Visionary theatre artists Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud were both frustrated by the conventional theatre's "illusions" of naturalism and realism. In retaliation they formed manifestos of change. Artaud, feeling the idea of theatre had been lost, moved towards his "Theatre of Cruelty" while Brecht, refuting the drama of his time as “still follow[ing] Aristotle’s recipe for achieving what he calls catharsis", moved towards a non-Aristotelian mode of Epic Theatre.
Traditional Theatre Practice
Traditionally the Western theatre has been influenced by the theories discussed in Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle outlines a concept of drama that is based entirely on the imitation of an action that is altogether "admirable, complete and possesses magnitude". Aristotle presupposes a dramatic structure that should be coherent through a recognisable sequence that has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Fundamentally, in this concept of drama, the imitated action should evoke a cathartic experience where the spectator is moved by fear and pity to a conclusion where they can be spiritually purged. For Aristotle, "Tragedy in its essence is an imitation, not of men as such, but of action and life, of happiness and misery … In a play … the agents do not perform for the sake of representing their individual dispositions; rather the display of moral character is included as incidents of the plot."
Imitatitive Theatre of Illusion
It was this conventional imitatitive theatre, a "theatre of illusion" aimed at the "elite masses" and bourgeoisie that Brecht and Artaud were frustrated with and attempted to change. Artaud strived for a theatre with no written dialogue that stimulated the five senses, Brecht moved for a theatre that was didactic and would have immediate social and political effect. Both practitioners placed an emphasis on creating a theatre that would be accessible to the masses and that would alter the conventional spectator/stage relationship.
Brecht, inspired by the Chinese theatre, aimed for alienation/ defamiliarisation (verfremdungseffekt), a theatre based on detachment. The actor would not act in the "fourth wall" convention but would express an awareness of being watched. He wrote: "The audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator at an event which is really taking place … The artist’s object is to appear strange and even surprising to the audience … The Chinese artist’s performance often strikes the Western actor as cold … The coldness comes from the actor’s holding himself remote from the character portrayed."
In his theatre the audience would constantly be reminded that they were observing a play, that the theatre is just a theatre and not the world itself. The most exemplary of his V-Effect techniques was the projection of captions preceding the scene so that the audience knew in advance what would happen. Artaud also stated that the stage and auditorium should be abolished so that a “direct contact [would] be established between the audience and the show, between actors and audience.”
Ultimately both wanted a complete rejection of imitation in the theatre. For Brecht, “The stage and auditorium must be purged of everything 'magical.'" Artaud could not “continue to prostitute the idea of theatre whose only value lies in its agonising magic relationship to reality and danger.”
Sources:
- Artaud, Antonin, The Theatre and its Double
- Brecht, Bertholt, Brecht on Theatre (translated by John Willett)
