Brecht’s Theater: Genre Diversity and Basic Concepts

Abstract

The article is devoted to the drama of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), the peculiarities of its genre palette and analysis of the main factors of the playwright's artistic method. To achieve this goal, the following research methods were used: descriptive; matching method; literary analysis and synthesis. The Brecht Theater is represented by genre varieties of theatrical forms: expressionist drama, musical, opera, operetta, Lehrstück, epic and dialectic theater. The article proves that dialectics is the ideological soil and the conceptual core of the Brecht Theater. The dialectic poetics of a playwright should be understood as the method of analysis and argumentation presented by the Hegelian triad: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. In accordance with the dialectical concept, the Brecht theater puts in the center primarily the principle of contradiction, aimed at a multifaceted understanding of phenomena, overcoming a frozen, ossified way of thinking. The study defines the key concepts and principles of creating the drama of Bertolt Brecht, namely the «alienation effect» (Verfremdungseffekt) and assemblage (composition). The principle of the «alienation effect» is that a familiar phenomenon appears in the theater from an unexpected perspective, and therefore requires awareness of the viewer’s novelty. The means of this is the constant violation of theatrical illusion, the reality of what is happening on stage. The assemblage stipulates that the theatrical action is not a homogeneous system, but is a «made», «constructed» plane of various heterogeneous «materials»: dialogical discourse is interrupted by lyro-epic components (songs); in the musical plan, which is designed in the same style, jazz elements are suddenly «mounted», actors exchange roles during the performance, elements of the cinema «penetrate» the event plane, the causal course of the events depicted is interrupted by the demonstration of banners or posters with provocative appeals. The prospects for further research are the literary analysis of post-Brecht theater, that is, drama, which appeared as an imitation or negation of the dramatic principles of Brecht's theater.