The Epic Play will follow a story familiar to the audience. The story is often in the form of a fable, or it will show historical events. Brecht's intention in using known material was to make it unsensational: by taking away any attraction-grabbing ‘wrapping' that an original story may have, Brecht was stripping away a disguise that dramatic theatre often uses.
The form of an epic play is episodic. Whereas the plays of Ibsen or Chekhov will construct scenes that relate directly to every other scene, Brecht's plays consist of a series of lone standing, loosely connected scenes. Scenes were often book ended with musical interludes, captions or gestures. These interludes allowed the audience to reflect critically on what they had just witnessed and also prevented feelings of empathy or the illusion of reality.
His plays were able to stand-alone as Brecht wished to illustrate a story of perspective from many different viewpoints. He likened it to 10 different people witnessing the same car crash. The retelling of the story will be slightly different from each person as they have seen it from a different angle.
The characters in the epic play represent an individual who in turn represents all humankind. This also assists in breaking any empathy that one might feel for a character.
All well and good but our intention is to create characters the children with laugh at and love, that is why we shall only take influences of Bretch.
The Epic Actor
Epic Actors serve as narrators and demonstrators. They retell events and in doing so demonstrate actions and events that assist in the audience's understanding the situation. Brecht wanted his actors to always remember that they are an actor portraying another's emotions, feelings and experiences.
Narration and Song Not only was Brecht a writer, director and producer, but he was also a great poet. He wrote many songs for his productions, mostly in collaboration with Kurt Weill. The purpose of song in his plays is not to heighten the emotion of the scenes but as a means to commentate or narrate what is going on. It is also a form of alienating the audience, for example, in Mother Courage and Her Children, the songs' content may be serious and forewarning of hardships, while the music is happy and light. It shows a lighter side to a deeply serious situation and the dichotomy and ambiguity of it ultimately alienates the audience and makes them question the social realities that are being presented. The music and the action should serve to make each other seem strange. The music composed for USQ's production by Lauren O'Rourke has a very broad style. It is eclectic and each song is composed in a way that questions what the moment and characters are seeking to achieve.
'Theatre in education' emerged in the mid-sixties as a unique hybrid of performance and child-centred learning.
The value of the theatre we produce can be assessed in various ways: • It seeks to build a strong awareness of community through shared experiences of life and entertainment. • It is staged to serve the needs of theatres, schools, prisons and local groups - often in places where performance israre. • It is a creative response to the hopes and fears of our audiences as we commission new plays and re-interpret the classics or any play which gives us wisdom and insight into the human condition. • It seeks to be a forum for social conscience, addressing any issue where justice, peace or the well-being of one person might be threatened by the actions of another. • It tries to develop the talents of others through workshops and training in aspects of theatre craft.
There is one website I found that ties in quite well and it concerns our narrative.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/goodwomanofszechwan/epictheatre
The Epic Play
The Epic Play will follow a story familiar to the audience. The story is often in the form of a fable, or it will show historical events. Brecht's intention in using known material was to make it unsensational: by taking away any attraction-grabbing ‘wrapping' that an original story may have, Brecht was stripping away a disguise that dramatic theatre often uses.
The form of an epic play is episodic. Whereas the plays of Ibsen or Chekhov will construct scenes that relate directly to every other scene, Brecht's plays consist of a series of lone standing, loosely connected scenes. Scenes were often book ended with musical interludes, captions or gestures. These interludes allowed the audience to reflect critically on what they had just witnessed and also prevented feelings of empathy or the illusion of reality.
His plays were able to stand-alone as Brecht wished to illustrate a story of perspective from many different viewpoints. He likened it to 10 different people witnessing the same car crash. The retelling of the story will be slightly different from each person as they have seen it from a different angle.
The characters in the epic play represent an individual who in turn represents all humankind. This also assists in breaking any empathy that one might feel for a character.
All well and good but our intention is to create characters the children with laugh at and love, that is why we shall only take influences of Bretch.
The Epic Actor
Epic Actors serve as narrators and demonstrators. They retell events and in doing so demonstrate actions and events that assist in the audience's understanding the situation. Brecht wanted his actors to always remember that they are an actor portraying another's emotions, feelings and experiences.
Maintaining the Brechtian direction.
ReplyDeleteNarration and Song
Not only was Brecht a writer, director and producer, but he was also a great poet. He wrote many songs for his productions, mostly in collaboration with Kurt Weill. The purpose of song in his plays is not to heighten the emotion of the scenes but as a means to commentate or narrate what is going on. It is also a form of alienating the audience, for example, in Mother Courage and Her Children, the songs' content may be serious and forewarning of hardships, while the music is happy and light. It shows a lighter side to a deeply serious situation and the dichotomy and ambiguity of it ultimately alienates the audience and makes them question the social realities that are being presented. The music and the action should serve to make each other seem strange. The music composed for USQ's production by Lauren O'Rourke has a very broad style. It is eclectic and each song is composed in a way that questions what the moment and characters are seeking to achieve.
http://www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/mothercourage/Brechtian%20Techniques
Theatre in Education, some information I found
ReplyDelete'Theatre in education' emerged in the mid-sixties as a unique hybrid of performance and child-centred learning.
The value of the theatre we produce can be assessed in various ways:
• It seeks to build a strong awareness of community through shared experiences of life
and entertainment.
• It is staged to serve the needs of theatres, schools, prisons and local groups - often in
places where performance israre.
• It is a creative response to the hopes and fears of our audiences as we commission new
plays and re-interpret the classics or any play which gives us wisdom and insight into the
human condition.
• It seeks to be a forum for social conscience, addressing any issue where justice, peace or
the well-being of one person might be threatened by the actions of another.
• It tries to develop the talents of others through workshops and training in aspects of
theatre craft.