Giving Away Brecht Notes & Essay

[Absolutezero]

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Ok, so I've just finished my end of session uni essay on Brecht, and I've got a whole heap of stuff left over. Normally, I'd just delete it, but considering how the exam is coming up soon, I though I'd post it here.

If you want a copy of the essay, just send me a Private Message, and I'll email it to you. I'm averaging distinctions at the moment, so the quality is guaranteed.

The notes may seem a little disjointed, because they're mainly just a composite of quotes I've taken from books and schorlary articles. If something just has a page number, the reference is above it:



Brecht is 'the most aggresive and consequential of all younger communist poets'

‘as playwright I have copied the Japanese, Greek and Elizabethan drama (1964b. Brecht on Theatre. Edited and translated by John Willett. Pg 224)

Brecht’s theory of epic theatre, as it appears in the Versuche [1930], is essentially complete. All that follows is an elaboration of the theory in greater detail – none of the basic ideas are changes (hecht 1961, 95-96)

Along with Piscator, 'a theatre of awareness that could comment and communication beyond the linear progression and fragmentary story of the page-play itself (Brecht and Piscator p364

Leo Kerz Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Oct., 1968), pp. 363-369 The Johns Hopkins University Press)

After the second world war, in East Berlin, couldn't afford to embarrass the authorities which subsidized his theatre' p362-3

the stage and audience relationship is the most important reality p366-7

Brecht is not for exploiting present conditions; but he is for changing them.

The theatre is a moral institution, with a tendency to social revolution (Kenyon Review, VII (1945) p467, Viertel, Bertold

Brecht's focus is at once representational and antirepresentational, mimetic and performative together. p635

Azdak teaches the Grand Duke how to eat his cheese with the gestures and expressions of the poor

He wanted his theatre to be politically engaged, economically viable, and aesthetically entertaining (Martin & Bial) Brecht Sourcebook Worlds of performance, routledge 2000, p2

To transform the means of enjoyment into an instrument of instruction, and to convert certain amusement establishments into organs of mass communication ("notes to the opera mahagonny" in Organum 1964)

From the first it has been the theatre’s business to entertain people p180

It constructs its workable representations of society, which are then in a position to influence society 186

Like the transformation of nature, that of society is a liberating act, and it is the joys of liberation which the theatre of a scientific age has got to convey. 196

The oppressive ideology and passivity of theatre are highly complicitous. the manipulative ideology of the status quo means the audience is not allowed to think for itself, and the audience’s position as spectators means it is not allowed to act for itself (Theatre/Theory 208)

A perpetual effort to present something grandiose, but each time it is a fiasco 321 Collected plays John Willet...

Bourgeois whores…, proper and lawful 323

Thinking and feeling were inextricably linked (Mumford 62)

Class struggle resulting in progressive development: dialectical materialism

The oppressive ideology and passivity of theatre are highly complicitous, and the audience’s position as spectators means it is not allowed to act for itself (Theatre/Theory 208)

Brecht used his plays to comment on the political and social standings of the time. He did this to inform the proletariats of the class structure and how it could be change.

How: Through verfredung & dialectics. Critical distance is necessary in order to learn to be able to change.

Gestus: which is a gesture with carries importance within a class structure or surrounding. 'Socially encoded expressions' (Meg Mumford 2009). It revealed social, economic, and politcal stance. Not the same for people of different class. It differs with the power structure. I.e. the bourgeious class's movements would be different if performed by a proletariat.,Essentially, it is the idea that pictures worth a thousand words.

Dialectics: The contradiction with a text, character, or situation, which makes an audience member understand and question this difference. Therefore they realise this, and cricticalise analyse its relation to them and society. Within contradiction, in the theatrical elements, the audience can therefore removed emotionally from their 'trance', therefore able to step back and reflect upon themselves, so that they can be fruitfully entertained with their great problems. (Brecht 1964)

the basis of my plays is marxist

"the theatre of the future."

The need for the individual to assume a representative identity, the collective represents the individual and the individual represents the collective

elicit both audience participation and to produce political education.

[Absolutezero]

Bump. To make this thread obvious til exam is done.

If anyone else has notes they'd like to share with other 09ers, post here.

[Nightsarah]

Wow! I'm not studying Brecht but thanks for sharing your notes and supporting us with this