The techniques used in Brechtian pieces consist of alienation and historification in an attempt to achieve his goals. Alienation comes from the German word “verfremdungseffekt” or “to make strange.” The idea is to separate an audience from being emotionally involved in the performance so as to ensure that they so they are able to gain a better understanding of the issues he was tackling in his play. "Nothing is more important than learning to think crudely. Crude thinking is the thinking of great men." – Bertolt Brecht (Benjamin, 2003.) He believed that if he could distance an audience from the fictional characters, he could then teach them and hence influence them. In order to achieve alienation certain techniques were employed, such as broken scenes, song, humour and half constructed sets. In theory, this supported the quote “In Brecht’s own writings about theatre, his forcefulness and direction was towards changing human society, towards educating an audience and providing entertainment.” – Wallace Heim. In practice, however, such a goal was unrealistic with the particular methods Epic Theatre employed. Humans are
The techniques used in Brechtian pieces consist of alienation and historification in an attempt to achieve his goals. Alienation comes from the German word “verfremdungseffekt” or “to make strange.” The idea is to separate an audience from being emotionally involved in the performance so as to ensure that they so they are able to gain a better understanding of the issues he was tackling in his play. "Nothing is more important than learning to think crudely. Crude thinking is the thinking of great men." – Bertolt Brecht (Benjamin, 2003.) He believed that if he could distance an audience from the fictional characters, he could then teach them and hence influence them. In order to achieve alienation certain techniques were employed, such as broken scenes, song, humour and half constructed sets. In theory, this supported the quote “In Brecht’s own writings about theatre, his forcefulness and direction was towards changing human society, towards educating an audience and providing entertainment.” – Wallace Heim. In practice, however, such a goal was unrealistic with the particular methods Epic Theatre employed. Humans are