Dramatic theater seeks to engage viewers’ emotions and make them connect with the characters and their stories. In contrast, epic theater wants to make the audience think about the play and how its different scenes, characters, and plot points correlate to one another and to the real world. To achieve this, one of the tools that is used by many playwrights is Verfremdungseffekt, which can be translated as alienation. In the play Mother Courage and Her Children, Brecht implements this effect through several methods, using music, stage props, characters’ positioning, and more to remind people watching the play that it is fiction. Taking Mother Courage as an example, in one scene, the author creates some physical distance between the actor and the audience to interfere with their immersion.
Most of the methods for alienating viewers and breaking the illusion of theater are physical – they involve objects, moves, and behaviors that are unusual for the audience. For instance, in Scene Three, several important characters, Mother Courage, the Chaplain, and the Cook, discuss politics in Poland. It is a vital part of the play, as the story takes place during a major war in this country. However, the audience cannot see expressions on the characters’ faces or relate to them in this important moment.
According to Brecht’s notes, the actors go “behind the cart, and one hears them talk politics” (Brecht 47, 1.3). At the same time, Kattrin, the daughter of Mother Courage, is placed at the forefront of the stage, trying on a hat and some boots. The contrast between a concealed discussion of a prominent national political issue and a young woman leisurely trying on clothes breaks one’s immersion into the seriousness of the scene. It makes the audience think about what may be hidden behind the words regarding the state of Poland.
Work Cited
Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children. Translated by Eric Bentley. Bloomsbury, 1966.