food of
love, play on"(Shakespeare 274). Usually, in a theatre, music is used simply
to support the dialogue or to enhance the mood of the play. The music is
violent in violent scenes, gloomy in tragic scenes, and pleasing in comic
scenes. In the traditional theatres, music is used to "create and enhance the
varying moods and emotions depicted in the play" (Heffuer 526).
Music helps the actors to express the mood of the scene. For example,
the use of appropriate background music during a sad scene adds to the
audience's empathy. Hence, in traditional theatres, music is able to reinforce
mood and provide an atmosphere surrounding the scene. Music, basically,
has got the quality of inducing the listeners. So, when the audience is
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witnessing a death scene with gloomy music and a scene of mirth with
mellifluous tunes, they are moved. Without music, the sad scenes or the
happy scenes would not evoke any such feelings among the audience.
Hence, music, an integral part of theatre, is used to evoke the emotional
ideas of the play and to help in the "willing suspension of disbelief" on the
part of the audience. Contrary to the traditional theatre, music in Brechtian
theatre is used not to induce but to interrupt the audience.
Bentley states that the "Orthodox theatrical music duplicates the text"
(The Brecht Commentaries 66). In a Brechtian play, on the other hand,
music is used as an alienating device. In his plays he wants mellifluous tunes
for a melancholic atmosphere. By this, he achieves alienation. He uses songs
to comment on the situation rather than to heighten the mood. For Brecht,
music in drama must be "antihypnotic and qestisch, that is, expressive of
basic underlying attitudes" (Encyclopedia of World Drama Vol 1 251).
Traditionally, music that accompanies the song affords a powerful
"subtext" as it indicates the mood, reveals the hidden ideas and emotions of
a character. But Brecht's purpose is entirely different. He introduces songs to
break the flow of the action and to urge the actors to step outside their roles.
He also expects music to comment ironically on the words than to express
their meaning. Songs are used to interrupt the action so that the audience
might be able to pause and form their own opinions about the episodes
presented to them dramatically. Songs are used throughout the plays of
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Brecht. In MCC, there are as many as eleven songs. Mother Courage herself
sings as many as five songs.
In the Opening Scene, Mother Courage sings a song which announces
her trade as a canteen-woman and it also invites soldiers to come and buy
food and drink. In Scene Four, Mother Courage sings the "Song of the Great
Capitulation". This song is closely related to the theme of the play which
depicts not only the destructiveness of a war but other dark aspects of a war
also: "[ ... ] one day the battalion's wheel; And you go down upon your
knees; To God Almighty if you please!" (43). The content of this song is the
desirability of surrendering to the powerful and mighty persons in the world
instead of defying them and incurring their wrath. The power of an army
captain to do a grave injustice to his subordinates and the corruption which
this captain represents, are brought to the audience through this song. Brecht
regards the songs of his plays as "musical insertions which should function
as interruptive devices in a dialectical relation to the dramatic action
immediately preceding or following" (Chatterji IX).
Brecht insists that music must be an independent element in the total
composition of a play and should not be mixed with the dialogue. Brecht
fixes "the rhythm, stress, pitch, timbre, pauses, phrasing, dynamics, tempos
and intonation of his poetry in a musical setting" and makes his plays,
"virtually performer-proof and ensure a 'drug-free effect on their audiences"
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(Kowalke 226). Hence, music in an "epic theatre" is used not to discharge
emotions or to describe the text but as an interrupting and alienating agent.
"Alienation" or "distancing" is not a new concept to Tamil Theatre; it
is already there in traditional Tamil folk forms. So, Brechtian dramaturgy is
an apt concept for Tamilnadu. The alienation effect of the traditional art
forms like Therrukuthu is nothing but an exact replica of Brecht's
"alienation". Brecht was quite careful in keeping the plain speech, the
heightened speech, and the songs separate from each other so that one may
not be accepted as a natural development of the other. He also keeps his
musicians visible on the stage, by providing light on them, where they
m
assemble. Brecht introduces many songs in the GPS. Shen Te, Wang, Sun
and the Gods sing the songs. Shen Te wears the mask of Shui Ta and sings
the song of the defencelessness of the Good and Gods:
In our country
The Capable man needs luck. Only
If he has mighty backers
Can he prove his capacity.
The good
Have no means of helping themselves and
the gods are powerless. (48)
In his plays, Brecht creates one good character that represents the type
of person that everyone wishes to be. But owing to the cruelty of the world,
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the "good character" is often abused or exploited. In GPS, Shen Te
represents this "good" character. When the gods arrive, there was none to
accommodate them except the "good" person of Szechwan —Shen Te.
Brecht is quick to print out that this honesty is exploited. Shen Te, in this
"song of defencelessness," sings that in this corrupt and chaotic world, even
gods are helpless.
In CCC, the singer sings of Grusha's sad plight coldly and
unemotionally and she mimes them on the stage. In CCC, Brecht not only
puts his play within a play, but also installs a narrator right in the middle of
things to prevent the audience of any temptation to lose themselves in
Grusha's flight or Azdak's plight. Anyone putting the play on has to find the
balance point between engaging the audience in feeling for the characters,
and reminding the audience that the characters are just abstractions. Brecht
helps by suggesting that the play should be performed in masks, and by
infusing music and song throughout his script. In many folk dramatic forms
of India including Therukoothu, the musicians are seen playing the
instruments from one side of the stage. In Therukoothu, playwrights use
visible musicians; they sit on one side of the stage and all the other three
sides are occupied by the spectators. The musicians sing the songs and the
actors mime the action.
