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Journal articles on the topic 'Brecht'
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1
Schechter, Joel. "Brecht After Brecht." Theater 17, no. 2 (1986): 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01610775-17-2-4.
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Bornheim, Gerd. "Brecht ainda hoje?" Pandaemonium Germanicum, no. 4 (November 5, 2000): 47. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/1982-8837.pg.2000.64137.
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Der vorliegende Aufsatz versucht, Argumente für die Aktualität Berltolt Brechts zu finden. Es werden Parallelen zwischen Brechts epischem Theater und der Musik, insbesondere der Oper, aufgezeit. Dabei spielt die für Brecht so wichtige Ästhetik der Form eine zentrale Rolle, die entscheidend für seine Modernität ist.
3
Zurbach, Christine. "Homem = Homem? Brecht = Brecht?" Sinais de cena, no. 8 (December 2007): 93–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.51427/cet.sdc.2007.0054.
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Hillesheim, Jürgen. ""IN THE JUNGLE OF RELATIONSHIPS." BRECHT, CASPAR NEHER AND THE WEST GERMAN POST-WAR CULTURAL INDUSTRY." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 43–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.43-51.
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The article deals with little-known or unknown facts from the biography of Bertolt Brecht in the first post-war decade, when he began to be transformed into an icon in the art of the German Democratic Republic. But in reality, the writer, as throughout his life, continues to look for different ways to realize his own creative plans and popularize his work in both parts of Germany: in socialist East Germany and in capitalist West Germany. Bertolt Brecht resumes quite active cooperation with Caspar Neher. This talented artist, with whom Bertolt Brecht had been friends since his youth and had a number of successful theater projects before Brechts emigration in 1933, not only did not leave Germany after the Nazis came to power, but also continued to work with theaters and after 1945 quickly became successful in West Germany, which was "an enemy" to the GDR's cultural policy. This is one of several examples of Brecht's unexpected creative collaboration, which goes beyond the narrow framework of his reception as a purely socialist author and demonstrates the importance of his primary task of achieving success in theatre, rather than ideological correctness. In the post-war years, Brecht was ready to deal even with partially compromised artists. This contradicts the widespread and simplified and idealized image of the author as a supporter of communism.
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Ankhym, O., and M. Ankhym. "BERTOLT BRECHT AND THE TRANSNATIONAL THEATRE." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 9 (December 26, 2023): 14–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.9.2023.14-24.
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Transnationality and transculturality, which have been attracting increasing attention within the scientific community in recent decades, have become an integral part of modern literature. Decolonization and globalization, as well as the mobility and migration caused by them, have become triggers for the blurring of ethnic, national, and cultural boundaries. These processes have also found their embodiment in literature. The transnational turn observed in literature since the 1990s shows that the understanding of literary works within national frameworks no longer corresponds to modern reality, and nations, cultures, and identities are featured with convention, fragmentation, and hybridity. And although consideration of transnationality is mostly focused on lyric and epic works, its manifestations take place in drama and theatre as well.
This article examines the influence of Bertolt Brecht on contemporary transnational and/or transcultural theatre. It is noted that the manifestation of transnational elements in the playwright's work occurs both at the level of his plays and performances. In particular, the effects of alienation used by B. Brecht to depict the strange, foreign and unusual in one's own self have a significant impact on the formation of transnational theatre. Another manifestation of the transnational is the playwright's departure from the idea of closed nations and cultures in favour of open, conditional and fluid ones. An important aspect is also the intertextual references of his plays, which are artistic interpretive models of famous works of the past and thus enable their existence through space and time. Focusing on the processes of alienation, B. Brecht's epic theatre shows the hybridity and fragmentation not only of cultures and nations, but also of identities, therefore encouraging readers and viewers to search for the strange in themselves. At the same time, topics and problems raised in his plays and performances are not limited to local or national contexts, but are transnational in their nature.
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Westermann, Bernd. "Hundert Jahre Brecht – Brechts Jahrhundert?" Informationen Deutsch als Fremdsprache 27, no. 2-3 (June 1, 2000): 238–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/infodaf-2000-2-363.
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MARKELL, PATCHEN. "POLITICS AND THE CASE OF POETRY: ARENDT ON BRECHT." Modern Intellectual History 15, no. 2 (November 22, 2016): 503–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1479244316000366.
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Hannah Arendt's essay on Bertolt Brecht has often been understood as an indictment of Brecht's postwar accommodation with the Stalinist regime in East Germany, in line with Arendt's supposed commitment to a firm separation between poetry and politics. Offering the first full reconstruction of the transnational history of Arendt's writing on Brecht, this article shows instead that Arendt's essay was a defense of Brecht against the polemics it is often taken to exemplify. Joining poetry to politics by holding both at a distance from philosophy, Arendt assigned poetry the vocation of disruptive faithfulness to factual reality, which allowed her to praise Brecht on political grounds and to leverage forbearance for his political “sins.” Indeed, by narrating Brecht's “sins” and “punishment” against the grain of Cold War discourse about the poet, Arendt's essay emulated aspects of the poetic practice she admired in Brecht's writing.
