Brecht was part of a generation and society of workers that did things because they were part of a society. So being a director, or an actor meant that the work you produced had to make a difference in the world. Spectacle and outcome is what matters to Brechtian theatre and is what puts him at the heart of Political Theatre acting.
The first time that Brecht put on Mother Courage, the audience were too sympathetic towards Mother Courage, which was the opposite reaction to what he wanted - for the audience to observe and investigate Mother Coarage. He then developed, through rehearsals, this form of acting, so that the audience were clearly distant from the actors and the play. He believed in the human ability to question and investigate themselves and each other and he wanted to expose that in his theatre.
Brecht wanted his audience to focus on the progression of the story rather than how it's going to end. In order to create this reaction, he made his actors remove emotion and focus on textual specifics and gesture. He believed that political theatre mustn't be emotional because it created this barrier where the audience couldn't be informed. He took away the emotional depth that naturalistic plays had to make way to content that informed the audience on the world. He wanted his audience to read human nature rather than get lost in it. He made his actors, in a way, portray stereotypes for this reason.
An example of doing this in 'In the Beginning' is the action we will be performing will be performed in a way that will clearly define that we are telling a story - clearly defining gestures and our lines to show that they have a meaning in creating an intellectual search in the audience for similarities in society rather than in our emotional reactions to things. In this sense, Brechtian theatre is content lead theatre.
When you narrate what is happening in a scene through singing whilst the actions are happening, this is a way of distancing emotions from the audience and getting them to observe. However, to the actor it feels robotic and unnatural. But what is important about Brechtian acting is that it is to begin an intellectual conversation in the audiences minds to allow them to make an informed decision as to what they believe. Naturalism informs an emotional reaction that is instinctual, rather than intellectually thought out.
Some ways in Brechtian acting of distancing your character from the audience is big gestures with your hands as you speak - like you are quoting the action from what you saw and heard before and in the way you speak the lines. You are an actor, consciously telling a story - you have no emotional attachment.
From what I have learnt about Brechtian acting, I feel that a lot of what I read about Brecht in the Routledge Performance Practitioners book was over complicated in the language left me distanced from Brecht. But taking part in exercises and listening to people talk in videos about Brecht's work in this lesson has helped simplify it for me. I can now see why this is such an important aspect and influence on political theatre today because it allows the audience to react in a way that can bring about change and inform the audience.
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