In the Brechtian play, music is also used as a useful device which
reminds the audience of the moral and political contents of the play. Music,
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in Brecht's play, "becomes a kind of punctuation, an underlining of the
words, a well-aimed comment giving the gist of the action or the
text."(Willett The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht 132). CCC is flooded with
songs sung by the singer, the chorus and other characters. In the CCC, the
singer explains the hardships and dangerous journey of Grusha through the
songs and Grusha mimes the words of the singer.
She rose, she leaned over, she sighted, she lifted the child
She carried it off. (165)
In the stage direction, one can read:
She [Grusha] does what the singer says as he describes it.
Like booty she took it for herself
Like a thief she sneaked away. (165)
The songs are used to narrate the story and at times stressing the moral
of the story. Mother Courage's elder son, Eilif, sings the "Song of the
Fishwife and the soldier" and at the same time dances a war dance with his
sabre. Through this song, Eilif tells the story of a soldier who has an
ambition to live a hero's life in the war but who is subsequently killed,
meeting a premature death:
It's the life of a hero for me!
From the north to the south I shall march through the land
With a knife at my side and a gun in my hand! (18)
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The irony behind this song becomes evident when Eilif's sad end is
learnt. Thus, in this song, Eilif is predicting his own premature death though
he is expecting a hero's life. Mother Courage interrupts this song. She is
fully aware of the kind of death which soldiers meet in a war. She sings:
[ ... ] the lad and his laughter are lost in the night:
And he floats with the ice to the sea. (19)
Brecht presents this song itself dialectical-Eilif's expectations to live a
hero's life and Mother Courage's prediction or warning about the premature
death of the soldiers. "The dialectical message Brecht intends is contained in
the change in tone of the song," observes J.L.Styan. (Drama, Stage and
Audience 50).
Brecht uses ballads throughout MCC as an ironic means of distancing
his audience. The chaplain's "Song of the Hours" describes the summary
trail of Jesus Christ, the death sentence against him, his passion under the
torture and his crucifixion:
In the first hour of the day
Simple Jesus Christ was
Presented as a murderer
To the heathen Pilate. (34)
In Scene Nine, the cook sings a song called "The Song of the wise and
Good", in which he cites the cases of Solomon, Julius Caesar, Socrates, and
Martin to explain the futility of wisdom, of bravery, of honesty and of every
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kind of virtue. The cook sings the song as an ironic song sung at the
audience:
You've heard of wise old Solomon
you know his history.
II ......................... II
Better for you if you have none. (69)
In almost all his plays, Brecht "often sets his songs in tension with the
dramatic action, treating them as centre-references to issues raised by the
play" (Chatterji lxiv). In Brechtian theatre, the singer and the chorus sing
songs throughout the play to alienate them from the main action of the play.
In the first part of the CCC, the singer narrates the story, abridges the
episodes and reveals the hidden thoughts of Grusha. The songs of Grusha
and Azdak vary the dramatic tempo, help the audience to relax and enforce
alienation from the narrative. Brecht uses visible musicians who sit in a
separately lit part of the stage and are seen by the audience. Sometimes, they
comment on the happenings of the play. in CCC, the musicians also join the
singer in singing a song:
How will the merciful escape the merciless
The blood hounds, the trappers?
Into the deserted mountains she wandered
Along the Grusinian highway she wondered
She sang a song, she bought some milk.
(165)
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Brecht has a practical knowledge of music himself as he sings his
songs and ballads in accompaniment to his own guitar. The plays would be
incomprehensible without the singer and the musicians. The singer's
comments and remarks are indispensable parts of the play. Great musicians
like Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler cater to the needs of Brecht commendably.
Brecht questions not only the traditional social values but also the
artifice of drama. To achieve the "alienation" effect, he makes certain drastic
changes in the setting. In a way, his epic theatre is a rebellious theatre
against all types of existing theatres. In a Brechtian theatre, stage is
considered strictly as a stage. In GPS, Brecht uses so many interludes which
interrupt the action. The appearance of Gods, their discussion with Wang,
the water seller, the song of Shen Te and her heightened speech form the
crux of the interludes.
Brecht uses slides carrying captions and verse summaries as
interruptive devices to eliminate suspense. According to him, another
requirement of the epic theatre is an emphasis on narrative rather than
dramatic presentation. The narrative aspect of the epic theatre demands the
use of signs, placards, stills, and films, in addition to the performance of the
actors. The stage direction of one of the scenes in MCC, for instance, reads:
THE GREAT WAR OF RELIGION HAS LASTED SIXTEEN YEARS
AND GERMANY LOST HALF ITS INHABITANTS. THOSE WHO
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ARE SPARED IN BATTLE DIE BY PLAGUE. TOWN ARE BURNED
DOWN.WOLVES PROWL THE EMPTY STREETS. (67)
Brecht communicates these facts to the audience either through the
use of placards or the voice of a narrator: His "literarizing" of the theatre
involved the use of sub-titles, statistics, maps, cartoons, stills and films
simultaneously with the action of a play in order to achieve a documentary
effect. He wants his audience to practise what he calls "Complex Seeing". In
LG, in the beginning of every scenes, he uses captions and verse summaries
as an "anti-illusionistic device". In the First Scene of LG, he gives a caption
and a verse summary:
Galileo Galilei, a teacher of mathematics at Padua,
sets out to prove Copernicus's new cosmogony
In the year sixteen hundred and nine
Science's light began to shine.
