Bertolt Brecht!

Bio Of Brecht!

Playwright Eugene Berthold Brecht (also known as Bertolt Brecht) was deeply influenced by Charlie Chaplin and Karl Marx.  This strange combination of inspiration produced Brecht’s twisted sense of humor as well as the political beliefs within his plays.

He was raised in a middle class family in Germany, although he often fabricated stories of an impoverished childhood. As a young man, he was attracted to fellow artists, actors, cabaret musicians, and clowns. As he began to write plays of his own, he discovered that the Theatre was the perfect forum to express social and political criticism.

Brecht developed a style known as “Epic Theatre.” In this medium, actors did not strive to make their characters realistic. Instead, each character represented a different side of an argument. Brecht’s “Epic Theatre” presented multiple viewpoints and then let the audience decide for themselves.
Does this mean Brecht didn’t play favorites? Certainly not. His dramatic works blatantly condemn fascism, but they also endorse communism as an acceptable form of government. His political views developed from his life experiences. Brecht fled Nazi Germany before the onset of World WarII. After the war, he willingly moved to Soviet-occupied East Germany and became a proponent of the communist regime.

 
Brecht's Major Play!


His most acclaimed work is Mother Courage and Her Children. Although set in the 1600s, the play is relevant to contemporary society. It is often regarded as one of the finest anti-war plays.
Not surprisingly, Mother Courage and Her Children has frequently been revived in recent years. Many colleges and professional theaters have produced the show, perhaps to express their views on modern day warfare.

The one the play’s most renowned lines is: "Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank or he who founds one?"


Epic vs Dramatic Theatre!

Dramatic Theatre	Epic Theatre
Plot	Narrative
Implicates the spectator in a stage situation	Turns the spectator into an observer
Wears down his capacity for action	Arouses his capacity for action
Provides him with sensations	Forces him to take decisions
Experience	Picture of the world
The spectator is involved in something	He is made to face something
Suggestion	Argument
Instinctive feelings are preserved	Brought to the point of recognition
The spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience	The spectator stands outside, studies
The human being is taken for granted	The human being is the object of the enquiry
He is unalterable	He is alterable and able to alter
Eyes on the finish	Eyes on the course
One scene makes another	Each scene for itself
Growth	Montage
Linear development	In curves
Evolutionary determinism	Jumps
Man as a fixed point	Man as a process
Thought determines being	Social being determines thought
Feeling	Reason

Above i have found a table giving the differences between dramatic and epic theatre i found this table on: http://www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/3pennynotes/drama

Verfremdungseffekt
Often translated as the ‘alienation effect’, verfremdungseffekt is better explained as the ‘making strange effect’, or the ‘defamiliarisation effect’. ‘Alienation’ implies that the audience is disconnected completely from the performance, which is not quite correct. While they are disconnected from empathizing with the characters and their plight, as in naturalistic theatre, they are still completely involved in critically-analysing the play and its broader social significance. The ‘V-effekt’ is a technique of taking human social incidents and labelling them as something striking, something that calls for explanation, something not to be taken for granted, not just natural.

Gestus
Gestus, Brecht said, was the base building block of Epic Theatre. It is both gist and gesture; an attitude expressible in words and actions (Chalk). A basic equation for gestus is: a gesture of the body (gest) + a message (gist) = gestus (Chalk). The message is an essential part of this equation, because without a broader social context, the gesture is redundant. The most famous example of this particular element is from the original production of Mother Courage and Her Children. In the scene where Mother Courage’s son is killed, she lifts her head back, stretches her mouth wide, and holds this grotesque position in a “silent scream”. This showed her devastation at the loss of her son, but her inability to show that feeling. So the physicality of the scream + her contradictory feelings = the gestus of the ‘silent scream’.
Music
The “V-effekt” was also made possible in Epic Theatre with help from the music. In many of Brecht’s plays where music was used, the musicians were set up where they could be seen. In the original Berlin production of The Threepenny Opera, the titles of the songs were projected on placards on stage, the orchestra was lit up, and the actors changed position in order to sing their songs. This is just another way of showing that it is just a theatre show, that the actors are simply actors and that the musicians were just that, musicians.

Brecht Unit - Mother Courage.

