The interrupting of action, the technique which entitles Brecht to describe his theatre as epic, always works against creating an illusion among the audience. Such illusion is of no use to a theatre which proposes to treat elements of reality as if they were elements of an experimental set-up. Yet the conditions stand at the end, not the beginning of the test. These conditions are, in one form or another, the conditions of our life. Yet they are not brought close to the spectator; they are distanced from him. He recognizes them as real - not, as in the theatre of naturalism, with complacency, but with astonishment. Epic theatre does not reproduce conditions; rather it discloses, it uncovers them. [...] to alienate the audience in a living manner through thought, from the conditions in which it lives.
Let me remark, by the way, that there is no better starting point for thought than laughter; speaking more precisely, the spasms of the diaphragm generally offer better chances for thought than the spasms of the soul.
-Walter Benjamin, The Author as Producer
Let me remark, by the way, that there is no better starting point for thought than laughter; speaking more precisely, the spasms of the diaphragm generally offer better chances for thought than the spasms of the soul.
-Walter Benjamin, The Author as Producer
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| Francis Glesner Lee's doll houses to teach forensic investigators about the normal arrangement of the domestic space in mid-century America |