At Padua city in a modest house
Galileo Galilei set out to prove
The sun is still, the earth is on the move. (5)
Brecht says that the audience's emotional involvement with fictitious
characters and fictitious situation should be interrupted by the interpolation
of didactic and factual information into the main stream of the play. In the
thirteenth Scene of LG, Galileo's friends wait in anxiety to learn whether the
inquisition will force him to recant his views on the movement of the earth.
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Brecht makes this a scene which maintains suspense rather than making the
audience feel it by the technique of using placards. A placard has already
told the audience that the scene will display that Galileo recants:
Before the Inquisition, on June 22nd 1633,
Galileo recants his doctrine of the motion of the
earth. (94)
Brecht intentionally removes the suspense and wants the spectators to
concentrate on some other things instead. Similarly in all the scenes of LG,
he uses placards to eliminate anxiety.
Audience is not separated from the happenings on the stage at anytime
because curtains are not used and sets are changed in full view of the
audience. By this, the audience should realize that some work is going on in
the stage and they are witnessing an enactment of reality not reality itself.
The juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy in Brecht's plays contributes to
achieve the "alienation effect". By Brecht's dialectical use of comic and
tragic elements, the intended distancing is achieved "by the text itself rather
than by the work of the actor" (Eddershaw 14).
Mother courage gives a witty account of her adventure when she was
asked about her identity:
They call me Mother Courage 'cause I was afraid I'd be ruined.
So, I drove through the bombardment of Riga like a mad
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woman, with fifty loaves of bread in my cart. They were going
mouldy, I couldn't please myself.
(5)
Brecht finds the spectators in the theatre of illusion as:
Motionless figures in a peculiar condition: they seem
strenuously to be tensing all their muscles, except where these
are flabby and exhausted. They scarcely communicate with
each other; their relations are those of a lot of sleepers ... True,
their eyes are open, but they stare rather than see, just as they
listen rather than hear. They look at the stage as if in a trance.
(Styan Drama, Stage and Audience 126)
So, he wants his audience to watch the play sharply like a social critic. He
uses all sorts of strange devices to alienate the audience.
The settings are not realistic but it suggests the locale and very often
they are kept in full view of the audience. Brecht makes everything on the
stage look strange to the audience to alienate them. A night scene may be
acted on an illuminated stage, to prevent the spectators from "emotional
identification" with the happenings on the stage. The actor may address the
audience directly. Loudspeakers, sceneries and banners may be used. He
goes to the extent of suggesting his audience to smoke while watching the
play to avoid "catharsis".
The use of lights plays a vital part in the setting of a play.
Traditionally, its function is to indicate day and night, and to symbolise the
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atmospheric changes. Max Reinhardt, realizing the importance of electric
lighting in the theatre, expresses the "possibility of 'painting' the stage with
coloured and modulated light" (Esslin The Field of Drama 76). Contrarily,
Brecht uses full light for a night scene to the shock and surprise of his
audience. He keeps the lights of his theatre half-on enabling the audience to
see one another and not to be carried away by emotional scenes.
Traditionally, the real functions of lighting are that the audience
should see clearly everything on the stage and also to indicate the mood. It
also indicates the time, locale and season. According to the technical
demands of the play, the broad daylight, a breezy evening or a romantic
moonlight can be displayed with the use of proper lighting. Changes in light,
use of colour lights, displaying different kind of shadows affect the audience
emotionally. In an attempt to carry out this function of affecting the
audience, directors use properly maintained lights. Francis Reid makes a
pertinent statement: "Poorly maintained lights can wreck any schedule"(73).
Adept use of lighting converts the stage atmosphere before the eyes of the
audience and creates a fitting environment for any scene.
Traditional dramatists hold that lighting should convey the mood of
the scene. They make use of different colours and shadows to indicate the
varying emotions and moods. To produce a pleasing effect they use bright
lights and for creating a romantic effect they use a dim blue light. To mark
dejection, and despair, they make use of shadows. Brecht repudiates these
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traditional lightings and introduced visible lighting. Brilliant stage lighting,
Brecht says "should have visible sources as at a sporting event. "(Willett
Brecht in Context 139). A song in The Three Penny Opera bears a better
example: Projected title, visible lights, visible organ-pipes, placards, curtain
wires are on the stage.
Give us some light on the stage, electrician. How can be
playwrights and actors put forward our view of the world in
half-darkness. The dim twilight induces sleep. But we need the
spectator's wakeful even watchfulness. (Willett, The Theatre
of Bertolt Brecht 161)
Brecht introduces choric commentary through narrators, songs,
placards and other such interruptive devices. He uses narrators to serve as
commentators, critics, and as interruptive devices. In the CCC, the singer
starts narrating the story to the audience:
Once upon a time
A time of bloodshed
When this city was called
The city of the damned
It had a Governor.
