Brechtian Performance- Message Delivery

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Brechtian Performance- Message Delivery

 

Our group explored and used a variety of different Brechtian techniques. Our chosen form of “social improvement” was “safe sex”, and we chose to use a parody of the well-known Bible tale of Genesis to deliver our message, hence juxtaposing contemporary society. We presented it with quite a lot of satire, with physical comedy (the banana and the throwing of clothes whilst Adam [Ryan] and Eve [Steph] were behind the curtains) as well as verbal comedy (“But God said we could do anything but touch the bananas!”). This example of verbal comedy was to parody God’s command to not touch the apples in the book of the Bible. We also had a narrator (Rebekka) who proved to be effective and acted in the style of a “Brechtian” narrator. We had individuals step out of the group to address the audience too – God (Jasmin) talked directly to the audience. This is a very popular Brechtian technique as it breaks the “fourth wall” and jars the audience. God and the narrator also gave stage directions, an example of self-reference which is again jarring for the audience. Since we used a Biblical story, there is already the presence of God, who made the judgment on characters in the end and resolved piece of epic theatre – another Brechtian technique. Also, when God entered, the music We Will Rock You was played in the background, juxtaposing God’s holiness and seriousness and creating opportunities for comedy at the same time.

 

 

I think certain Brechtian techniques were utilized quite well in our piece of epic theatre. By choosing the tale of Adam and Even, we do not need introductions or monologues in order for the audience to understand the characterizations of the roles – even if not everyone is religious, I think it can be assumed that the whole of the audience are quite familiar with the basics of the tale. This allows the audience to be easily engaged in our performance. Our physical and verbal uses of comedy was successful – the audience understood the innuendos and showed this by laughing at the appropriate times. We also presented the Bible view of contraception satirically, and in the end used the narrator to tell the audience what the message really was – to have safe sex. Thus our issue of social improvement was clearly understood by the audience. When God said “to go forth and multiply”, the narrator also held up a placard that said “= MAKE BABIES”, another attempt at humor and also translating the Biblical language to make sure the audience could comprehend and follow the story.

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Critically, I believe we employed the Brechtian techniques well, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. We used self-referencing – both the narrator and God gave stage directions. The narrator also, whilst speaking to the audience, did not speak as herself – instead, she used “The narrator enters stage right and proceeds to tell the audience that this story is going to be about the issue of safe sex.” This use of third person is jarring and effective. God also gave directions to turn the lights on and off, which made the “theatre” of our piece ...

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