As a director influenced by Brecht, what styles and conventions would you implement in your piece of theatre?

With Brecht being an abstract and absurd practitioner, I would keep in mind that his main philosophy was to use theatre not to entertain but to educate, and to always remind the audience that they are watching a performance - to immerse them is not the main goal. In light of this, I would encourage my actors to occasionally make eye contact with members of the audience, and to allow their acting style to stray from the typical naturalistic styles of acting that practitioners such as Stanislavski might adopt instead. I would encourage robotic tones, diluted pitches in speech, rigid body movement and awkward pauses in conversations between characters. The use of narration, placards, and dark humour would be integral to my piece of theatre, too. To put it succintly, any Brechtian piece of theatre would be characteristic of Brecht in its abstractness first and foremost, and then subsequently followed by absurdity.

JS

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