Techniques- Naturalism and Epic theatre

Brecht believed that theatre should not only reflect society but change it, unlike the naturalistic style which is immersive and psychological developed by Stanislavski. Brecht’s form of theatre is called epic theatre and takes a lot of inspiration from styles like cabaret, Elizabethan plays and new technologies with light and sound which were only just being developed in his lifetime. There are many techniques used in both which are a direct contrast to each other some of which we used and some we didn't in our performance. When naturalistic theatre was at its height Brecht decided to use his theatre technique for a force for change. He wanted to make his audience think and famously said that theatre audience at that time “hang up their brains with their hats in the cloakroom”. In naturalistic or dramatic theatre the audience cares about the lives of the characters onstage. They forget their own lives for a while and escape into the lives of others. Brecht believed that while the audience believed in the action onstage and became emotionally involved they lost the ability to think and to judge. 

verfremdungseffekt- distancing the audience from emotional involvement. 

The audience is reminded throughout that they were watching theatre; a presentation of life, not real life itself. We used this a lot during our performance as we avoided emotional involvement by not having characters or a storyline.  Despite not having an emotional investment the audience still remains invested and engaged by the performances so the message would still be understood. We did this by using movement, music, and poetry that the scenes are always unique and changed. -look to "the show the TEA" for more

Fourth Wall break- the imaginary wall between the actors and audience is broken. 

The audience is treated as apart of the audience and they are kept within the play, This makes them constantly aware that they are watching a play. We didn't use this as much as we could have on better examination of our performance there were definitely more parts where we could have used it The most obvious part in the end when we speak directly to the auidince about how consent using the tea metaphor. We also sat with the audience at the beginning Sarah is sat with them during the tea movement, this is also the same when Elliot is sat in the audience we did this in a way so that the audience felt that it could have been any one of them in the situations we are acting out.

Fourth wall in naturalism.

In naturalism, the production is three dimensional where the fourth wall is a barrier between the actors and the audience. Direct address to the audience isn't used to give a sense of real life.

Narration- tells the audience what is going to happen in the play. Commentary-actors tell the audience what their characters are thinking/feeling.

In narration, the audience is reminded that they are watching a story and the plot of the show is already revealed this also stops emotional involvement. We decided not to use this because we felt that it didn't add anything to out piece, and we didn't have any traditional scenes to narrate. However, we could have used narration or commentary to tell the audience how some character were feeling, fro example during courtnys monologue she doses dorectly say how she feels which is commentary but either myself or Satah could have said those feeling instead to create more distance between her charter and the audience. This couls have been too much fort he audience becasue with the topic being so difficult we didnt want to de-huminaize the storys we where telling. 

Narration/Commentary in naturalism.

During naturalistic plays, commentary or narration isn't used the audience is left to guess how the characters are feeling either through the action or the lines being said. Weather or not the play has calssical story line woth a beginning ,middle or end the plot isnt reviled to the audince.

Given circumstances- facts about your character used in naturalism.

In epic theatre, characters display their emotion and don't use the "what if" method, where you use your own emotional memories to become a character. When you create them whereas in natralism the charcter is fully developed with facts and a back ground. We didn't do this because we didn't have characters in the classical sense where they have a story and a journey to go on. A lot of the performance used poetry and monologues where the emotions are said and clear for the audience. We did think about how the characters felt on a very basic level but not as deep as we would if it had been a more traditional style of play.

Multi-roll- where actors play more than one character onstage.

This is a technique we definitely used we each played at least two different characters and worked as a small ensemble either in the transitions or some scenes. I played a teacher, someone in a toxic relationship during a movement sequence and in the ensemble performing in scenes where I said facts and was in more movement sequences. I tried to make my characters a separate as I could but I could have done this better by chagning my charcterisation. 

Gestus- A Characters gesture or movement used by the actor that captures a moment or attitude rather than delving into emotion.

Gestus is also gesture with social comment, the interpretation should be built on the character’s social role and why they need to behave as they do, rather than looking inwardly at emotional motivation. So we judge the character and their situation, rather than just empathising with them.

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zwmvd2p/revision/7
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxn4mp3/revision/9
https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/bertolt-brecht-and-epic-theatre-v-is-for-verfremdungseffekt