Dr. Bronner's is Parmenidean Soap
Mar. 21st, 2005 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apollianaI am editing a paper about virtual Brechtian theater--for children. (...)
Actually I think internet forums and video games are the obvious outcome of "participatory theater" types of ideas. I'm not sure about the use of unrealistic acting to prevent the audience from becoming emotionally involved, though. Emotional involvement is described as always paralyzing, like Fred is paralyzed by thinking of his estimation in the eyes of Mary. And I'm not sure it is; or that stylized acting can prevent that (weren't Greek tragedies stylized and done with masks?). Brecht's view does pinpoint something that's always bothered me about certain plays--the sense that what happens in them is all fated, therefore of no interest (my reaction to the Shakespearian comedies + Othello); and a performance of one of these where the actors stop to comment on what they're doing might be good. But I wouldn't want to do detached theater.
Actually I think internet forums and video games are the obvious outcome of "participatory theater" types of ideas. I'm not sure about the use of unrealistic acting to prevent the audience from becoming emotionally involved, though. Emotional involvement is described as always paralyzing, like Fred is paralyzed by thinking of his estimation in the eyes of Mary. And I'm not sure it is; or that stylized acting can prevent that (weren't Greek tragedies stylized and done with masks?). Brecht's view does pinpoint something that's always bothered me about certain plays--the sense that what happens in them is all fated, therefore of no interest (my reaction to the Shakespearian comedies + Othello); and a performance of one of these where the actors stop to comment on what they're doing might be good. But I wouldn't want to do detached theater.