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Turley, Elliott. "Martin Revermann. Brecht and Tragedy: Radicalism, Traditionalism, Eristics." Modern Drama 66, no. 1 (March 1, 2023): 135–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/md-66-1-rev6.
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Brecht and Tragedy gives a genealogical account of Brecht’s engagement with tragedy and uses tragedy as a lens to analyse several Brechtian works and ideas. Exhaustively researched, it is valuable both for its detailed work on Brecht and tragedy and its analysis of Brecht’s theatre more broadly.
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Martin, Carol. "Brecht, Feminism, and Chinese Theatre." TDR/The Drama Review 43, no. 4 (December 1999): 77–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/105420499760263543.
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American feminist theatre theorists have taken to Brecht's “Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting”. But what did Brecht know about Chinese acting? Could feminists benefit by looking past Brecht to the Chinese theatre itself?
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Asimakoulas, Dimitris. "Brecht in dark times." Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 17, no. 1 (December 31, 2005): 93–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/target.17.1.06asi.
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This paper will place Brecht’s published works within the socio-political context of the Greek junta (1967–1974). After preventive censorship was lifted in 1969, a massive import of Brecht’s works occurred. Brecht was immediately incorporated in the recently established tradition of serious books addressing important social issues, bringing the reader closer to modern thought and kindling the desire for democracy. Two of the most influential publishers of the time published Brecht’s works and actively subscribed to this trend of defiance against the regime in the publishing industry. The publishers’ activity as well as the content and paratextual elements of Brecht’s works they launched constituted instantiations of the discursive motif of dark times introduced by Brecht himself to describe oppression and distortion of truth.
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Sousa, Celeste H. M. Ribeiro de. "Da imagem do Brasil ao teatro de Brecht: A peça Baal." Pandaemonium Germanicum, no. 4 (November 5, 2000): 109. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/1982-8837.pg.2000.64165.
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Das Stück Baal des jungen Brecht enthält eine Anspielung auf Brasilien. Aus der Interpretation des dort vermittelten Brasilienbildes kann sich eine nützliche Diskussion entwickeln, um das Theater Brechts im Unterricht einzuführen und den Schüler zur Beschäftigung mit ihm zu motivieren. Der vorliegende Aufsatz will dazu anregen, die Auseinandersetzung mit Brecht mit seinem Erstlingsstück zu beginnen, und skizziert dazu einen möglichen Weg.
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Evenden, M. "Die Burgschaft, or "Brecht ohne Brecht"." Theater 30, no. 3 (January 1, 2000): 63–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01610775-30-3-63.
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Costa, Iná Camargo. "O teatro épico de Brecht." Pandaemonium Germanicum, no. 4 (November 5, 2000): 27. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/1982-8837.pg.2000.64058.
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Dieser Artikel ist eine gekürzte Fassung des Kapitels "Sinta o drama" aus dem gleichnamigen Buch. Er untersucht Brechts Gründe, sein Theater als episch zu bezeichnen, ausgehend von wichtigen Literaturkritikern wie Peter Szondi, Adorno, Lukács und Anatol Rosenfeld sowie Brecht selbst.
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Lamberth, Annabell, and Philip Dingeldey. "Von der Entfremdung zur Verfremdung. Das epische Theater zwischen Kunst und Marxscher Sozialtheorie." Soziologiemagazin 16, no. 1 (November 15, 2023): 41–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.3224/soz.v16i1.04.
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Mit dem epischen Theater schuf Bertolt Brecht Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts eine neue, experimentelle Form des Theaters, die darauf abzielt, die Zuschauer*innen zum distanzierten Nachdenken und Hinterfragen der Gesellschaft anzuregen, also nicht nur Soziales in Kunstform zu behandeln, sondern die Gesellschaft selbst in den Reflexionsprozess zu integrieren. Um dies zu erreichen, setzte er Techniken zur Desillusionierung und Verfremdung ein. Bei Brechts Stücken handelt es sich um Kunstformen, die sozial intervenieren und daher nicht nur der literatur- und theaterwissenschaftlichen, sondern auch der sozialwissenschaftlichen Betrachtung bedürfen. Hierzu liest der vorliegende Aufsatz den Künstler Brecht als Sozialtheoretiker und untersucht, inwiefern die Entfremdungsproblematik bei Marx und die Verfremdung bei Brecht in Verbindung stehen und inwieweit die Verfremdungseffekte die Entfremdungsproblematik zu lösen versuchen. Methodisch wird theorievergleichend und analytisch vorgegangen – was die Beziehung von Marx‘ Entfremdungstheorie und Brechts epischen Theater betrifft. Beispielhaft wird das Verhältnis von Ent- und Verfremdung anhand des Stücks Der gute Mensch von Sezuan beleuchtet.
