Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre was in direct contrast to that encouraged by the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski, in which the audience was persuaded—by staging methods and using the alienation effect—to believe that the action onstage was “real.”

Bertolt developed a violently anti-bourgeois attitude that reflected his generation’s deep disappointment in the civilization that had come crashing down at the end of World War I. Among Brecht’s friends were members of the Dadaist group, who aimed at destroying what they condemned as the false standards of bourgeois art.


NON- NATURALISTIC - Epic Theatre

Alienation: The act of distancing the audience from emotional involvement

Brecht influenced the history of drama by creating epic theatre. The purpose of it was to address the audience directly with analysis, argument, or documentation with a didactic drama presenting a series of loosely connected scenes that would avoid illusions and often interrupt the storyline.

He loathed the theatre of realism and thought that if the audience believed in the action onstage and became emotionally involved they would lose the ability to think and to judge. This was based on the idea that the theatre should not seek to make its audience believe in the presence of the characters on the stage but instead make it realize that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of past events or a presentation of life, not real life itself. 

To reveal the social factors the influence human action, behaviour and thought

Society needed to be visible in Brecht’s theatre – otherwise, it would have been difficult to suggest a relationship between human beings and their social contexts.

TECHNIQUES