Engaging with Brecht

This book makes the case for Bertolt Brechts continued importance at a time when events of the 21st century cry out for a studied means of producing theatre for social change. Here is a unique step-by-step process for realizing Brechts ways of working onstage using the 2015 Texas Tech University production of Brechts Mother Courage and Her Children as a model for exploration. Particular Brecht conceptsthe epic, Verfremdung, the Fabel, gestus, historicization, literarization, the Notbut, Arrangement, and the Separation of the Elementsare explained and applied to scenes and plays. Brechts complicated relationship with Konstantin Stanislavsky is also explored in relation to their separate views on acting. For theatrical practitioners and educators, this volume is a record of pedagogical engagement, an empirical study of Brechts work in performance at a higher institution of learning using graduate and undergraduate students.