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Ankhym, O., and M. Ankhym. "BERTOLT BRECHT AND HELMUT BAIERL: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL INTERPRETATION." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (March 15, 2023): 7–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.7-15.
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Helmut Baierl with his unique dramaturgy, special methods and ways of depicting reality was subjected to numerous criticisms and became one of the most controversial creative personalities in post-war Germany. His plays caused discussions not only in the GDR and FRG but also beyond their borders. There is still no unanimous opinion among literary critics about this playwright and his significance for drama. Some scholars call him an epigone of Bertolt Brecht, others call him a follower, then there are those who consider him an innovator, etc. Therefore, taking into account the unreflected artistic experience of this dramatist in modern literary studies, as well as his pronounced creative dialogue with B. Brecht, the article aims to give an objective assessment of H. Baierl's work and trace the playwright's implementation of the main principles of epic theatre. H. Baierl’s work with its inherent synthesis of theoretical and creative interpretations confirms the conclusion that creative writing is a dialogue of one artist with another one/ ones which results in a creative and / or theoretical interpretation of the works of the latter one / ones.
Considerable attention is paid to H. Baierl’s theoretical and practical (creative) interpretation of works by B. Brecht. It is stated that H. Baierl’s works, presented as a plurality of creative interpretation models of different levels with certain inherent elements of parody / stylization based on their pretexts, are a synthesis of a theoretical interpretation of B. Brecht’s ideas and a creative interpretation of his plays. H. Baierl not only continues the dramaturgical traditions of the master, but also adopts his characters in a certain way, tells their stories further, tracking them under other socio-historical circumstances. A comparison of the plays of both playwrights and their theoretical works shows a kinship in views on the purpose and aim of drama, as well as a community of ideological and aesthetic principles.
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Bondareva, O. "BERTOLT BRECHT AND SLOBODAN SCHNEIDER: WAR. RELIGION. WOMAN. THEATER." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 26–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.26-42.
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Global issues fixed in the diachrony of world culture by the concept of "war", as well as modern methods of its aesthetic interpretation, are seen today as extremely promising for Ukrainian literary studies, which is now actively rethinking how and through which models the artistic representation of modern military events should take place and their reflection in experience/living.
The article offers a comparative literary analysis of B. Brecht's plays "Mother Courage and Her Children" and S. Schneider's "Snake Skin", in which, in the setting of the Thirty Years' War in Europe of the 17th century. contains deep ethical and philosophical reflections on the war as such and aesthetic reflections of two outstanding European playwrights on the war events of which they became contemporaries.
If B. Brecht’s play has many literary interpretations, including in Ukraine, S.Schneider’s play is being interpreted by Ukrainian literary studies for the first time. The intentions and artistic resources of both texts are compared through the conceptual series War – Religion – Woman – Theatre. In interpretation B. Brecht’s war is horizontal-processual and geographically dispersed, in S. Schneider’s she is cyclical and permanent, localized in a closed topographical and mythological space.
It is illustrated how playwrights conduct a dialogue with the world cultural tradition regarding religion/faith as a factor in modern war, the peculiarities of female figurative potential and female (not)subjectivity in aesthetic interpretations of war belonging to the 20th century are revealed, B. Brecht’s "epic theater" is compared and S. Schneider’s symbolic and allegorical theater. The study complements the problematic field of modern humanitarian reflections, activated by Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022.
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Smith, James. "Brecht, the Berliner Ensemble, and the British Government." New Theatre Quarterly 22, no. 4 (October 20, 2006): 307–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x06000509.
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It is well known that Bertolt Brecht, during his time in the United States of America, attracted the surveillance of anti-communist forces, with Brecht's sly testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities becoming one of his most famous public performances. Recently declassified files from Her Majesty's Government reveal that Britain, too, undertook extensive campaigns to monitor and censor Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble. James Smith considers material from British governmental agencies such as MI5, the Foreign Office, and the Cabinet Office, which detail the activities undertaken by the British government concerning Brecht and the Ensemble. Such activities took the form not only of monitoring Brecht and his circle, both in Britain and overseas, but also of active attempts to block the visits of Brecht and the Ensemble, and to pressure theatre festivals and promoters into refusing to facilitate tours. The issue of the Berliner Ensemble caused debates at the highest levels of Whitehall, influencing the delicate area of British and NATO policy regarding the diplomatic status of East Germany during the Cold War. James Smith has completed a doctoral dissertation at Cambridge examining the influence of Brecht on British theatre. He currently teaches modern drama in the Faculty of Education and at Homerton College, Cambridge.
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Ibs, Torben. "Die Innenseite des Augenblicks." Theater heute 64, no. 3 (2023): 65–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.5771/0040-5507-2023-3-065.
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BARNETT, DAVID. "On Being Had: Publishing an Article on a Literary Fake." Theatre Research International 47, no. 2 (June 22, 2022): 200–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0307883322000098.
