Week 3 -Priscilla

Of all the Theatre genres that i researched on, Epic Theatre stood out from all the rest. Here is what i found and some suggestions on how to use it.
(Im sorry its coming up so late.. couldnt access the net the past weeks, so here it is)

What we cant really relate to for our piece-
-Capitalism caused all the problems in the world. Communism and Socialism are the solutions.
-Brecht wanted the audience to do something about the issues that he presented on stage. To change the economic situation.

Elements that can work for us-
-He wanted the audience to evaluate the socioeconomic implications of what was going wrong in the world.
-Brecht saw the theatre not as a pace to escape one’s problems but rather as a place to recognize problems that are then to be solved outside the theatre.
-Alienation was achieved by distancing the audience from time or/and place.
-His alienation worked by the process of engaging the audience empathetically and then, through some device (such as a song or as in Greek drama; a chorus), creates the distance needed to evaluate what has been experienced during the empathetic moments.
-Brecht called it ‘Epic theatre’ because it showed similarities with Epic poetry where in dialogue and narration alternated and time and place were quickly transformed.


Each character has an issue related to them-

Gwak-Art scene and issues with an artist
Sarah- Knowledge/Information/Reason/Justification
Mui- Lack of love/Escape
Baby- Abortion
Mug- Self worth/Knowledge vs Wisdom.

When each character has a scene with death (Or wherever it seems appropriate), a ‘chorus’ can appear and give a 3rd person perspective to the issue the character is dealing with. It could be information about the social problem or the cause of it and how no one has been going anything about it. Just like the Steph’s DS, the issue of abortion could be raised.

Basically what the ‘chorus’ will be doing is to alienate the audience and present the issue to them as it is in the world today. If you want, contrasts of the situation can be drawn from the past.

Additional Info-

Lights- Were mostly raw, since he wanted to alienate the audience. However I think we can use the lights POOP used since we have similar intentions of alienation.

Costume- Need not be like poor theatre. In some cases it was quite grand and was made according to the need of the character. So we can still use the half puppet half human idea here.

Sound- There usually is a lot of song in his pieces since he used it as a device to alienate the audience however I don’t think its necessary. No mood music per se was used.
Space- No mention of space and the usage of the stage. (Will get down to more research)