[ ..................... I
Georgi Abashvili, how shall I describe him?
He enjoyed his life. (149)
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The primary duty of the narrator is to reveal the part of information
which is not to be enacted on the stage. He also comments on the action to
acquaint the audience with the purpose and intentions of the dramatist. In
Scene Three of the CCC, the singer describes the nightmarish experiences of
Grusha to the audience:
For a long time she sat with the child.
Evening came, night came, dawn came.
Too long she sat, too long she watched
The soft breathing [ ... ]. (165)
In Scene Five, the singer gives information about the judge since it
cannot be conveniently enacted:
Listen now to the story of the judge:
How he turned Judge, how he passed judged,
What kind of Judge he is. (201)
He also asks the audience to heed to the trials of the ownership of the
child:
Now listen to the story of the trial concerning
the child of the Governor Abashvili
To establish the true mother
By the famous test of the chalk circle. (223)
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All these new techniques sound strange to the spectators fed as they
are on the traditional plays presented on the stage according to the traditional
techniques. Benjamin justifies the Brechtian stage techniques:
the songs, the captions included in the stage decor, the gesture
conventions of the actors, serve to separate each situation. Thus
distances are created everywhere, which are on the whole,
detrimental to illusion among the audience. These distances are
meant to make the audience adopt a critical attitude, to make it
think. (38)
Brecht's dialectical theatre involves the portrayal of individual lives
that are dominated by some contradiction in their characters. He portrays
characters that are contradictory such as Mother Courage and split
personalities such as the characters of the GPS. The portrayal of such
characters, according to Brecht, makes alienation more effective. In MCC,
Mother Courage, the protagonist is a contradictory personality. In some
situations, the audience are attracted towards her and in some scenes they are
repelled by her. Thus, audience's response to her is as complex as her nature
and temperament are. She arouses both the admiration and the disgust of the
audience that one can use the terms empathy and alienation in connection
with the portrayal of her character. The play reflects Brecht's "double
vision", when the audience's sympathy and their sense of alienation are
simultaneously aroused. Brecht certainly wants his audience to sympathize
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with Mother Courage in her crisis but also expected them to realize her folly
and self-contradictory nature that lead her to the doomsday. He wants to
present the character of Mother Courage on the stage in such a way that
audience should feel a sense of alienation from her than sympathy for her. At
times, Mother Courage is a cunning businesswomen or else a critic of the
warmongers or a fool- all these forms one by one move on the stage and the
complete character of Mother Courage is formulated by the audience.
Exposing her Jekyll and Hyde nature to the Gods, Shen Te confesses:
Yes, it is me. Shui Ta and Shen Teh, I am both of them.
Your original order
To be good while yet surviving
Split me like lightning into two people.
(105)
The historical figure Galileo, in LG has undergone a drastic change
in the hands of Brecht. Brecht, a staunch believer of Marx's view of history,
paints Galileo in a dialectical pattern. Up to the Ninth Scene Galileo is
shown as a positive figure - a hero. In the Eleventh Scene the audience sees
Galileo as a villain. All of a sudden a cult figure has been transformed into a
culprit. In the Fourteenth Scene, Brecht deliberately rewrites Galileo's lines
to prevent the audience from viewing him as a tragic victim of historical
circumstances.
In the Second Scene, Galileo presents the Venetian people with the
telescope. Looking through the telescope, the procurator says, "a world
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famous scholar is offering you, and you alone, a highly marketable tube, for
you to manufacture and sell as and how you wish"(20). The senators react to
the new invention, as an unlettered would do.
One senator says that on a distant place "They're having their dinner
on that boat. Fried fish. Makes me feel peckish"(21). Another senator says,
"That contraption lets you see too much. I'll have to tell my women they
can't take baths on the roof any longer"(21). Galileo attacks their materialist
attitude saying: "These people think they're getting a lucrative plaything, but
it's a lot more than that" (20).
In Scene Five, when the people are leaving the city due to plague,
Galileo, not even discouraged by the plague, continues his research and says
that he cannot abandon his observations. In Scene Nine, when Latin is
considered the sacred language of the Roman Catholics, Galileo says: " I
might write in the language of the people, for the many, rather than in Latin
for the few. Our new thoughts call for people who work with their
hands"(79). Indeed, he rebels against the established norms. He also says:
"Once every other hypothesis has crumbled in our hands then there will be
no mercy for those who failed to research, and who go on talking all the
same"(81). So, up to the tenth scene, Galileo is shown fighting a relentless
battle against religious forces for the sake of science.
In Scene Fourteen, Galileo explains his sad plight to Virginia: "I
betrayed my profession. A man who does what I did cannot be tolerated in
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the ranks of science"(109). In Scene Eleven, the Pope says, "He enjoys
himself in more ways, than any man I have ever met. His thinking springs
from sensuality. Give him on old wine or a new idea, and he cannot say
no"(93). Here, one cannot ignore the hero's cowardice in the face of physical
pain. In this light, he is reduced from a hero to an ordinary man. Brecht
regards his protagonist as a negative character for yielding to the pressure of
the Church. He also wants the audience to condemn Galileo for his
cowardice. He thinks that science had suffered from Galileo's recantation.
Brecht's Galileo is not heroic enough to face martyrdom.