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In 2002, I published an article in Theatre Research International called ‘Heiner Müller as the End of Brechtian Dramaturgy: Müller on Brecht in Two Lesser-Known Fragments’. I had written my doctoral dissertation on Müller, and, in the course of my studies, had come across two shorter pieces that, to my knowledge, had not been discussed by scholars. The first was Philoktet 1979 (Philoctetes 1979), a short, parodic and grotesque treatment of the Philoctetes myth, something very different from Müller's more sombre adaptation of the same material, published in 1965. I had heard Müller read the comic piece at the Berliner Ensemble in March 1995 and located the source in a copy of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, printed in December 1978. The second piece was also parodic and also appeared in a newspaper. Nachleben Brechts Beischlaf Auferstehung in Berlin (Brecht's Afterlife Intercourse Resurrection in Berlin) featured in the Volkszeitung in July 1990.1 The title suggested that Müller was ironically quoting his own back catalogue, echoing his play Leben Gundlings Friedrich von Preußen Lessings Schlaf Traum Schrei (Gundling's Life Frederick of Prussia Lessings Sleep Dream Cry) (1977) and Germania Tod in Berlin (Germania Death in Berlin) (1978). Stylistically, it looked like a heightened version of the technique employed in Philoktet 1979, in that it drew on and collided more Brechtian intertexts, and referenced Müller's own work more extensively. My doctoral supervisor had found the short playlet in the Volkszeitung. It was one of five responses to Brecht from prominent German literary figures, including Peter Handke and Martin Walser, collected under the title ‘Brecht: Stimmen der Dichter’ (Brecht: The Writers Speak). In my article's fifth footnote, I observed that while Philoktet 1979 appeared in the only extant bibliography of the playwright at the time, Nachleben Brechts did not. It would be hard to conceal an amount of smugness in my observation. But such self-satisfaction is not a quality worth airing too publicly, as will become evident soon.
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Borkovska, O. "THE EMBLEMATIC CODE OF B. BRECHT’S "WAR PRIMER"." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 9 (December 26, 2023): 39–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.9.2023.39-56.
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In times of Russian military aggression against Ukraine the world’s anti-war literary heritage has been particularly relevant. The article analyses the peculiarities of "War Primer" by B. Brecht and its connection with the emblematic traditions of the Baroque era. Hence, "War Primer" resembles a photo album with photographs and commentaries on them. The historical sequence of the depicted events is evident – each photo is accompanied by a commentary, and almost every photo has a caption with reference material at the end of the album. All visual materials were published in Swedish and American newspapers. The combination of visual-iconographic and verbal interpretation along with didactic functions is reminiscent of Baroque emblems. It is particularly noteworthy that the comments on the photographs appear in the form of epigrams. The presented article also includes the translation of the epigrams from German to Ukrainian as well as an interpretation of the ways in which Brecht created the alienation effect. In addition, the category of chimerism is characterized as a form of combining the real visual and the conventional verbal types of the artist’s comprehension and representation of a certain topic. It is emphasized that emblematism is a form of expression of chimerism. The article focuses on the didactic functions of the created emblems along with the development of a certain topic by the author – Brecht aims to show, characterize, and convey to people the tragedy of war so that it never happens again. From the other perspective, "chimerism" is perceived as a combination of the conventional (a literary work, a plot, or an image that was created in the last century) and the reality: nowadays artistic work exists in a new way, develops, acquires a new interpretation and a new vision.
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Macenka, Svitlana. "Bertolt Brecht’s Idea of Collective Creativity." Pitannâ lìteraturoznavstva, no. 108 (December 29, 2023): 97–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.31861/pytlit2023.108.097.
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The most recent research in the theory of authorship has been used to put forward an original idea about the collective creativity of the German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956). It is stated that according to Bertolt Brecht scholars, there still does not exist a definition for the “collective creative work process” (Nadia Dimassi). At the same time, Brecht never concealed his creative principle, highlighting in his theoretical texts how important collective creative collaboration was for his work. Moreover, this specific principle is particularly important for understanding the creative phenomenon of the talented German artist. It is established that the concept of collective artistic creation manifests modernist qualities in his creativity, namely lyrics. Brecht believed that one isolated artist’s depiction of the modern world in its extraordinary complexity was insufficient and dubious. It has been established that Brecht’s concept of collective creation developed in several directions: throughout his life, his creative work involved friends and peers whose knowledge and skills he particularly valued, including his numerous beloved women. The artist was, thus, convinced that art was a collective affair. In addition, it is known that Brecht did not consider creative texts as being complete. For him, they were temporary versions in a constant state of creation. A particular moment of development came with their staging. Brecht had a particular attitude towards existing literary material – he believed he was a craftsman as far as texts were considered, so he developed his own “poetics of plagiarism”. A comparison with “Wagner’s total work of art” revealed intermedial aspects of artistic products created by Bertolt Brecht. The artistic specificity of the “Brecht machine” has been summarized, and the principles of its operation have been identified.