The play we have been given is Mother Courage.

The play is set in the 17th century in Europe during the Thirty Years' War. The Recruiting Officer and Sergeant are introduced, both complaining about the difficulty of recruiting soldiers to the war. A canteen woman named Anna Fierling (Mother Courage) enters pulling a cart that she uses to trade with soldiers and make profits from the war. She has three children, Eilif, Kattrin, and Swiss Cheese. The sergeant negotiates a deal with Mother Courage while Eilif is led off by the recruiting officer. One of her children is now gone.

Two years from then, Mother Courage argues with a Protestant General's cook over a capon, or chicken. At the same time, Eilif is congratulated by the General for killing peasants and slaughtering their cattle. Eilif and his mother sing "The Fishwife and the Soldier". Mother Courage scolds her son for taking risks that could have got him killed and slaps him across the face.
Three years later, Swiss Cheese works as an army paymaster. The camp prostitute Yvette Pottier, sings "The Fraternization Song". Mother Courage uses this song to warn Kattrin about involving herself with soldiers. Before the Catholic troops arrive, the Cook and Chaplain bring a message from Eilif. Swiss Cheese hides the regiment's paybox from invading soldiers. Mother Courage & co. hurriedly switch their insignia from Protestant to Catholic. Swiss Cheese is captured by the Catholics while attempting to return the paybox to his General. Mother Courage deals her cart to get money to try and barter with the soldiers to free her son. She takes too long trying negotiate small amount of money for herself, the Chaplin, and Kattrin to live from and Swiss Cheese is shot dead with 11 bullets. To acknowledge the body could be fatal, so Mother Courage does not acknowledge it and it is thrown into a pit.

Later, Mother Courage waits outside the General's tent in order to register a complaint and sings the "Song of Great Capitulation" to a young soldier waiting for the General as well. The soldier is angry that he has not been paid and also wishes to complain. The song persuades the soldier that complaining would be unwise, and Mother Courage (reaching the same conclusion) decides she also does not want to complain.

When Catholic General Tilly's funeral approaches, Mother Courage discusses with the Chaplain about whether the war will continue. The Chaplain then suggests to Mother Courage that she marry him, but she rejects his proposal. Mother Courage curses the war because she finds Kattrin disfigured after being raped by the clerk while collecting more merchandise.
At some point about here Mother Courage is again following the Protestant army.
Two peasants wake Mother Courage up and try to sell merchandise to her while they find out that peace has broken out. The Cook appears and creates an argument between Mother Courage and the Chaplain. Mother Courage departs for the town while Eilif enters, dragged in by soldiers. Eilif is executed for killing peasants but his mother never finds out. When the war begins again, the Cook and Mother Courage start their own business.

The seventeenth year of the war marks a point where there is no food and no supplies. The Cook inherits an inn in Utrecht and suggests to Mother Courage that she operate it with him, but he refuses to harbour Kattrin. It is a very small inn. Mother Courage will not leave her daughter and they part ways with the Cook. Mother Courage and Kattrin pull the wagon by themselves.
The Catholic army attacks the small Protestant town of Halle while Mother Courage is away from town, trading. Kattrin is woken up by a search party that is taking peasants as guides. Kattrin fetches a drum from the cart, climbs onto the roof, and beats it in an attempt to awake the townspeople. Though the soldiers shoot Kattrin, she succeeds in waking up the town.
Early in the morning, Mother Courage sings to her daughter's corpse, has the peasants bury her and hitches herself to the cart. The cart rolls lighter now because there are no more children and very little merchandise left.

Roles:

Mother Courage - Tiffany

Kattrin - Yvonne

Swiss Cheese - Shabill

Sergeant - Crystal

Cook - Pierce

Chaplain - Bicton

Yvette Pottier - Claudia

Man with the Bandage - Charles

Old Colonel - Charles

My first thoughts of the script was me thinking, what?! I dont get it! but when i done some more research in to the play i began to think that this script is more dark compared to the short brecht piece that we worked on. when we first read through the script i could really understand what was going on and why Mother Courage loots dead bodies on the battle field, and i also understood why wherever she goes she pulls along a cart full of all th merchandise that she loots from the dead.

Pictures From Mother Courage And Her Children at The National Theatre.