Brecht's epic theatre

AuthorEmini Z. Emin
PositionUniversity Of Pristina - Faculty of Arts
Pages297-302
ISSN 2410-3918 Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences Vol 1 No 2
Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania July 2015
297
Brecht’s epic theatre
Emini Z. Emin
University Of Pristina – Faculty of Arts
Abstract
eatre should be the ritual place of God of things as they areBrecht 1920
Although Brecht’s epic theatre and its system is studied in many schools of theatrical
scenic art, in most cases, they are misunderstandings and inaccurate interpretations of
this entirely school of specic scenic – drama knowledge. Oen, Brecht was accused of
his “red” line approach and aesthetic ideology of art, and so, his genius creativity has
remained under-shadowed.
Not only his knowledge for drama and the art, but also, his study and knowledge for
spectators is prominent as well. Moreover, Brecht considers this line of communication as
the basis of scenic theatre-arts, because he is fully conscious that there is no theatre without
spectator. But, ironically, the Brechtian epic theatre is mostly hitted by being alluded as
a the theatre that is used as an instrument for “awareness-education” of mass-spectators,
while, in its essence Brechtian theatre attempts to led the spectator towards his freedom.
Judgment of (anti) socio-cultural values, political, religious, philosophic morals, etc., is
a process that is referred to the freedom of thinking. e objective of the epic theatres is
to oer the satisfaction by evaluating these (anti) values. And evaluation, does not rarely
request transformation. erefore, the transformation that is driven by Brechtian V-eect
is not an ideological transformation, as is very oen attributed to epic theatre, but it is
immanence for critical stand and re-nding of values.
e Brecht eater request to meet with other arts, but, also with knowledge of dierent
scientic elds, it is also named the theatre of science.
Keywords: Epic theater, B. Brecht, V-eect, critical attitude, pleasure (satisfaction).
Introduction
Bertolt Brecht created and formulated several postulates, which in their entirety form
a system. He was a “German poet, playwright and theatre reformer, one of the most
prominent gures of theatre in twentieth century”.
According to him, “theatre is a projection on stage of real or ctive events which present
reciprocal relations between people; a projection which delivers pleasure …, the main role
of the institution called theatre is oering pleasure (Brecht, 1973, 45-46).
e pleasure, according to Brecht, may be spiritual and physical depending on the level of
evolution of the theatre, respectively of society. With the change in pleasure, theatre changes
too. is change, according to Brecht, is dialectic because human society has been evolving
and transforming during history in aspects of civilization, philosophy and morality. Such
a change necessarily determines changes in theatre, because “theatre should reect the
reality”, so that theatre accomplishes one of its functions: provoke the eect of pleasure
to the recipient. In this context, the pleasure of Brechtian theatre intersects with catharsis

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