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Oliander, L. "DER VERWUDETЕ SOKRATES BY BERTOLT BRECHT: PECULIARITIES OF NARRATIVE SYSTEM." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 65–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.65-72.
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Poetics is used to characterize the fictional and philosophical concept of B. Brecht’s short story, as well as the narrative means employed to create the image of protagonist – philosopher Socrates who finds himself in a crisis during the battle with Persians. The paper reveals the sense-creating role of the short story composition. It is demonstrated that in terms of narration type the story can be divided into two unequal parts: the first part is a (quasi) encyclopaedia article where Socrates is depicted as a philosopher and educator, a courageous person who met his end with dignity and a brave warrior. The second part consists of a number of visual images-stories that can be conditionally named as follows: “Socrates before the battle”, “Socrates and a small shield”, “Socrates criticizes suppliers”, “Soldiers and Socrates at halt”, “Commander’s shout”, “Battle landscape”, “Memories and reflections of irritated Socrates about his evening conversation with a young foolish aristocrat who commanded cavalry”; “The aristocrat details his battle plan”; “Socrates’ ironic attitude to this plan and his thinking about it”; “Escape”, “Imitation of the attack against Persians”, “Wounded Socrates is carried away”, “Socrates and his wife”, “Socrates glory”, “Philosophical musings of Socrates-pacifist about the causes of war”. The peculiarities of B. Brecht’s narrative system are studied.
One of them is that every paragraph centered around Socrates is an expressive image which can be realized on the canvas, on the stage and in the cinema. It was found that every scene, in its dynamics, reveals the protagonist’s character, his ways of thinking and krainia under different circumstances. It was established that the scenes of Socrates’ escape and the imitation of the army attack against the Persians are the most dynamic.
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Coelho, Caco, Fernando Peixoto, and Willi Bolle. "Mesa-redonda - A estética do teatro de Brecht." Pandaemonium Germanicum, no. 4 (November 5, 2000): 125. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/1982-8837.pg.2000.64191.
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Drei Erfahrungsberichte über Bertolt Brechts Theater auf brasilianischen Bühnen. Caco Coelho spricht über den Zyklus der Brecht-Lesungen, -Aufführungen und -Vorträge seiner Theatergruppe Os Fodidos Privilegiados 1998 in Rio de Janeiro. Fernando Peixoto vertritt die Ansicht, daß der zentrale Punkt von Brechts Theater darin besteht, Emotionen im zwischenmenschlichen Verhalten und in ihren politisch-historischen Kontexten verstehbar zu machen. Er erzählt unter anderm von einer "Wiederentdeckung" der Brechtschen Theaterästhetik durch eine Laiengruppe in Amazonien und vertritt insgesamt ein undogmatisches, auf die heutigen Verhältnisse ausgerichtetes Lernen mit Brecht. Willi Bolle berichtet von seiner Inszenierung von Brechts Die Hochzeit (1919) mit einer Laien-Theatergruppe in São Paulo 1997-1998, in der die lineare Struktur des Textes durchbrochen wurde durch die Einführung einer neuen Perspektive sowie einer neuen Figur, der Braut, die sich das Hochzeitsfest in der Erinnerung vergegenwärtigt.
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De Vos, Laurens. "A Tale of Truth." Theater 51, no. 2 (May 1, 2021): 74–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01610775-8920538.
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Laurens De Vos examines the ways in which director Milo Rau incorporates the poetic and aesthetic techniques of alienation theorized and pioneered by German director Bertolt Brecht for purposes similar to but distinct from Brecht’s. Like Brecht, De Vos argues, Rau exploits the “cesura between actor and character” to highlight the nature of the theatrical event for purposes that are largely social, drawing attention to systems of power, privilege, and violence. De Vos posits that unlike Brecht, however, Rau does not use these techniques to draw attention to the constructedness of the theatrical event—instead, Rau seeks to make the representation itself real, blurring the line between fiction and reality to trouble and implicate the audience.
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Durrani, Osman, and Ronald Speirs. "Bertolt Brecht." Modern Language Review 84, no. 1 (January 1989): 260. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3732068.
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Crow, Brian. "“African Brecht”." Research in African Literatures 40, no. 2 (June 2009): 190–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/ral.2009.40.2.190.
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Mews, Siegfried, Martin Esslin, Ronald Hayman, Wolfgang Jeske, and Franz Norbert Mennemeier. "Rethinking Brecht." German Quarterly 59, no. 1 (1986): 106. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/406215.
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Lewis, Ward B., James K. Lyon, and Hans-Peter Breuer. "Brecht Unbound." German Quarterly 70, no. 1 (1997): 87. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/407860.
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Barker, Clive. "Reinterpreting brecht." History of European Ideas 13, no. 6 (January 1991): 860. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-6599(91)90161-q.
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Cardullo, Bert. "Brecht andFanshen." Studia Neophilologica 58, no. 2 (January 1986): 225–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00393278608587948.
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Klein, Hans H. "Arnold Brecht." Göttinger Jahrbuch 49 (2001): 105–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.62013/49-007.
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Rennert, Hal H., Marc Silberman, Antony Tatlow, Renate Voris, and Carl Weber. "Revolution 1989: Whither Brecht? The Brecht Yearbook 16." German Studies Review 16, no. 2 (May 1993): 391. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1431695.
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Costabile-Heming, Carol Anne. "The Other Brecht II/Der andere Brecht II." German Studies Review 17, no. 2 (May 1994): 412. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1432505.
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Schoeps, Karl-Heinz J., Siegfried Mews, Philip Thomson, Dieter Wohrle, Detlev Schottker, Robert Heinz Vellusig, Elizabeth Wright, Michael John T. Gilbert, and Roswitha Mueller. "Brecht und kein Ende? Acht Bucher zu Brecht." German Quarterly 64, no. 4 (1991): 557. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/406671.
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Nadel, Ira B. "Boxing with Brecht: David Mamet and Bertolt Brecht." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 26, no. 1 (2011): 103–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/dtc.2011.0005.
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Haryati, Isti. "Providing Space to the Marginalized: Bertolt Brecht’s Reception of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera." Poetika 10, no. 2 (October 31, 2022): 99. http://dx.doi.org/10.22146/poetika.v10i2.76100.
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The popularity of John Gay’s political satire play The Beggar’s Opera in the English literary world prompted a German writer, Bertolt Brecht, to respond to the work. The purpose of this study is to describe Bertolt Brecht's reception of Gay’s Play The Beggar’s Opera in Brecht’s Play Die Dreigroschenoper. The data sources in this study are the text of Brecht’s play entitled Die Drei Groschenoper and the text of Gay’s play The Beggar's Opera. This research is based on the theory of Reception Aesthetics by Hans Robert Jauss. The results show that Brecht’s reception was influenced by his horizon of expectations, which plays a central role in determining a writer’s reception of a work of literature. Brecht’s horizon of expectations, which is related to his Marxist view, distinguishes Brecht’s play from that by Gay. Brecht’s intention to make a play that enlightens his audience made him present a more explicit depiction of marginalized people in Die Dreigroschenoper, which was performed in the form of epic theater (episches Theater). By providing space to the marginalized, Brecht aimed to criticize capitalism which began to grow in Germany after the country’s loss in the First World War and divided the German society into two classes, resulting in various social issues. Brecht’s criticisms are different from Gay’s criticisms in shedding some light on the moral degradation in England at the time.
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Stöppler, M. "DESCENDANT: BETWEEN AND TO DESCENDANTS." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 87–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.87-97.
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The article presents an original interpretation of one of Bertolt Brecht's most famous poems "To Descendants". Through the prism of the philosophy of the 20th century, the multifacetedness of the concept of "individual" was analyzed and the characteristic features of the concept of "individualism" were considered. Turning to the works of Bertolt Brecht and the philosophical work of leading thinkers of the last century provides an opportunity for an unusual look at the classic work of the German poet.
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MOKLYTSIA, M. ""HISTORICISM" OF THE NEW EUROPEAN DRAMA (LESYA UKRAINKA – B. BRECHT – Y. KOSACH)." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 9 (December 26, 2023): 83–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.9.2023.83-93.
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The article deals with the development of the historical theme in drama, the stage of the new drama traced on the examples of Lesya Ukrainka’s plays "Boyarynya", 1910, B. Brecht’s "Mother Courage and her children", 1939, Y. Kosach’s "Action about Yuriy the Victorious", 1947. The first collection of these different texts under one slogan ensures the scientific novelty of research. The purpose of the research: to trace the development of the historical theme in the modernist drama of the 20th venture and outline the problematic aspects of the concept of historicism of the new drama.
The analysis of three dramas allows us to make a conclusion about the historicism of different aesthetics systems, romantic, realistic and modernist. A romantic story is, in fact, the metanarrative of national history, which is written with the aim of producing a national one identity, elevation of national culture. Realism focuses on displaying modernity, indifferent to historical topics, but gives authors of historical topics a lot of image means necessary for the effect of authenticity. Modernism in the displaying of historical events is miscellaneous. It is important to highlight the symbolist, expressionist and surrealist methods of mediating historical material. Most of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramas are historical or mythological subjects belonging to the genre of symbolist drama, in which the price of the choice is realized between private and public, which every person makes in any era. B. Brecht’s Epic / expressionist theater is a unique story that goes on and on. The playwright forces the viewer to look at the story consciously and critically, not emotionally, to see it through the eyes of a playwright who has already gone through his path of self-awareness. Surreal the picture of history is painted by Yuriy Kosach: his historical event is also distanced, but looks like a labyrinth in which a person wanders and blindly chooses between good and evil. It is always a story appropriated by the author.
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Mokadem, Fatima. "Zu Bertolt Brechts Sonett „Über Kleists ´Prinz von Homburg´." Traduction et Langues 9, no. 2 (December 31, 2010): 31–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.52919/translang.v9i2.472.
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On Bertolt Brecht's sonnet "About Kleist's 'Prinz von Homburg'
In addition to his plays, socio-critical, war and love poems, Bertolt Brecht (b. 1898, died 1956) wrote eight art-critical sonnets. which he called "Studies" and published in 1951 in the 11th issue of "Versuche". These sonnets were written during the exile in the years 1934-1940. Brecht is referring here to classic, mostly literary (both lyrical and dramatic) works whose authors are considered classics in the sense of Brecht. Without exception, the sonnets in question deal with works of the past, more than half of the analyzes in the “Studies” refer to works of the German classics, three of them to those of the Weimar Classic. The "Studies" published in 1951 are not about an overall assessment of a classic work, positive or negative, but about conveying reservations about traditional literary material, which Brecht considers worthy of being examined and looked at again. These include the sonnet "About Kleist's play 'Der Prinz von Homburg'", which refers to the play "Prinz Friedrich von Homburg", which stands at the end of German classicism and which Heinrich von Kleist wrote between 1809 and 1811 as the last work before his suicide Has. In this contribution, which I presented as a lecture at the Humboldt University in Berlin in June 2010, I attempt to carry out a linguistic analysis of this sonnet in three points. First I give a brief overview of the development of Heinrich von Kleist's drama "Der Prinz Friedrich von Homburg", then about the critical sonnets "Studies" by Bertolt Brecht, then historical and socio-critical aspects are explained using examples from B. Brecht's sonnet "Über Kleists' Prince of Homburg'” highlighted.
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Schaad, Martin. "Eine Rehabilitierungs-Maßnahme Alfred Kurellas Kritik an Bertolt Brechts Lob der Parteidisziplin." Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 63, no. 3 (2011): 273–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157007311796533949.
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AbstractThis essay seeks to illuminate the motives behind Alfred Kurella's damning review of Bertold Brecht's Lehrstück The Measures Taken. This review of 1931 is commonly regarded as having turned the official marxist literary critique against Brecht, straining the relations between the playwright and the nomenklatura for the years that followed. Yet, a closer examination of Alfred Kurella's biography reveals that his review of The Measures Taken has much less to do with Bertold Brecht or with marxist cultural politics, than with the serious political difficulties its author was facing at the time.
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Haryati, Isti. "TRANSFORMASI TOKOH PEACHUM DARI DRAMA THE BEGGAR’S OPERA KARYA JOHN GAY KE DRAMA DIE DREIGROSCHENOPER KARYA BERTOLT BRECHT." Metahumaniora 12, no. 3 (December 2, 2022): 264. http://dx.doi.org/10.24198/metahumaniora.v12i3.41211.
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Tranformasi tokoh bisa terjadi ketika sebuah karya diresepsi oleh karya lain. Drama Die Dreigroschenoper karya Bertolt Brecht merupakan karya resepsi dari drama The Beggar’s Opera karya Jogn Gay yang tokoh utamanya, yakni Peachum mengalami tranformasi. Artikel ini membahas transformasi tokoh Peachum dari drama The Beggar’s Opera karya John Gay ke dalam drama Die Dreigroschenoper karya Bertolt Brecht. Studi ini mengaplikasikan teori resepsi hans Robert Jauss. Data penelitian ini berupa Hauptext dalam bentuk dialog dan monolog, serta Nebentext dalam drama The Beggar’s Opera dan Die Dreigroschenoper, serta data-data lain yang memuat informasi mengenai bagaimana trasformasi peran tokoh Peachum drama Die Dreigroschenoper. Sumber data dalam penelitian ini adalah teks drama berjudul Die Drei Groschenoper karya Bertolt Brecht, dan teks drama The Beggar’s Opera karya John Gay. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa tokoh Peachum dalam drama Die Dreigroschenoper karya Bertolt Brecht mengalami transformasi peran dan karakter. Transformasi peran dan karakter Peachum dari drama The Beggar’s Opera karya Gay dan ke tokoh Peachum dalam drama Die Dreigroschenoper karya Bertolt Brecht disebabkan karena pengaruh horison harapan yang dipunyai oleh Brecht. Transformasi peran dan karakter yang terjadi dari resepsi karya tersebut berlatar ideologis. Idiologi marxisme yang dianut oleh Brecht menyebabkan Brecht menciptakan tokoh Peachum yang berbeda dan mementingkan materi (kapital) di atas segala-galanya.
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Gil, Maria de Fátima. "Literature and science: Galileo and Brecht." Biblos 1 (2003): 135–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/0870-4112_1_8.
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Krygin, Nikita N. "EPIC THEATRE: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE SPECIAL THEATRICAL EDUCATION." Arts education and science 1, no. 34 (2023): 54–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.36871/hon.202301054.
