Practitioners

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

• wanted to make the audience think
• wanted to provoke a social - critical audience response
• epic theatre

-> relies on audience's reflective detachment rather than emotional involvement

• direct address
• narrator
• multi-roling
• gestus
• placards
• tickle and slap
• music and songs
• alienation
• gestic
• epic theatre
• no fourth wall
• episodic structure
• political message

Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938)

• creates a reality for an audience by actors 'becoming' characters

• the fourth wall
• feeling of truth
• the magic 'if'
• emotion memory
• concentration of attention
• intonation and pauses
• restraint and control

Steven Berkoff (1937-)

the theatre must embrace the expressionist theatricality of the body and voice

• mime
• stylised movement
• exaggerated voice

• stylised movement
• exaggerated facial expressions
• direct address
• exaggerated vocal work
• tableaux
• mask
• ensemble playing
• minimalism
• exaggerated and stylised mime

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)

theatre of cruelty:

• removes boundaries of traditional theatre performance

• theatre of cruelty
• movement, gesture and dance
• masks and puppets
• shocking the audience
• attack on the emotions
• shocking action and images
• striking costumes
• minimal dialogue
• noises, screams
• symbolic objects

Augusto Boal (1931-2009)

• theatre grows from the interchange between actors and spectators
• aims to educate people out of oppression

• promoting social political change
• interactive theatre
• forum theatre
• image theatre
• invisible theatre
• theatre of the oppressed
• short scenes with a strong image that the audience can easily understand and identify with

Jacques Lecoq (1921-1999)

physical theatre:

• mime (with specific focus on mask work)