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...
If one can see change happen in the play, then they can assimilate that to possible change in society. Play like "Life of Galileo" show how society could be different, if attitudes deeply embedded in society are altered even if the task seems improbable to succeed. He shows this through Mother Courage in Galileo.
Ultimately, Brecht hoped to demonstrate and explain in his plays the depravity and emptiness of the bourgeois, capitalist society. His goal was to show the audience the possibility and the need for a new society to replace the old. He also believed this social change was inevitable. He wanted to bring change in a way that was long lasting, impactful.
The political allegory was undetected by the audience and at times people assumed different things and came to conclusions not related to Brecht's goal. However, some groups, namely Liberals, caught onto Brecht's viewpoint and his plays became apart of non-naturalistic theatre. Which some might, therefore, see as the work of a dissident, and subversive of the new revolutionary establishment.
References
Brecht, Bertolt. 2008. Life of Galileo. New York, NY: Penguin Classics.
Millman, Noah. Brecht's Galileo: Hero or Anti-Hero? The American Conservative.http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/anti-hero-of-science / (accessed May 6, 2013).
Moore, Andrew. Studying Bertolt Brecht. Universalteacher.org.http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/drama/brecht.htm (accessed May 6, 2013).
