Bertolt Brecht and 21st-Century Verfremdung

Bertolt Brecht & 21st-Century Verfremdung

Event Resource Page:

The following are resources and links to the scholarly works and Verbatim Performance Lab projects referenced in

Bertolt Brecht & 21st-Century Verfremdung as presented on 09 March 2024.

Willkommen

“A bad member of a theatre audience: somebody who has too many and too exact views about what is coming at him. Somebody who has too few and too vague notions about what he is hoping to react positively to. Somebody who does not allow himself to be influenced, either positively or negatively, by the mass of the public. Somebody who is interested neither in the subject nor in the way it is treated”

Bertolt Brecht Journals 1934 - 1955 edited by John Willett & Ralph Manheim

Lehrstücke

“The term ‘Verfremdung’ is the result of Brecht’s playing with old words. ‘Verfremdung’ (pronounced ‘fair-frem-doong’) first appeared in his writings in 1936, since when translators have had almost as much fun with it as Brecht did. ‘Alienation’ is the most common – and most unhelpful – translation, but there have been many others, including: ‘de-alienation’, ‘disillusion’, ‘dislocation’, ‘distanciation’ and ‘estrangement’. All of these versions say something about the word and the artistic strategy it refers to. However, I prefer to use ‘defamiliarization’ because I think it conveys more clearly the fact that Brecht regarded Verfremdung as political intervention into the (blindingly) familiar."

Bertolt Brecht by Meg Mumford

Episode 2:

Make Me A Soap Star

“Short digression on the epic theatre (patent applied for): The incidents are not self-evident; on the contrary, they are ‘incredible’, ‘only too understandable’, amazing, extremely striking, of historical interest, disturbing, giving ground for opti- (or pessi-) mism, are depicted one-sidedly, tendentiously distorted, etc. Hence no identification, no empathy, no going along. On the contrary: criticize, risk predictions, shake your head. Thus the incidents are set up (naturally as naturally as possible), just as in scientific experiments the most ideal conditions possible are provided. Pictures of manners and customs preferred. Motto: I saw it! Individual sentences (and gestures) seen historically. (‘That kind of man would not have said that kind of thing ten years ago.’)”

Bertolt Brecht Letters 1913-1956 translated by Ralph Manheim

Episode 3:

Fallback Plan

"Brecht adopted Marx’s view that history was moving toward communism. However, before that would happen, certain conditions had to be met. Specifically, the proletarian class had to become “class-conscious” and recognize its economically exploited position within society. Brecht believed that he could help make that happen through his art, specifically through one of the defining characteristics of his epic theater, Verfremdungseffekt - distancing or estrangement effects - which were meant to produce a critical detachment between a spectator and the events portrayed so that the spectator could not rely on accustomed ways of interpreting the world."

From "Brecht and Marxism" by Anthony Squiers in Brecht in Context edited by Stephen Brockman

Episode 4:

If you don't mind letting me finish

“Brecht hardly ever used the word Verfremdung in rehearsal… It’s true that Brecht did not ask an actor to perform a ‘Verfremdung,’ but this was because making the familiar strange would actually be produced as a result of the inductive rehearsal itself. The actor engages in Verfremdung in his depiction:… He surprises the audience, but the audience is then able to make the connection between behavior and context.”

Brecht in Practice: Theatre, Theory, and Performance by David Barnett

Episode 5:

Die Kunst Dem Volke

“Just as empathy turns a special event into something ordinary, so Verfremdung turns an ordinary one into something special. The most utterly generic incidents are stripped of their monotony when they are portrayed as special. The spectator is no longer taking refuge from the present in history; the present becomes history.”

Brecht on Performance: Messingkauf and Modelbooks, translations by Charlotte Ryland, Romy Fursland, Steve Giles, Tom Kuhn and John Willett.

Episode 5:

Die Kunst Dem Volke

"This recording captures the 1947 testimony of German author and playwright Bertolt Brecht before the U.S. House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which sought to uncover alleged Communist activity...this 1961 release marks the first time the entire encounter was released to the public--and perhaps the only recording of Brecht speaking in English. The album includes commentary by Eric Bentley, a theater critic and one-time Harvard professor considered a Bertolt Brecht expert. The liner notes include an introduction by Bentley and complete transcript of the recording."