Friday 26th September 2014

Today was the first rehearsal in the Theatre for our Brecht play, "Fear and Misery of the Third Reich".  Rob wanted us to think about is how to make the play as Brechtian as possible.
To begin with the Brechtian theme, all the actors were placed on stage close to the wings but still evident to the audience that they were on stage. 

Rob set up the stage, placing three chairs equidistant, facing opposite the audience, helping to create further effectiveness to the awareness of the audiences perception that they are watching a play.  The set on stage is to present a suggestive idea rather than realistic although authentic props are used, on a naturalistic set props would be backstage as would the actors be. This is one of Brecht's Epic Theatre's techniques called the alienation effect to create detachment for the audience.

We suggested placards so each scene is introduced and that Sharney would read it or the actors from the previous scene hold it up for the next scene which I felt could be confusing for the audience because the audience might think the placard is for that scene instead of the scene afterwards.
Instead Sharney was made to stand on the side of the stage and read out the prologue but was suggested to stand in the middle of the stage with a spotlight on them which I feel is very Brecht because it engages the audience on a personal level, eliminating the fourth wall as if she is talking to the audience and has stepped out the play to narrate the background of what is going on at the time.
This is evident after the playlet: 'Judicial Process' (Scene 6), just before 'The Jewish Wife' (Scene 9), Sharney is to Break The Fourth Wall, by engaging with the audience by telling them 'Now we see how families are affected'.  Sharney is playing the part of a presenter, presenting what went on behind closed doors of the life of normal people during the rise of Hitler.  The use of narration is to remind the audience they are watching a presentation of a story which eliminates the audience becoming emotionally involved because they are forewarned of the outcome already.

To maintain the theory of Epic theatre so the audience know exactly what's going on, Rob suggested that to link the playlets together we could hang the placards up behind the props, and that Wendy and Parys (the SS men), could be involved in setting up the scenes.
In the playlet 'Charity begins at home' (scene 16), Sharney steps out of the character of being a narrator and becomes the young woman.  Unlike ordinary theatre where there is a character for every actor, Brecht had actors play different characters in Epic Theatre and making the play more Brechtian.
You can cleary see the contrast between the theories of Brecht and Stanislavsky as Brecht plays against the naturalistic style of Stanislavsky.  Stanislavsky wanted the actors assigned to their character to become one with that character thus absorbing the audience into the play while also allowing the audience to relate.  While Brecht wanted the actors to just play the character and not become the character thus the actor has the ability to easily play multiple characters because the actor has no connection to the previous character he played because he has easily disposed of that character to play another one.  Although Brecht and Stanislavsky had different approaches towards the style of theatre, they agreed on the embodiment of truth of that character; despite there being no connection with the character, Brecht wanted the actor to play the character with truth.