In CCC, Brecht portrays Grusha as a complex figure. Act Two ends
with Grusha picking up Michael and taking him with her. Brecht suggests
the audience that they should not be carried away by how good Grusha
appears to be. In this scene, she is shown as a thief who has stolen a child.
Like Booty she took it for herself
Like a thief she sneaked away. (165)
By this, Brecht breaks the audience's image of Grusha for he does not
want them to be carried away by her. Instead, he wants the audience to use
logic much the same way logic is applied in the prologue. The audience must
decide for themselves whether Grusha is a thief and should be punished or
whether she is a good person and also who should be rewarded with the
child. Grusha represents the peasants in the prologue. Here, Brecht tries to
make his audience "critical observers".
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In many of his plays, Brecht simply leaves the end of the play as it is
without a conventional ending. In the first scene of MCC, Mother Courage
drags the wagon off the stage, moving in a complete circle on the revolving
stage. As a part of Brechtian scenic setting the stage is illuminated with light.
In the last scene also, Mother Courage is shown pulling her wagon off the
stage. Thus the last scene resembles the first scene. The only difference, the
conventional audience feels is that this time Mother Courage pulls the wagon
alone. But, the audience accustomed to the Brechtian theatre, is able to
realize that she will go on pulling it till the war comes to an end. So, the
ending for this situation is to stop these evil wars and to restore peace. Thus,
Brecht succeeds in making his audience to come out with a possible solution
for a social problem and to effect revolutionary changes in the society.
Similarly in the GPS, Shen Te, the prostitute disguises as the
enterprising Shui Ta to survive in this world. She couldn't find any solace to
her problem. Even religion and the gods provide no help whatever. In the
end, Brecht leaves the final question as to what happens to Shen Te
unanswered:
Oh, do not go away, illustrious ones!
I haven't told you all.
I need you terribly! [...](108)
Unable to solve her problem, the gods disappear and the play ends
with the cry of Shen Te, "help", unanswered. Brecht, by leaving the end
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abruptly, persuades the audience to think over the sad plight of Shen Te. In
the epilogue, a player appears before the audience and addresses them and
discusses the ending of the play:
Ladies and gentleman, don't feel let down:
We know this ending makes some people frown.
[ ........................................................
]
Our play will fail if you can't recommend it [ ... ]
But what would you suggest? What is your answer?
Nothing's been arranged.
Should men be better? Should the world be changed? [ ... ]
What sort of measures you would recommend.
To help good people to a happy end. (109)
Unlike a traditional theatre where the audiences go with a stock end,
Brecht prompts the audience to think rationally and throws questions to the
audience.
Brecht is adamant not to give a "finished product" to the audience by
giving the play a proper ending, as the conventional play would do. He
wants to give some brainwork to his audience even after watching his play.
He accuses the theatre of illusion of encouraging the audience to accept life
as it is without questioning why life is like this. If Marx's dream about the
world is to change it, the job of a dramatist, Brecht says, is "to bring change
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nearer, so that life as it is can be replaced by life as it should be" (Gaskell
147).
Brecht violates the notion of Aristotle that the tragic hero is a man of
high estate but suffers from a tragic flaw that leads him to the tragic end.
Brecht considers Mother Courage more as a social product than as a "soul".
He does not bother about the individual personality of Mother Couragewhether she is good or bad, kind or cruel, obedient or rebellious and whether
she has fallen due to any "tragic flaw". He is primarily concerned with the
relationship between Mother Courage and the rest of the society and how she
is confronting the sordid reality. The tragic flaw is not in her character but in
the social situation. This lies in the irony that Mother Courage never realizes
that serving the war means serving her own downfall. In the final scene,
Mother Courage continues her business after paying for Kaatrin's funeral.
Actually, she has learnt nothing, saying, "I must start up again in
business"(8 1). By making the audience feel contempt for Mother Courage,
Brecht tries to make his audience realize that the world in which they live
needs to be changed.
Brecht often uses a narrator who introduces the story to the audience
and criticises the course of action. In U. the announcer introduces the
principal characters to the audience in the prologue:
Friends, tonight we're going to show pipe down, you boys in the back row!
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And, lady you hat is in the way! Our great historical gangster play
El
....................................... j
Some born, some made-for instance here we show
The good old honest Dogsborough! (5-6)
Brecht adopts this concept of using a narrator from the Japanese Noh
plays. He views Chinese theatre and the performance of a popular actor Mel
Lan Fang when he went on a trip to Moscow in 1935. Chinese theatre as
well as Japanese Noh theatre began to influence Brecht. He finds that
traditional Chinese and Japanese theatres also use alienation effects. From
the Noh plays, he also takes advantage of other narrative techniques like the
use of chorus or a commentator. In Brecht's plays, chorus is used as a social
commentator and acts as a mediator between the action of the play and the
audience as in Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. In some of his plays,
Brecht uses prologues and epilogues as an explanatory device.
In Brecht's theatre the actors are instructed not to lose themselves in
their roles so as to criticize and freshen their characters in the social
situations which the plays are dealing with. His actors step in and step out of
their roles. Brecht is deadly against realism and the actor's identification
with the characters and wants his actors to practise an objective style of
acting. The actor is completely identified with the character in the PreBrechtian theatres in general and in the Stanislavskian theatre in particular
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whereas in the Brechtian theatre, the actors "come out of their shells and
make contact with the spectators "(Eddershaw 22). By a sociological
understanding of the character, the actor's performance prevents the
audience from losing themselves in the character.
