PERF219 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Bertolt Brecht, Mikhail Bakhtin, Epic Theatre
Chapter Summary
Textbook: The Applied Theatre Reader, edited by Tim Prentki
and Sheila Preston, Routledge, 2009.
Chapter 2 – Introduction to Poetics of Representation
By Tim Prentki (pp. 19-21)
- Poetics play an important part in determining theatre content and what this content
means to both the collective and individual audience.
- The poetics of applied theatre differ from mainstream because of the audience. This
is because there is typically a strong relationship between the manner the piece is
created and the target audience it is created for.
- Therefore, the audience plays a conscious role in decisions made by the theatre
practitioners during the creation of the performance.
-“The content of applied theatre is commonly supplied by the participants directly in
the form of their own stories”
- Mikhail Bakhtin and Bertolt Brecht have influenced the poetics of applied theatre in
the second half of the 20th century.
- Bakhtin raised the “focus on the figure of the fool as an emblem of the popular
tradition who is adept at spanning two worlds: the official and the popular; the
scripted and improvised; the fictional and the real; the stage and the auditorium; the
spirit world and the material world.”
- Brecht developed a way of theatre that demonstrated the need for and inevitability
of social change.
- His ‘epic’ theatre emphasises social and political situations and their impact upon
human actions.
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Document Summary
Textbook: the applied theatre reader, edited by tim prentki and sheila preston, routledge, 2009. Chapter 2 introduction to poetics of representation. Poetics play an important part in determining theatre content and what this content means to both the collective and individual audience. The poetics of applied theatre differ from mainstream because of the audience. This is because there is typically a strong relationship between the manner the piece is created and the target audience it is created for. Therefore, the audience plays a conscious role in decisions made by the theatre practitioners during the creation of the performance. The content of applied theatre is commonly supplied by the participants directly in the form of their own stories . Mikhail bakhtin and bertolt brecht have influenced the poetics of applied theatre in the second half of the 20th century. Brecht developed a way of theatre that demonstrated the need for and inevitability of social change.
