Brecht's aim in alienating an incident or character is to take away from that incident or character what makes it obvious, familiar and understandable and surround it with curiosity. ... (www) In "From A Letter to an Actor" (Brecht, 1964: 235) Brecht speaks of the dangers of the extensive fusion of the actor with his role, leading to the character becoming so natural it becomes impossible for the audience to envision the character in any other way. ... As Brecht himself says, "The actor himself does not become completely transformed on the stage into the character he is portraying." ... ...

• Word Count: 1464
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In this play, through the character Galileo, Brecht reexamines the recurrent theme of obstacles to social progress. ... It was a success because it was highly popular, but it was a failure in that it caused the audience to feel sympathy for its characters, which violated Brecht's technique of "epic theatre." ... He then spent the rest of the year and the whole year of 1948 in Zurich, where he worked mainly on the play Antigone-Modell; an adapted work from the translation of Sophocles. ... However his strong character and intelligence helped him overcome these obstacles and become a ...

• Word Count: 1760
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

After 15 years of exile Brecht returned to Germany in 1948 and spent a year in Zurich working on Sophocles ANTIGONE and on his major theoretical work A LITTLE ORGANUM FOR THE THEATRE. ... Brecht argued that plays should not try to make the audience believe in or identify with the characters on the stage; instead a play should follow the method of epic poetry, which is to make the audience realize that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of past events and it should watch with critical detachment. ...

• Word Count: 1259
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate