Small Organon for the theater

The “possession” of the Actor by the character, the beautiful one for the beautiful one, it is one of the aspects of the Théâtre to which Bertolt Brecht was opposed by writing Small Organon for the theater , or Kleines Organon für das Theater , published in 1948.

Against the poetic one

While going up in the history of the theater and with poetic the of Aristote and by taking for example the tragic and comic kinds ancient, it distancie of the idea of the purging of the hearts and the Catharsis: “Which release is this there since at the end of all these parts, which are happy only for the spirit of time (convenient providence - the moral order) we live the oneiric execution which punishes the exaltations like the vices? ”. Brecht refers here to the tragedies of Sophocle, with the comedies and dramas of Shakespeare. It takes in example Oedipus and notes that it is still a beneficial to assemble it because the taboos always exist. It attacks the center of Poetic the of Aristote, namely the finality of the tragedy. The criticism which it makes of Poetic the becomes the center of the “Poetic brechtienne”, the center of the Theater epic.

The policy

It as notes, as in addition to the purging of the hearts, the theater makes false route by reproducing the exact reality of people on scene. He does not believe in this similarity, with this identification which a spectator could have on such character. There should be rather another kind of relation between the protagonists and the spectators. This relation or rather this phenomenon names the distance.

This concept of distance is a notion at the “border of esthetics and the policy”. This base consists in “making perceive an object, a character, a process, and making at the same time it strange, strange”. The goal is to push the spectator “to take his distances compared to reality” to wake up it with reality. The discounted effect will make it possible to the spectator to become aware of his existence, its intrinsic reality and to raise its conscience. The distance politicizes the conscience and desaliene the individual. Its ideas lead us to reflect on the place of art and the relation which it must maintain. One needs from now on a “art of the explanation”.

Brecht explains why the broad topics progressists of our time: namely that the evils of the men are between the hands of the men themselves, i.e. the world is handy, that art can and must intervene in the History; that it must contribute today to the same tasks that sciences, of which it is interdependent. We need from now on an art of the explanation and either only one art of the expression. The theater must help the History resolutely by revealing some the lawsuit; that the techniques of the scene are themselves committed; and that finally there is not a “gasoline” of art eternal, but that “each company must invent the art which will as well as possible be confined it of its own delivery. ”

Observation: imitation and reflection

The actor must observe around him. Of all its being it must note the gestures, to imitate within the framework of a process of reflection. It must amplify what it observes because the original is too discrete, “it is expressed with too low voice”.

The construction of the character is done at the same time as the other characters. It (the actor) must take possession of its character and to calculate in manner criticizes the various demonstrations of this one. The training of a character is done not only in this critical process, but must evolve/move in connection with the other characters. The fictitious object that is the character evolves/moves in a company, a given fable and owes its construction with the reports/ratios of the other individuals.

Not-But

It is important that “the actor” includes/understands “not too quickly”. It must reflect and wonder about the possibilities; it must be astonished. It is a technique which Brecht named “not-but”: The actor must be able to finally play an emotion in the scientific era by the sociological approach, by the interaction which the characters have together.

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