Investigating Practitioners: Bridging the Gap
The meaning of bridging the gap is when you connect two things or to make the difference between them smaller, for example you would bridge the gap between the educated and non educated.
Bertolt Brecht was a German practitioner, he was 16 when the first world war started which influenced him to create theatre that was objective because of the political views held from the war. Brecht served as a medical orderly in the first world war and was appalled by the effects of the war. When the Nazis came into power in Germany he fled the country and the Nazis formally removed his citizenship so he became a stateless citizen. This gave him a strong political voice which he expressed in the world of theatre, one of his plays "fear and misery of the third rich" highlights the insidious way the Nazis came into power. It is also known as the private life of the master race and its one of Bertolt Brecht's most famous plays which openly portrays Anti Nazis. The play consists of different series of plays which portrays socialism in 1930s Germany, it focuses on the violence, poverty and fear of the Nazis. The plays were anti Nazi and attempted a Marxist view, they were written while Brecht was in exile in Denmark and he was inspired by his visit to Moscow where he witnessed the anti Nazi movement. Brecht's reasoning for these plays was not an idiom but a political movement against the Nazis to show that they could be opposed also showing how Hitler starved his people and politicalized children which portrays the Nazis as bullies and cowards. Another play where Brecht’s theme bridges the gap is The resistible rise or Arturo Ui multirole which is set in a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket. The play is a portrayal of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany prior to world war 2.
When naturalistic theatre was at its height Brecht decided to make a change and wanted the audience to forget about their own lives and to think about the lives of the characters onstage. Bertolt Brecht didn’t want the audience to be emotionally involved with the performance because they would lose the ability to think and judge. He wanted his audience to remain distant and objective from getting emotionally involved because he wanted the audience to make rational judgments about social issues within his work. He created theatrical techniques for example Epic theatre to remind the audience that their watching a presentation of life and not life itself also to distance the audience from getting emotionally involved. His approach to theatre has a political, social and cultural message to help the audience consider different viewpoints or sides to the performance.
Brecht spent the last years in berlin from 1930-1933 working with the Collective on the lehrstucke. These were a group of plays based on morals music and Epic theatre, it was often aimed at educating workers on socialist issues for them to be aware of current issues.
The Good Woman of Schezuan highlights the Aristotelian issues that went on during the time which has Bertolt Brecht’s methods of Epic theatre. The play portrays a young prostitute set in the city of Sichuan china, where she struggles to live her life as a woman because she is seen abused and trod upon. She invents an alter ego pretending to be her male cousin to protect herself in order to live a good life within the society. Brechts use of literay device of split character is a representation of conflict within social an economical terms. In true Epic Theatre style, her transformation happens onstage to accentuate the change. The visual change is effective because…
The Caucasian chalk circle is a play about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother then her original wealthy parents, this play has an example of Brecht’s epic theatre. It shows the difference between two communities, the collective fruit farm and the collective Goat farmers, their trying to manage an area to farm after the Nazis retreated from a village and left it abandoned. “What there is shall belong to those who are good for it” this means what goes around comes around. Bertolt Brecht created Epic theatre which was a theatrical movement that responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of a new political theatre. Epic theatre emphazizes the audiences perspective on and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that causes them to individually get engaged in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre is not to encourage an audience but to suspend their disbelief, but to force them to think about particular moments that are occurring on stage and why there are happening in a certain way
The meaning of bridging the gap is when you connect two things or to make the difference between them smaller, for example you would bridge the gap between educated and non educated.
Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre practitioner and political activist. Augusto Boal was born on the 16th of March 1931 and was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was raised in Rio de Janeiro, he was from Portuguese decent, when Boal grew up Brazil was under dictatorship of totalitarian Getulio Vargas. Augusto Boal lived in Brazil and at the time the government in Brazil were very corrupt and the civilization were being oppressed by the military. He sees the Brazillian government as an example of an oppressive state using theatre to propagate its oppressive system.
