#7 Epic, Poor & Oppressed
Watch & Read (for Tuesday's Quiz)
Brecht wanted to lean into the idea of theater as a tool to upset and educate the world about stuff like the struggles of the working class and the problematic aspects of capitalism. He wanted to SHOCK people into seeing the world as it is and taking action, rather than merely entertain audiences. Today you're going to learn about Brecht, Epic Theater, and a little bit about the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Because those jerks hauled Brecht up in 1948 to shake him down about whether or not he was a communist.
This film looks at the theoretical work of Brecht, featuring archive footage from the 2008 production and interviews with this production's creative team including translator Tony Kushner and director Deborah Warner.
from The Essential Theatre:
Brecht and Growtowski
Poor Theater and Theater of the Oppressed were two sort of concurrent movements that shared some of the same aims. Jerzy Grotowski's Poor Theater eschewed the use of lighting, props, costumes, makeup, and many of the other trappings of "rich" theater. Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed in Brazil challenged the ideas of how plays were written and performed, and blurred the lines between actors and audiences.
Lecture Slides
Vocabulary
Akropolis (play)
Augusto Boal
Bertolt Brecht
Edwin Piscator
environmental theatre
Epic Theatre
Forum Theatre
gestus
Good Person of Setzuan
historification
House Un-American Activities Committee
Jerzy Grotowski
Legislative Theatre
Max Reinhardt
Poor Theatre
regiebuch
spect-actor
Theatre of Sources
Theatre of the Oppressed
theatricalism
Three-Penny Opera
Towards A Poor Theatre
verfremdungseffekt
Brecht & Epic Theatre
EPIC THEATRE. A theatrical form, usually associated with Bertolt Brecht, that emerged in the 1920s. Brecht sought to distance (“alienate”) spectators emotionally in order to help them more objectively watch and judge what they saw. Ultimately Brecht hoped his audiences would relate what they saw in the theatre to conditions in society and then seek to alter the sociopolitical system. Brecht called his theatre “epic” because the alteration of dialogue and narration, with its frequent shifts in time and place, had more in common with epic poetry than with traditional drama.
Grotowski & Poor Theatre
POOR THEATRE. A phrase, introduced by Jerzy Grotowski, to identify a type of theatre that discards all technological aids not essential to theatrical per-ormance. Grotowski concluded that there are only two essential theatrical elements: the actor and the audience.
Boal & Theatre of the Oppressed
THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED. As created by Brazilian theatre visionary and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Augusto Boal (1931-2009), Theatre of the Oppressed (T.O.) is a form of popular community-based education that uses theater as a tool for social change. Originally developed out of Boal’s revolutionary work with peasant and worker populations in Latin America, it is now used all over the world for social and political activism, conflict resolution, community building, therapy, and government legislation. It is also practiced on a grassroots level by community organizers, activists, teachers, social workers, cultural animators, and more.
Supporting Materials
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) makes her Broadway debut with Indecent, her newest work and one of the most acclaimed plays of 2016 when it debuted in New York Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre.
The Artistic Ensemble of Songs and Dances of the city of Mitrovica, at the "EtnoFest" festival in the village of Kukaj, where it was awarded the prize for the best choreographer for the LOGUT Dance, the choreographer of this dance was Choreographer and at the same time artistic director of AAKV Prof. Haki Sh. Mulliqi.
THURSDAY'S ZOOM
Finish Grotowski and Poor Theatre
Kosovar-Albanian Theatre
"Living Room"
Augusto Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed
Break Out: Examples of Interactive Audience
Watch and Discuss Indecent as Epic Theatre
"The Living Room," an opus in the domain of Art as vehicle, takes us home, to a place in which we welcome another. By starting from this fundamental action that can take place in a living room, we enter an investigation into how the potentialities of performance craft can both enrich and be enriched by daily inter-personal relations and realities. How can our room come alive? How can one be with another in such a way that the quotidian slides seamlessly into the non-quotidian? Here the witness has a chance to shed his anonymity, being an individual, a guest. Within our meeting a performative event unfolds, structured and precise, a living stream of actions based on work with songs of tradition, as well as texts exploring what it takes to awaken ourselves faced to ourselves, the other, and the world.