Sunday, 18 November 2012

Brechtian Advice to Actors


Rational, calm detachment,
“The Brechtian style of acting is acting in quotation marks”
The actor should not impersonate, but narrate actions of another person, as if quoting facial gesture and movement.
As the audience is not allowed to identify with any character, the actors is not to identify with them either.
Brecht agrees with Stanislavsky that, if the actor believes he is the character, the audience will also believe it, and share his emotions. But, unlike Stanislavsky, he does not wish this to happen.
Rather than live or ‘be’ the character, an actor must show and portray them – become a representation of that person.
In rehearsals, Brecht advised actors to speak in the third person, the past tense and even say their stage directions in order to help this.
The play is cemented as not being real and the focus moves back to the message.

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