Brazils government yet maintained friendly relations with the united states and other democracies. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Boal moved to the united states where he lived in New york, he was formally trained in chemical engineering where he attended the Columbia university with the critic John Gassner. Gassner introduced Bertolt Brecht and Konstantin Stanislavski's techniques. Boal believed that people can use theatre to challenge oppression that they face in everyday life through different techniques such as image theatre, invisible theatre and forum theatre. Boal believed that we all have the language of theatre within us, and that it can be released and put to personal and political use. Boal worked with landless people in Asia, Africa, south America and with the oppressed Homeless people of Europe and the US. This made him realize the problems and issues of oppression across the world, this gave him a strong political voice which he expressed in the world of theatre, one of his plays This While in New York Boal had the opportunity to see a variety of immense plays and production companies which gave him the idea to create the theatre of the oppressed. Augusto Boal believed that in traditional theatre it was oppressive towards the audience and that the spectators should be able to interact with each other so that the spectator becomes the spect-actor. He felt that the audience would have to sit through a performance and would not have the power to change anything that went on in it. Because of the situations that Boal had witnessed through his lifetime in brazil it sparked him to create the Theatre of the Oppressed which he then developed the idea of Invisible Theatre in Argentina in the mid 1960s, which relates to the Theatre of The Oppressed due to its oppression and social issues. Because Augusto Boal believed this he created the theatre of the oppressed which meant that the audience could either pick between being the oppressor or the oppressed.
Augusto Boal invented a variation of games to get the actors in the right mind and body set to interact with others and to be engaged in their surroundings which helped them to discover new techniques. One of Boal's Techniques is called "Interrogation" and it is very similar to hot seating, it was used to get the actor to understand a bit more about their character and to really help and make them believe that they were in the eyes of their character. Boal believed that the actors and spectators should be able to interact with each other so that the spectator becomes the spect-actor. Boal created the games for actors and none actors which were aimed to help the actors explore different techniques through various games to help them when performing. The games for actors and non actors explains every drama exercise that he has found useful when rehearsing or in his practice. The games consists of little academic theory's which relates to Boals academic political ideas, there are many practical examples for drama practitioners to use through out their work. Boal refers to games as "gamesercises", they combine the training and a variation of exercises with the fun and extroversion of games. This has been very influential in the development of community theatre and theatre in education worldwide.
Boal created the rainbow of desire also known as The Boal method of theatre and therapy. The book re evaluates the practices which are commonly associated with the theatre of the oppressed for a new purpose. This mostly concerns itself with creating harmony within society, whereas his early work was concerned with rebellion and oppression. For the people who are the underdogs in society his methodology can be used as a weapon against oppressors so that the under represented become the oppressors. Those in society who are in need of catharsis it can be switched round to empower internal oppressions that separate that individual from society. Boal says that "one can be without being", meaning that objects can acquire different meanings such as an old chair representing a kings throne. He states that the duration counts and location can be changed this suggests that there is a space within a space. The stage is in front of the audience and that the actor is creating his own space which creates the idea that it is impossible to hide on stage and that every aspect of space is seen and it makes the further away close up.
Augusto Boal created forum theatre which relates to the engagement of spectators influencing and engaging with the performance as both spectactors and actors. They will have the power to stop and change the performance which relates to the areas of social justice with aims to explore solutions to oppression in the performance. Forum theatre begins with a short performance either rehearsed or improvised which demonstrates social and political problems. The play will begin with the audience being able to replace or add to the characters on stage to present alternate solutions to the problems faced.
Augusto Boal created the invisible theatre that is a theatrical performance that is enacted in a public area, for example in the street or a shopping centre. The actors disguise the fact that it is a performance from the people observing making it look like as real as an unstaged event. It was developed in Argentina in the 1960s as part of his theatre of the oppressed focusing on the social issues, it developed in the context of increasingly repressive dictatorship in Brazil and Argentina. is a form of theatrical performance that is enacted in a place where people would not normally expect to see one, for example in the street or in a shopping centre. Performers disguise the fact that it is a performance from those who observe and who may choose to participate in it, thus leading spectators to view it as a real, unstaged event. The purpose of invisible theatre was to show oppression in everyday life and everyday settings without any audience members or spect actors knowing. Augusto Boal created the Newspaper theatre in which he attempts to talk about local problems by presenting it to the audiences, also involving forum theatre, invisible theatre which can all be used to discuss political activity and image theatre. Boal created this for another technique for the theatre of the oppressed, these are all based on newspaper articles, headlines books and speeches. ]