Bertolt Brecht

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Bertolt Brecht (Feb. 19, 1898 - Aug. 14, 1956) was a prolific playwright and acting theorist known for elucidating the alienation effect. After fleeing Nazi Germany to the U.S. during World War II, Brecht was surveilled by the FBI for what was perceived to be a Marxist slant to his plays, and people who attempted to produce his plays were a target for political persecution, fines or imprisonment. After the war, Brecht settled in East Berlin and established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.

Brecht is remembered for requiring his plays to be produced with alienation effects[1], which stand in opposition to the more traditional Stanislovski technique [2] in drama. Whereas the Constantin Stanislavski school of acting attempts to immerse the audience so deeply in belief of its characters that they can imagine themselves as the character, the Brechtian alienation effect deliverately tries to remind the audience that this is a fictional representation. Alienation techniques include tactics as obvious as displaying placards or posters around the set. With theater in the round, merely keeping the audience lit so that each audience member is constantly aware of the rest of the audience can act as an alienation technique.

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ Alienation Effect in Encyclopedia Britannica online.
2. ↑ The book "An Actor Prepares" was first published in 1936 and is the first volume of the translations of Constantin Stanislavski's books on acting, which were published as a trilogy in English, though originally meant to be published as two books in Russian.