EPIC THEATRE, the key players, and its significance.

  Epic Theatre • More “militant approach” • Erwin Piscator (1893-1966)- the first major practitioner. • sought to create a “proletarian drama” • Bertolt Brecht (1891-1956) was The movement’s major theoretician and dramatist. • The Three-Penny Opera (1928) Music by Kurt Weill • Went into exile in 1933, while there, he wrote many of his major works • Mother Courage and her Children (1938-1939) • Caucasian Chalk Circle (1944-1945) • Called “Epic” in order to indicate the broad sweep of the theatrical production • Wished to assign audiences an active role in the theatre by making them watch critically rather than passively. • Arrived at the concept of “alienation,” making stage events strange enough that the audience will ask about them. • Make theatrical means visible, divide the scenes into episodes with songs and captions, and narrative passages. • Wanted audiences to relate what they saw with socioeconomic conditions outside the theatre. • Work to change their own world.