AUDIENCE VS ACTORS

Audience VS Actors

 

Brecht was highly passionate on keeping the audience as the audience members and the actors on stage just actors. Getting too emotionally connected to a performance was simply not an option for Brechtian theatre and he chose to prevent the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the character created by the actor. He often included different techniques within his plays to ensure the audience never forget that they're just watching a play.

 

This was dealt with using a variety of different techniques. Sometimes the actors were accompanied by singing narrators, who explained in more detail what the action was on stage by singing it.

 

To prevent melodrama or emotion from overtaking the audience, comic songs and music are often used to provide emotional details. The effect of this practice can be extremely jarring on an audience unused to Theater of Alienation. Frequently, it leads to cheerful, upbeat tunes with disturbing lyrics. One of the most famous epic theater songs is Kurt Weill’s “Mac the Knife,” which features jazzy, upbeat music combined with the tale of a deranged killer.

 

(Mac the Knife:)

 

 

Sometimes the actors themselves stepped out of character to lecture the audience or to summarise the situations. In many cases, the stage and setting never indicated any locality or placing and Brecht chose to expose the lighting and ropes of the stage set so to reinforce to the audience just what they were witnessing as an audience. In contrast, props are frequently important features that also portray themes or ideas and help indicate a character’s status or profession. Captions or projections are often used to provide quick summaries of off-stage action. This further alienates the audience from believing in the world of the play, and strives to keep them focused on the ideas rather than the characters.