Dialectical theatre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'Dialectical theatre' is a label that the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht came to prefer to 'epic theatre' towards the end of his career to describe the type of theatre that he had developed. 'Epic theatre', Brecht felt, had become too formal a concept to be of use any more (and one of Brecht's great aesthetic innovations was to have prioritized function over the sterile opposition between form and content).^[1] According to Manfred Wekwerth, one of Brecht's directors at the Berliner Ensemble at the time, the term refers to the "'dialecticizing' of events" that his theatre produces.^[2]

[edit] Works cited

• Brecht, Bertolt. 1964. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and trans. John Willett. British edition. London: Methuen. ISBN 041338800X. USA edition. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0809031000.
• ---. 1965. The Messingkauf Dialogues. Trans. John Willett. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Ser. London: Methuen, 1985. ISBN 0413388905.
• Willett, John. 1964. Editorial notes. In Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic by Bertolt Brecht. British edition. London: Methuen. ISBN 041338800X. USA edition. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0809031000.

[edit] Notes

	Theories and techniques of Bertolt Brecht v • d • e
	Epic theatre • Non-Aristotelian drama • Lehrstücke • Dialectical theatre
	Fabel • Gestus • Defamiliarization • Demonstration • Not / But • Historicization
	Refunctioning • Separation of the elements • Interruptions • Nodal point • Complex seeing
	The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre • The Street Scene • A Short Organum for the Theatre • Messingkauf Dialogues