Author Description

Brecht And The Art Of Spectatorship Reveals How Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre Sought To Transform The Viewing Practices Of Spectators, Equipping Them To Critique And Intervene In The World Outside The Theatre. It Explores Vision, Observation, And Spectatorship In Twelve Of Brecht's Plays, Relating This Analysis To His Own Formative Experiences Of Spectatorship, To His Poems And Theories, And To Productions Directed By Brecht And His Close Collaborators. Finally, It Investigates Brecht's Attempts To Transform The Composition Of The Audience And Cultivate Critical Spectatorship At The Berliner Ensemble, The Theatre He Founded With His Wife, The Actor Helene Weigel, In East Berlin After The Second World War. Brecht's Plays Foreground Scenarios In Which Watching Matters, As Characters Witness Acts Of Injustice, Watch Trials Or Punishments, Engage In Surveillance, Or Observe Scientific Experiments. These Instances Of Onstage Spectatorship Show The Theatre Audience What Characters Notice, What They Overlook, And How They Use Or Ignore The Knowledge That They Have Gained Through Spectatorship. Drawing On Unpublished Archival Sources And Material That Has Previously Been Rarely Consulted, Laura Bradley Shows How Brecht And His Close Collaborators Dealt With Onstage Spectatorship In Performance, Presenting Characters As Observers And Spectators From Whom The Theatre Audience Should Learn. By Combining Analysis Of Text, Performance, And Reception, Brecht And The Art Of Spectatorship Provides Rich Insights Into Brecht's Plays, Rehearsal Methods, And Stagings, And The Experiences Of Spectators At Productions Of His Plays In The Weimar Republic, In Exile, And In The Gdr-- Provided By Publisher.