Brecht Was a Great Man

Brecht was a great man of theatre and devised plays that both enlivened and relaxed audiences into breaking the illusion of story. His characters brought a means of expression that he used to reach people in a manner that promoted detachment by opposing sound and image. Brecht's dramatic technique as applied to his play "Life of Galileo" is apart of a theory of theatre known as 'Epic Theatre'. Epic theatre is an anti-illusionist theatre opposite of the concept of Aristotelian's 'Theatre of Illusion'. It is in understanding 'Epic Theatre' that comprehend his dramatic technique.

He had many ways to apply his technique. One way would be his use of long pauses. This causes the audience to reflect and think about what was happening in the play. An example of this is in "Life of Galileo": "GALILEO: How will you get through the winter without jacket? (Pause. Galileo arranges the lenses on the sheet with the sketch)" (Brecht 2008, 10) Long pauses also put the audience back into reality to notice anything else besides the actors on stage. They might notice the set or the reactions from other audience members promoting further contemplation.

Another technique is harsh lighting and empty stages. Having bare stages accompanied by harsh light allow the audience to focus on the words being spoken, and not necessarily on the aesthetics of the stage. Elaborate costumes and soft lighting although beautify a play, may detract from the goal of absorbing the words of the play. Harsh lighting also gives audiences a chance to see the realism of the actors. They can see the nervousness in their faces, the tired expressions. It allows for a more organic and thought provoking experience.

Brecht sought to awaken people from the fiction that he rights. He did this through placards announcing the change of scenes so as to bring the audience back from the story. He felt that getting too engrossed in a story detracts from the point of writing a play in the first place, and that to express an idea, a concept. Brecht felt the need to express his political as well as mundane views through his work and wanted others to interpret it from his work.

Brecht also introduced in his characters the concept of anti-hero. "Life of Galileo" has a direct mentioning of this as Galileo discusses with Andrea the need for a hero: "Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.' No, Andrea: 'Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.'" (Brecht 2008, 58) His reasoning behind the anti-hero was his desire to create alienation or distance within the audience to the play. An article by Millman addresses this. As indicated on the American Conservative Web site: "Brecht's notion of the epic theatre was founded on the concept of theVerfremdungseffekt, usually translated as alienation or distancing effect. This was Brecht's rebuke to Artistotle's theory of drama, founded on the concept of catharsis, an emotional purging that takes place through identification with a character when he comes to a full understanding of the tragic inevitability of his fate." For Brecht, it was always about countering the illusion of traditional dramatic theatre.

Dramatic theatre presents events, traditionally, from the hero's viewpoint allowing for a distortion of judgement and as happening now keeping audiences from detaching themselves from the story. Brecht's dramatic technique sought to disrupt that. As explained previously, he used a myriad of way to keep audiences in the present within the theatre not within the story. He wanted the events of the play to be interpreted as when one reads a book, in the past with commentary added to encourage reflection thus creating epic theatre.

As indicated on the Universalteacher.org Web site: "Epic theatre is historical: the audience is continually reminded that epic theatre gives a report of events." Encouraging the audience to remain detached and separate from the narrative, strange things must be put in place to establish and preserve distancing. V-effekt as defined previously was Brecht's way of doing this. He provides an example of V-effekt through the situation of a child whose mother remarries, thus seeing her as a wife not just a mother. An example from "Life of Galileo is the long and profound speech by the unheroic protagonist which is then followed by the bathetic observation: "Now I must eat." (Brecht 2008, 64)

Galileo as shown through Brecht, is an anti-hero through his cowardice behavior. He fears the instruments of torture that come with bravery. He fails the role of hero through his refusal and lack of courage to prove himself as a great figure. Instead he runs away from refusing to face his problems.

He doesn't fulfill our expectations of what traditionally makes a hero. Aristotelian theory of theatre placed great importance on adherence to unities of time, place and action. In "Life of Galileo', these unities are violated. The time frame within the plot cover decades. They're also shown to have taken place in places not adjacent or near each other, but rather along stretches of great distance.

The hero is not a person seeking a single action with commitment, but rather for many actions that do not form into a single, unifying action. The play also uses narrative form in that it takes past events uses it as material for dramatization. It asks the audience to relate to characters in an observant, unconnected manner. The audience cannot show empathy for the characters, but rather see what happened to allow a critical response. Brecht's desire to continue this went onwards through the way the music was played and used along with the actions done by the characters.