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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy

Space and Time in Epic Theater: The Brechtian Legacy

Hardcover

Series: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture, Book 1

Film StudiesGeneral PoetryTheater History

ISBN10: 1571131868
ISBN13: 9781571131867
Publisher: Camden House Inc
Published: Nov 15 2000
Pages: 256
Weight: 1.25
Height: 0.89 Width: 6.26 Depth: 9.28
Language: English
The development of epic theater before, during, and after Brecht's time, and analysis of epic productions, showing the form's continued relevance.

Bertolt Brecht and the director Erwin Piscator developed epic theater in the 1920s because they found Western realism limited to the single perspective of an individual, and thus unable to confront the new realities: technologicalwarfare, revolution, the metropolis, and the mass media, among others. The epic stage juxtaposed the old media of actors and scenery with new media, including film, photography, and electronic sound. Bryant-Bertail provides analyses of theatrical productions in the epic tradition from before, during, and after Brecht's lifetime: Hasek's The Good Soldier Schwejk directed by Piscator; Mother Courage written and directed by Brecht; Lenz's The Tutor directed by Brecht; Ibsen's Peer Gynt in productions directed by Peter Stein and Rustom Bharucha; Büchner's Leon and Lena (& Lenz) directed by JoAnne Akalaitis; and Les Atrides (The House of Atreus) from Aeschylus and Euripides, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine. Bryant-Bertail shows that epic theater's relevance for politically engaged artists lies in its discovery that history, fate, and human nature are spatio-temporal constructs that may be reconstructed on stage.

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Theater History