In the Stanislavskian theatre the actors live the characters. In this
theatre, it seems that the actors are not aware of the audience sitting in front
of them. There is the "fourth wall" that separates the actors from the
surroundings to suspend the disbelief of the audience. Apart from this, he
has used many other alienation techniques in acting. The actors in "epic
theatre" speak their dialogues in the third person. An individual actor can
alienate by introducing himself in the third person. To avoid identification
with the character, the actors translated their texts in the third person in the
past tense. Brecht wants his actors to avoid identifying with their roles,
thinking of themselves in the third person, as demonstrating, rather than
enacting events. He compares the experience of an eyewitness to a traffic
accident with that of an actor. The eyewitness tries to convey the accident by
means of statements and gestures. Similarly, actors should be like the
eyewitness who "acts the behaviour of driver or victim or both in such a way
that the bystanders are able to form an opinion about the accident" (Brecht
Brecht on Theatre 121).
In Therukoothu, the character describes him in the third person, talks
in the first person with others, and then slips back to the third person.
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According to Gargi, this "gives the character a double perspective, revealing
his mind at two levels."(35) In a Therukoothu titled as Meenakshi Ammaa
Natakam (The Drama of Goddess Meenakshi), the king announces himself
in the third person in a song:
The pandya king has come!
The king whose name is Malayadhavaja has come! (Gargi 134).
In MCC, Mother Courage introduces herself in the third person in the
first scene:
Mother Courage:
A good day to you, Sergeant!
The sergeant, barring the way: Good day to you!
Who d' you think you are?
Mother Courage:
Trades people.
She sings: Here's Mother Courage and her
wagon! Hey, Captain, let them come
and buy! (4)
The actors use past tense and sometimes describe the stage directions.
Miming is another important aspect of the epic theatre. Brecht, being a
materialist believes only in human body and material things. So he uses
concrete vocabulary, expressive gestures and suitable props. The actors are
expected to mime the action. Moreover, the actors are encouraged to address
the audience directly enabling the actor to breakdown the illusory "fourth
wall". In the Pre-Brechtian theatre, the spectators become so engrossed in a
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play that they forget, for the time being, what they are. The actors too forget
that there is an audience in front of them. The illusory 'fourth wall' apart
from the three walls of a proscenium stage separates the contact between the
audience and the actors on the stage. Brecht strives to break this illusion and
encourages the actors to address the audience directly and also the audience
to throw comments on the course of events on the stage. This method of
direct address to the audience is evidently suggested by the Japanese Noh
plays, where actors address the audience direct to convey a message. Brecht
must have been influenced by the Oriental theatres like the Japanese Noh
Theatre and the Chinese theatre. Most obviously, Brecht has come to know
the Noh plays of Japan and exploited many useful devices of the Noh
theatre.
In the GPS, Wang, the water seller introduces himself to the audience:
I am a water seller here in the capital of Szechwan province.
My job is tedious.
When water is short I have to go far for it. (3)
In this play, Shen Te and the water seller address the audience in
almost all the scenes. Shen Te addresses the audience directly and tells them
the developments in the story. She informs the audience that she is going to
start a shop:
It is now three days since the gods left.
They told me they wanted to pay for their lodging.
And when I looked at what they had given me
RZ
I saw that it was more than a thousand silver dollars.
I have used the money to buy a tobacconist's business. (12)
In the same play the principal character Shen Te addresses the
audience directly:
Shen Te: When I arrived here from the country, they were my
first landlords. (to the audience) when my small funds ran out,
they threw me on the street. They are probably frightened that I
will say no.
They are poor
They have no shelter
They have no friends.
They need someone. —who can they be refused ? (13)
Apart from this, Shen Te addresses the audience in so many scenes.
Along with her, other characters too address the audience directly. In ER,
the merchant introduces himself to the audience directly: "I am Karl
Langmann, a merchant. I am going to Urga to conclude arrangements for a
concession. My competitors are close behind me" (37).
In some plays, the songs are sung when the stage settings are changed
in full view of the audience. In ER the players sing a song when the stage
settings are changed. The stage direction is followed by the song:
Song
of the courts
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Sung by the players as they set the stage for the courtroom
scene:
Behind the gang of bandits
Follow courts and judges.
And when an unoffending man is killed
Judges gather over his remains and accuse the dead.
Over the murdered man's grave
They murder his rights [ ... ].
(52)
In ER, Brecht uses the players themselves as narrators in the
beginning and the end of the play. In the beginning the players introduce the
story to the audience.
We are about to tell you
The story of a Journey. An exploiter
And two of the exploited are the travellers.
Examine carefully the behaviour of these people. (37)
In the end, the players sum up the play and urge the audience to
prepare for action.
So ends
The story of a Journey.
You have heard and you have seen.
You have seen what happens time and time again.
But this we ask of you:
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What is not strange, find it disquieting!
What is usual, find it inexplicable!
What is customary, let it astound you.
What is the rule, recognise it to be an abuse.
