For the second part of this session we worked on Brechtian characterisation. We started off looking at an exercise where we would have to walk about and then whatever number the teacher shouts out we would have to get into a group of that number then create a human representation of an object. Then we were given an emotion that we had to personify this object with, which gave it a sense of strangeness. And by doing this it communicated the characteristics of a person and showed the emotional state as well.
Another exercise we looked at was the alienation exercise. It was basically a simple way to create a character where you would isolate a part of your body, then you would push it out and use that to lead your walk then simply add small details like a facial expression, a pace or a gesture to differentiate your character from anyone else. From observing other people you could tell that people were either going for a stereotypical character or something a bit extraordinary. I learnt that by having your initial idea of a character and mixing some other ideas you could change the class of a character, the perspective of a character and the purpose of a character.
For the rest of the lesson we looked at the history of Brecht and discussed his life and his purpose of epic theatre.
- He was a medical orderly during the first world war.
- He married a couple of times and experimented with his sexuality.
- During the second world war he left Germany to move to the USA to get away from Hitler and the German government because he didn’t agree with their ideas.
- He was concerned about communism.
- He believed theatre was a contradiction, he wanted to acknowledge the artificial elements of theatre.
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