Comparison between Stanislavski and Brecht

Comparison between Stanislavski and Brecht

Stanislavski and Brecht are both very famous and successful playwrights however they both had a very different approach in the ways in which they created there individual work. Stanislavski engaged in and encouraged a realistic style of acting. In turn Brecht encouraged an epic and absurd style of acting. Therefore as a result the major difference between these two directors is Realism and Fantasy. As Stanislavski and Brecht began to develop their own ideas on theatre practice, they faced the conventions of the theatre that had gone before. Neither Stanislavski nor Brecht wished to educate actors or audiences with the existing practices and so developed their own systems to challenge what was before them. As Stanislavski worked against the melodramatic theatre that disgusted him, Brecht later sought to undo some of Stanislavski’s methods. The ways in which Stanislavski and Brecht challenged the theatre that preceded them can be compared and contrasted as in some areas, the two practitioners held similar beliefs, while in other places, such as the truth or symbolism of a character, differed widely.

Brecht’s approach to his epic way of creating plays allowed him and his fellow actors to adopt third person remarks. There was the idea of the actor as a presenter; Brecht introduced actors describing themselves saying lines and sometimes would even read aloud their own stage directions. Brecht’s main focus was placed on telling a story rather than living it he made sure his work could relate to everyday life situations and show the audience a piece of reality on stage. Brecht wanted his audience to connect with the actors through thoughtfulness, to incite participation and action. He would go to all extremes to enable his audience to look further beyond the natural ways in thinking and ordinary life as we know it. He would use song, music and vaudeville style theatrics. Brecht’s epic theatre allows actor’s to take on and portray any different character or role. Brecht’s work was hugely collaborative; he was influenced by his wife Helene Weigel and his troupe, the Berliner Ensemble. Another of Brecht’s key theatrical tactics was “historicization” which used events from the past to create parallels to contemporary issues. His play “Mother Courage” and “Her Children” is considered a quintessential example of this technique. Acting in epic theatre requires actors to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they have "become" the characters. Actors frequently address the audience directly out of character this was known as breaking the fourth wall between the actor and the audience. Brecht also used comedy to distance his audience from the depicted events and was heavily influenced by musicals and fairground performers, putting music and song in his plays. Although many of the concepts and practices involved in Brechtian epic theatre had been around for years, even centuries, Brecht unified them, developed the style, and popularized it.

 Stanislavski was passionate about showing a truthful expression of life on stage. He allowed the audience to use their imaginations; even the stage itself was imagined. Brecht made sure his work could relate to everyday life situations and shows the audience a piece of reality on stage. Brecht wanted his audience to connect with the actors through thoughtfulness, to incite participation and action. Stanislavski resisted the tradition of using sets of previous productions. Detailed and realistic sets were produced. Costumes were produced to be accurate for the production, rather than being a worn costume from the company or pieces of the actor’s own clothing. Stanislavski believed that the truth that occurred onstage was different than that of real life, but that a 'scenic truth' could be achieved onstage. A performance should be believable for an audience so that they may appear to the audience as truth. One of Stanislavski's methods for achieving the truthful pursuit of a character's emotion was his 'magic if.' Actors were required to ask many questions of their characters and themselves. Through the 'magic if,' actors were able to satisfy themselves and their characters' positions of the plot. Stanislavski believed that an actor was influenced by either their mind or their emotion to stimulate their actions and the actor's motivation was their subconscious will to perform those actions. Therefore, motivation has been described as looking to the past actions of the character to determine why they completed physical actions in a script.

Bertolt Brecht and Constantin Stanislavski are regarded as two of the most influential practitioners of the twentieth century, both with strong opinions and ideas about the function of the theatre and the actors within it. Both theories are considered useful and are used throughout the world as a means to achieve a good piece of theatre. The fact that both are so well respected is probably the only obvious similarity as their work is almost of complete opposites.  

Stanislavski’s Method was basically codifying things actors had been using for years into a practical technique, the goal of which was to portray a Naturalistic style of acting that felt like watching real life. It was in stark contrast to the declamatory styles that came before it where actors were very much “acting” (think John Lovitz’s Master Thespian on SNL). The actor’s instrument; their body, voice, face was used to help the actor know their character down to what they wanted in any given moment and the very thoughts they were thinking. (Stanislavski was an actor himself and remarked something like he could never play a Serf because he didn’t know the thoughts that went through the mind of a serf.) Rather than indicating to the audience through obvious gestures, faces, and vocal tricks what was going on for a character, in using Stanislavski’s method the actor can reveal to the audience everything going on in the character’s inner life by sincerely living through the moment-to-moment life of the script.

Brecht on the other hand, was going for an Epic style of acting. He had no desire to have the audience forget they were at the theater and give in to believing the story on stage through a willing suspension of disbelief. He wanted the exact opposite, actually. That’s why he used things like his Alienation effect, to shake people out of falling into the story and keeping their minds thinking and considering the themes of the play. So he did not want his actors to dissolve their personal self and get inside a characters skin. On the contrary he wanted his actors to consciously comment on their characters.

Epic theatre is distinct from other forms of theatre, particularly the early naturalistic approach and later "psychological realism" developed by Stanislavski . Like Stanislavski, Brecht disliked the shallow spectacle, manipulative plots, and heightened emotion of melodrama; but where Stanislavski attempted to engender real human behaviour in acting through the techniques of Stanislavski's system and to absorb the audience completely in the fictional world of the play, Brecht saw this type of theatre as escapist. Brecht's own social and political focus was distinct, too, from surrealism and the Theatre of Cruelty, as developed in the writings and dramaturgy of Antonin Artaud, who sought to affect audiences viscerally, psychologically, physically, and irrationally. While both produced 'shock' in the audience, epic theatre practices would also include a subsequent moment of understanding and comprehension. While not invented by Brecht, the Verfremdungseffekt, known in English as the "estrangement effect" or the "alienation effect," was made popular by Brecht and is one of the most significant characteristics of Epic theatre.

Some of the ways the Verfremdungseffekt can be achieved is by having actors play multiple characters, rearrange the set in full view of the audience, and "break the fourth wall" by speaking to the audience. Lighting can also be used to emulate the effect. For example, flooding the theatre with bright lights (not just the stage) and placing lighting equipment on stage can encourage the audience to understand that the production is merely a production instead of reality.

As with the principle of dramatic construction involved in the epic form of spoken drama amalgamated or what Brecht calls "non-Aristotelian drama", the epic approach to play production utilizes a montage technique of fragmentation, contrast and contradiction, and interruptions.