And where you have recognised abuse
Do something about it! (60)
Some critics like Martin Esslin and Georg Lukacs say that Brecht fails
to eliminate the audience from emotionally identifying with the characters of
MCC and GPS. In MCC, when Mother Courage loses her son Swiss Cheese
in Scene Three, when Kaatrin makes up her mind to leave the place in order
not to hinder her mother's desire to go off with the cook and Mother
Courage's reaction to this and the final scene of Kaatrin's martyrdom-in
these scenes, no one could possibly control their emotions the scenes evoke.
In Tendulkar's play Sakharam Binder, Laxmi is a religious woman, and
despite this, Sakharam treats her violently. Tired of his violence, Laxrni goes
to the extent of making friends with an ant and talking to it, and feeding it.
The sense of the scene could be moving but it hinders objective thinking.
The audience are spellbound and moved by these pathetic scenes, shed tears
and go home with the accepted opinion that this is what is happening in
every Indian household. Brecht is certainly against this type of emotional
identification.
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In a Brechtian sense, the audience should think why Sakharam is
beating his innocent wife Laxmi, should analyse the situation in terms of
male chauvinism and centuries of anti-woman violence and should equip
themselves to fight against male domination and for the emancipation of
woman. That, for Brecht, is the right way of theatrical experience. Hence,
Brecht writes:
epic theatre is not against the emotions, but investigates them
and does more than just arouse them. It is the conventional
theatre that is guilty of separating reasons and emotion - by
virtually excluding reason. (Kettle 53)
In Mother, MCC, and other plays the emotional scenes could move
the audience to a certain extent. Nevertheless, these emotional scenes should
evoke the questioning attitude in the audience rather drive them to accept the
readymade ending. Much to Brecht's expectations, however, audiences
identified with the play on a deeply emotional level, drawing immediate
parallels between the Thirty Years War that the characters face and the
horrors of the Second World War.
As Bradby puts it in Brecht and His Influence: "far from wanting to
suppress the emotions of his audience, Brecht wanted like all great artists, to
channel them"(qtd.in.Barnes 45). In spite of Brecht's strenuous efforts to
make the audience to respond intellectually not emotionally to the action of
the play, many are easily carried away by the emotional scenes. It has
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something to do with the quantum of individual vicariousness. But, no
doubt, Brecht aims to alienate his audience and to exploit emotions for the
right purpose.
Bentley, critic and collaborator of Brecht, comes out with an obvious
answer that Brecht "does not eliminate stage-illusion and suspense; he only
reduces their importance. Sympathy and identification with the character are
not eliminated; they are counterpoised by deliberate distancing"(The
Playwright as Thinker 219).
In the twenties and thirties, Brecht adheres strictly to the dogma that
theatre is to be didactic. Later in 1948, in his essay Short Organum, he
changed his stance by writing that theatre must also please. His change of
dramaturgy reflects a development in the practice. Many of his mature plays
l ike LG, MCC, and CCC are less didactic in form but more instructive in
effect.
Though Brecht states the main principles of his epic theatre clearly,
readers find it difficult to understand this complex man and his theatre
because he keeps changing his views or modifying them, time to time. He
does not believe in any rigid kind of dramaturgy. Time passes and concepts
of artistic truths are not unchangeable or static. There can be no single truth
for all times. As he rightly argues: "a man with one theory is lost. He needs
several of them, four, lots"(Diaries 1920-22 42). And yet, he has certain
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broad principles to which he adheres, though he amends and even alters
them periodically.
The western playwrights and directors have borrowed the stylistic
devices- the use of song, dance, mime, rituals, masks and the narrator - from
the traditional Asian theatre. Oriental Theatre in general and the folk theatre
in particular cater to the requirements of the contemporary theatre. Folk
drama which provides a many faceted delight for the spectators, "can add
color, richness, and vitality to the contemporary theatre" (Gargi 200).
Many Western dramatists including Brecht make use of the techniques
of the folk and oriental theatres. Gargi says that "Bertolt Brecht's epic
theatre was directly influenced by the Peking opera, the kabuki, and folk
forms"(198). Just before the eyes of the audience, Shen Te puts on Shui Ta's
costume and takes a few steps in his way of walking. She also dons the mask
of Shui Ta and sings on in his voice. Singing the song which explains how
difficult and "impossible it is to perform good deeds without toughness and
force she is meantime donning costume and mask of the evil Shui Ta"(123).
Indian directors, while "recognizing Brecht's theatrical wizardry, have
been reluctant to explore the raw material of their own traditional theatre.
Only recently some of them have come to recognize and employ folk
techniques in their work"(Gargi 198-199). Oriental theatre has exerted a
powerful influence on Brecht's concept of "epic theatre" and his theory of
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"alienation". Most obviously Brecht has come to know the Noh plays of
Japan and has exploited many devices of the Noh theatre. In Noh theatre,
actors often address their remarks to the audience direct ; they
have a chorus which interrupts and comments, and at times
even speaks for them; and in this highly stylized manner the
dramatist will tackle the greatest moral problems with a
wonderful simplicity and detachment. (Willett, The Theatre of
Bertolt Brecht 116)
The Noh drama evolved in the latter half of the fourteenth century.
The Japanese people have, for centuries, developed a strong belief in the
other world concept and at rustic festivals, the anthropomorphic gods appear
wearing variety of masks. The appearance of Gods on the stage is common
in Noh plays. They are otherwise called a "masked play"(P.N. Chopra and
Prabha Chopra 214).
