GLOSSARY

agitprop

Agitprop is a type of political theatre that uses bold

rhetorical techniques to inform and mobilize its audience about
urgent social issues. Its name derives from the Department of
Agitation and Propaganda established in 1920 by the Soviet
Communist Party. While agitprop theatre has been used in many
diferent times and places, it was particularly prominent during
the interwar years in Europe, where it was associated with
Marxist politics. Brecht reworked many characteristic features of
the form, including: episodic structure, sloganistic banners, mass
chants, heroic tableaux, satire, emblematic scenography, direct
address and audience participation. While agitprop tends to
instruct its audience about the way forward in a forceful and
often reductive manner, Brechts theatre invites the spectator to
develop a problem-solving attitude towards a complex and contradictory world.

alienation

Following Marx, Brecht held the assumption that

labour power the capacity to transform nature was a fundamental aspect of
human nature. Furthermore, he agreed that the
removal of the workers ownership of their labour power under
capitalism had caused alienation from self and fellow worker.
Rather than enjoying their own creativity and ability to satisfy the
needs of others, labourers were reduced to machines and commodities for whom
work was a disempowering activity that perpetuated exploitation. In his theatre
Brecht used various
Verfremdung or defamiliarization strategies to expose alienation as
a historical, man-made phenomenon, and to rouse spectators
to use their capacity to control and transform their lives and
social relations.

Aristotelian

This was the classifcatory adjective that Brecht

applied to Western dramaturgy and performance that he rejected
as idealist, fatalist and psychologizing. Brecht associated this
dominant tradition with the dramatic theories of the ancient
Greek philosopher Aristotle (384c. 322 BC). Speaking from the
perspective of a historical materialist, Brecht claimed that the
Aristotelian tradition was underpinned by ideas and practices
that impeded social revolution. These included: the idealist notion
that consciousness determines human being; the fatalist idea that
human nature is unalterable and given at birth; and the universalizing tendency
to downplay social diference and promote
instead humankinds shared common humanity. Brecht also
argued that these ideas were embodied in dramaturgical devices,
such as an uninterrupted linear dovetailing of events that focused
attention on the unfolding of the protagonists given destiny. The
aspect of Aristotelian performance that he regarded as particularly
ill-suited to a revolutionary agenda because it reproduced the
familiar and presented it as given and eternal was its emphasis
on imitation and associated psychological processes such as
empathy and catharsis. Against this dramatic theatre of presenttense, dialogue-
based drama, Brecht pitted a dialectical epic
theatre, which interrupted the drama with narrative commentary
and illuminated the world as a construct open to change.

epic theatre Epic theatre is the umbrella phrase Brecht used to

describe all the technical devices and methods of interpretation
that contribute to the creation of an artistic social(ist) commentary and engaged
spectActor. The term epic recalls the ancient
genre of the long narrative poem which dealt with subjects such
as national history and which was recited by a solo performer.
This mode of literature and performance tells something about
the peoples past as opposed to showing it in present-tense,
dialogue-based form. Brecht began regularly referring to his
theory and practice as epic theatre in the mid-1920s, a time
when many artists in the Weimar Republic were using the epic
mode as a vehicle for utilitarian social commentary. Brecht
appropriated not only the ancient epics narrator fgure and
emphasis on reportage, but also its episodic structure that he
used to create astonishing juxtapositions that illuminated the
contradictions and changeability of humankind. In the early 1950s
Brecht announced that it was time to discard the phrase epic
theatre, for, while it had helped reinstate narrative commentary,
it had also become a formal concept associated with an inflexible
opposition to dramatic theatre. From his new vantage point, the
phrase dialectical theatre appeared better suited to conveying the
politics, content and form of his work.

Lehrstck Between 1926 and 1933 Brecht and his collaborators

wrote a series of Lehrstcke (learning-plays), including wellknown texts such as
The Mother, The Measures Taken, He Who Said
Yes and He Who Said No. Unlike the Schaustcke (show/showing
plays), which were designed to be subversive presentations to the
passive consumers of mainstream capitalist theatre, Brecht conceived the
Lehrstcke as material for producers. In particular, they
were targeted at participants involved in efecting the transition
to socialism, be they the pupils at the Karl Marx School in BerlinNeukln during
the Weimar Republic, or the founders of socialist
East Germany. Brechts radical Lehrstck theory was that the
copying and correction of a characters behaviours in an ethically
complex social scenario would give performers an opportunity to
rehearse interventionist thought and action. While Brecht took an
active involvement in Schaustck stagings of the plays, his focus
remained their function as experiential pedagogy for performers.
Many influential practitioners since Brecht have been inspired by
this pedagogy, most notably the Brazilian performance maker and
politician Augusto Boal (b. 1931).

spectActor In this book the term spectActor is used as a playful

descriptor for both the type of actor Brechts theatre requires,
and the type of spectator he sought to cultivate. The Brechtian
G L O S S A R Y 1 7 5
performer is a spectActor in so far as s/he must act out or imitate
the actions, thoughts and feelings of the character to be portrayed,
as well as critically watching and demonstrating their behaviour
from a socially engaged perspective. The actor-cum-commentator
in turn reminds the audience that they too are capable of adopting
an activist approach to the stage and social world; that is, the spectator is
encouraged to be a reflective interventionist. Here the
Brechtian spectActor meets the spect-actor of Augusto Boals
Theatre of the Oppressed. What distinguishes Boals spectator is
that s/he also enters the action on stage, either through verbal
means or by literally walking onto the playing space and changing
a characters actions and the events of the play. Brechts theatre
usually maintains a physical separation of actor and spectator,
with the latter remaining in the auditorium, although the
Lehrstck participant provides a notable exception.

Verfremdung and V-efect Verfremdung is a German word coined

by Brecht and used to refer to artistic strategies that both arouse
new insights into concealed or overly familiar social phenomena,
and initiate problem-solving activism. Brecht often referred to
these strategies as V-efects. Examples include: making the lighting apparatus,
musicians and set changes visible so that human
labour power is put on full display; interrupting the flow of action
through the insertion of narration, songs and direct address
which draw attention to the social causes of the events; and
generating a split between the contemporary actor-demonstrator
and the historical character which illuminates the historical and
changeable nature of humankind. Brecht began using the term
after he became interested in Marxs theory of Entfremdung (alienation).
However, to translate Verfremdung as alienation is misleading for at least two
reasons. First, while Brecht certainly used
V-efects to reveal systematic alienation under capitalism, this was
only one of the thematic concerns they were applied to. And
second, the term alienation encourages the misinterpretation
that Brecht sought a separation of actor, character and spectator
that mimicked rather than subverting the hostilities of alienation.
In this book the preferred translation is defamiliarization, a word
that conveys his desire to illuminate the (blindingly) familiar
status quo.

Documentary theater

Verbatim theater