01/11/16 - Breactian Technique Introduction and Epic Theatre as a Political Tool

“Because we live in times that are so mental, we can’t tell a story without it feeling political.” Kate Tempest

‘What is the purpose of theatre?’ was the question that started our first session studying political theatre. No one could find a definitive answer, because they ranged from things like ‘To entertain’, or ‘To give insight into the lives of others’, as well as ‘To educate’ - an answer I dislike because although it is very true, something as poetic and entrancing as theatre cannot merely be given the slightly banal intention of ‘educating’. In my eyes, theatre does all of the things mentioned, but its purpose is rooted in the idea that characters are not people, but spirits that the writer is calling upon to create a shadow of life. Consequently, we transcend our bodies, our social casts, our own routine desires and engage with theatre on a spiritual level in a melting pot of souls. The duty of theatre is to allow us to share that and be bonded by it.

Additionally, political theatre is especially important in bonding us to create empathy around prevalent social issues. Bertolt Brecht is seen as the instigator for the creation of performances involving politics, through the movement of ‘Epic Theatre’. In my research of the practitioner, I am particularly intrigued by his belief that the audience must not relate to the characters emotionally in order to receive the social message of the play, and to ensure this they must be constantly reminded of the fact that they are not viewing real life. This is done through techniques such as actors changing costume on stage for multiple roles (this way the characters are seen as facades representing an issue instead of real people), and breaking of the fourth wall to pull viewers out of the action and into self reflection. All of this comes under the term of ‘Distanciation’, which is a key Brechtian feature: the audience are distanced from the emotional content in the play in order to assess the situation morally as well as applying it to themselves.

We then looked at the differences between Dramatic Theatre - propagated by the practitioner Konstantin Stanislavsky- and Brecht’s Epic Theatre. The main difference we found was that with Stanislavsky’s system one ‘becomes’ the character: learning how to move, think, feel and talk like them in the most intrinsic way. However, with Brechtian acting, one aims to ‘represent’ a character, often drawing on stereotypes to present the audience with a commentary on a group of people that the character symbolises instead. Dramatic theatre produces plays ‘about’ something, for example Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ is ‘about’ people’s dissatisfaction with life, but it does not make a viewer think about their own approach to living per se. Meanwhile, Epic Theatre ‘reveals’ something about society - for example, ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ by Brecht reveals attitudes to war, and can make the audience review their own policies on conflict in doing so- and so the two differ in function completely.

We put our understanding of the differences to the test by creating firstly a piece of Dramatic and then Epic Theatre about a current affair found in the news. Our group chose the story of President Hollande of France deciding that the squats set up around Paris by refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict must be removed, stating that ‘those who have the right to claim asylum will go to reception centres and those who don’t will be shown the door’.


Our performance of the dramatic piece included myself and another actor playing middle class house owners protesting about the refugees camping on our street, whilst there were two actors playing the said squatters as well as us having a policeman and news reporters. The outlines of creating this naturalistic piece included being told not to make our scene intentionally funny, as it could then be seen as farcical, which is more an element of epic theatre in this case. We definitely used more coherent and extensive dialogue, as well as clear relationships between characters and narrative. Next, we performed a second time whilst applying Epic Theatre techniques, and there was a huge difference in form, as we took a far more humorous approach to the story to make fun of policy instead of mourn the injustice of the refugees - this felt much more empowering in terms of fighting in the political corner. Our characters also said slogans at times instead of developed speech to negate subtext and display how social groups felt about the refugees, making the political message easily communicated. For instance, in the previous performance I talked with my wife in the piece about how the squatters were causing unease in the neighbourhood, which we did through the norm of a back and forth conversation. In the Epic performance, we stood hand in hand, shouting to the audience in unison ‘Bonjour, we hate immigrants, now fuck off back to Calais!...Oh wait, it’s gone.’ This speech was used instead to represent the generalised opinion of the european middle class, and we showed ourselves to be ‘represent’ groups by all holding signs detailing our place in society. Mine said ‘Am I a… Rich White European?’, whilst the newsreader’s read ‘Am I a...Media Pig?’.
The Brechtian piece was therefore so much more surreal, and in this we identified that it must be so to highlight how absurd a political situation is. In doing this we question why it is accepted as the norm, complying with Brecht’s belief that the purpose of theatre should be ‘not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.’