In Noh theatre, the characters re-enact a portion of their past lives, or
sometimes an event of history is shown. There is no uncertainty about what
is going to happen next. In Noh theatre, visible musicians are used with their
instruments like flute, stick drum, hand drums etc. The dances performed on
the Noh stage are "generally slow, stately and highly stylized mimes"
(Encyclopedia of world drama Vol 3 324).
Brecht has come across Arthur Waley's translated work NO Plays of
Japan through his collaborator Elizabeth Hauptmann. He has gained a
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thorough knowledge about the Japanese conception of a high-flown prose.
He has adopted a Japanese play Taniko and written two school operas He
who said Yes and He who said No. Willett suggesting the influence of Noh
theatre on Brecht says that Brecht handles the Noh techniques "to tell a
social parable" in ER (The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht 118). His interest in
the Oriental theatre again leads him to Waley, "so that seven of the nine
chinesische Gedichte (1939) were retranslated from Waley's versions, and
one of them was subsequently included in the Second Scene of the Good
Person of Szechwan" (Willett The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht 97). From
the Japanese Noh plays, Brecht exploits many techniques like
the use of a narrator, [ ... ] making the actor himself narrate as
well as perform, introducing his actions to the audience and
criticizing the course of events [ ... ] the use of chorus that
interrupted and commented upon the play and of an orchestra
placed in full view of the audience. (Encyclopedia of World
Drama Vol 125 1)
The narrator in Noh plays resembles the Kattiakaran (narrator) of
Therukoothu, a folk drama form of Tamilnadu. In Therukuthu, the
Kattiakaran introduces the main characters and makes the audience laugh by
his jests. If one analyses the role of the Kattiakaran, there is no direct link
between the Kattiakaran and the narrated story. But he acts as a connecting
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link between the stage and the audience, between the audience and the
actors.
Apart from the Noh theatre, Kabuki also has a powerful influence on
Brechtian theatre. Kabuki, a popular drama form of Japan, is originated in
the late seventeenth century. This drama is a conglomeration of dance, music
and melodrama. The musicians, in Kabuki, are "almost always seated on the
stage, as are the narrator and his accompanist"(Encyclopedia of World
Drama Vol 2 443).
Besides these Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatrical forms, Chinese
theatre has exerted a considerable influence on Brecht. Brecht acknowledges
that through the Chinese actor Mei Lan-Fang's acting methods, he got an
idea of the acting means by which an actor could secure the alienation effect.
In Scene Four of Brecht's GPS, Shu Fu ousts Wang, the water-seller from
his shop, and then strikes Wang's hand with the curling tongs:
Mr. Shu Fu
: Take that! Let that be a lesson to you.
Wang
: My hand's gone.
The unemployed Man: Any bones broken?
Wang
: I can't move it.(41)
Attacked by Shu Fu, Wang needs a witness to claim compensation.
When he requests the people around to act as legal witness, everyone ignores
him deliberately. Brecht here shows a clear picture of social attitudes. He
called such a picture as "gestus". As Alfred D. White explains:
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Gestus concentrates on interactions between people, for Brecht
disliked psychological observations which could not be
expressed in social interplay and put to work in the recognition
and changing of social circumstances. It includes the unspoken
'languages' of demeanour by which we recognize others'
behavior, but language itself also. Theater aims to communicate
from stage to audience a demonstration of social facts, so the
basic gestus of theatre is demonstration. (41)
The actors take up an attitude to the character, and to the audience,
and they do this for a reason. Brecht wants the audience to think where this
attitude comes from. He insists that "it is the actor's business not to express
feeling but to 'show attitudes' or Gesten"(Willett, The Theatre of Bertolt
Brecht 172).
Brecht says that it is the playwright's duty to show the world in an
unfamiliar light. And it is an "actors responsibility not to take the edge off
that unfamilarity by losing himself in the play (Willett, The Theatre of
Bertolt Brecht 179). Considering the impact of Mel Lan Fang on Brecht,
John Willett goes to the extent of saying that Brecht first used the term
"verfremdung" only after seeing a private performance by the Chinese actor
Mel Lan Fang. Morever, Brecht has written a long descriptive analysis of
Mei's acting under the title Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting.
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Brecht was a great figure of the theatre and a great humanist of this
world. For him, the theatre was never simply a place of amusement or
entertainment. He considered it a platform from which one can tell people
much of worth. His entire life in art was devoted to the cause of the
proletariat. He spent his entire life searching for and experimenting with
different dramatic forms, rehearsal methods and pedagogical techniques
in an effort to base his theories on practice. Audience realized that both
Brecht and his theatre have reached the pinnacle. He always found more
problems than solutions in art. The influence of Brecht on Post-War
theatre is immense. Today, Brecht's theatre belongs to everyone. It does
not force the artist into any specific limits. In fact, it liberates his creative
talents and opens new and endless possibilities. The great genius of the
theatre world has left a tremendous legacy. Indian theatre, with all its
traditional potentials has grabbed the Brechtian theatre. The traditional
Indian theatre blending with the Brechtian "alienation theatre" has
acquired newer heights and depths, making Indian theatre and Indian
English theatre rich and strong. Brechtian impact on Karnad, in
particular, is the concern of the next chapter.