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The theatre of Berthold Brecht is well known in the Russian theatrical space. Attitudes towards Brecht's dramaturgy and his theories have changed at different stages in the development of Soviet and Russian theatre art, and approaches to staging his plays in theatres have also changed, but the practice of authentic reading of the epic theatre theory still remains poorly understood. The author systematizes the most characteristic elements of Brecht's epic theatre, such as alienation and social gestus, and considers the practical aspects of their implementation (miseen- scène, music, scenography) in authentic or closely related theatre productions, as well as theatrical forms, which to some degree meet the goals and the tasks that Brecht set for the theatre. The author reconstructed the system of epic theatre in the work on the play "The Threepenny Opera" with the final year students of the "Theatre Directing" specialty, in which an attempt was made to rethink the foundations of the Brecht theatre from a contemporary perspective. In conclusion, the author considers the experience of this work as a factor in the formation of students' abilities for creative search beyond the formal techniques learned in the basic school of Russian psychological theatre.
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Hillesheim, Jürgen. "Strategische Grenzgängereien: Bertolt Brechts Arbeitsbeziehungen zu Künstlern mit NS-Vergangenheit." Wortfolge, no. 7 (October 25, 2023): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/wss.2023.07.08.
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Bertolt Brecht wollte von seiner Jugend an ein bedeutender Schriftsteller werden. Dazu gehörte in seinem Selbstverständnis unbedingt der Erfolg: Ansehen, Berühmtheit, Geld, das er mit seiner Dichtung verdienen wollte. Geradezu strategisch plante er seine Karriere. Dabei war eine gewisse moralische Biegsamkeit von Vorteil, die u.a. dazu führte, dass er stets Kontakte zu einflussreichen Persönlichkeiten suchte, ohne sich besonders um deren politische Verortung zu kümmern. Besonders bemerkenswert sind in diesem Zusammenhang seine Kontakte zu Vertretern der nationalsozialistischen Kulturelite, die Brecht seit den späten vierziger Jahren suchte und pflegte. Dem wurde in der Forschung bisher nicht in angemessener Weise nachgegangen. Vielleicht um das Bild Brechts als eines sozialistischen Säulenheiligen nicht in Frage zu stellen?
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Macenka, S. "SONGS FROM BERTOLT BRECHT’S THE THREEPENNY OPERA: FUNCTIONING WITHIN THE DRAMATIC TEXT AND BEYOND IT." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 52–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.52-64.
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The history of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera ("Die Dreigroschenoper", 1928) reception has been used to analyze the literary and musical genre of song, its specificity for the German cultural space of the time, attachment to the new American and long-standing German song tradition, its dependence on the manner of performance, voice performability, gesture character and aesthetic requirements of epic theatre. Based on the theoretical considerations of the German playwright and his own experience of performing, songs are viewed both as an element of "play with music" with an emphasis on their innovative functioning within the text and as independent art phenomena which played an essential role in popularizing The Threepenny Opera in general and its specific ideas and ways of their implementation in particular. A significant characteristic of Brecht's songs has been highlighted – their focus on impacting the public, which resulted in their great popularity. In this respect, a connection with the aesthetic experience of street musicians should be mentioned as the founding element in the aesthetics of Brecht's songs, with an accent on the link with jazz as a popular performative art; on the importance of the voice of performer, which was supposed to reflect interactions with the author, character, and composer; on the masterful music created by Kurt Weill for the songs. A new link between text and music, defined by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as "gestic music", has been characterized. A claim is made that songs like texts designed for singing, where the form and language are aimed at making an impact on the listener, which serve as an attraction in the general performance, work successfully due to relevance, ballad nature, cognizability, repetition, external simplicity and even banality, aphoristic nature, satiricalness, indexicality and performability of the ideas they contain. Analysis of the most popular songs ("Mack the Knife", "Pirate Jenny") involves ideas of the philosophers Theodor W. Adorno and Ernst Bloch.
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Astrakhan, N. "SOCRATIC DIALOGUE AS A LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL PROTOFORM OF B. BRECHT’S DRAMATIC WORKS (BASED ON THE PLAY LIFE OF GALILEO)." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 16–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.16-25.
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The article examines Bertolt Brecht’s play Life of Galileo in the context of the tradition of Socratic dialogue as a derivative of carnivalized serious and laughter forms of antiquity. The philosophical and literary genre of Socratic dialogue is characterized by a focus on searching for truth, its comprehensive polyphonic discussion, the technique of provoking with a word, and checking the thinker’s truth with his life and death; all these features are revealed in Brecht’s epic drama. The artist's innovative dramaturgy is philosophical in nature, subordinated to the objective of giving thorough consideration to the main problem of the work, building a complex system of dialogical microcontexts, the correlation of which is supposed to highlight the possibilities of its solution to the fullest extent. The poetics of epic drama moving towards the "dialectical theatre" (Bertolt Brecht’s concept) is designed to transfer the intellectual and philosophical conflict embedded in the depicted events into the viewer’s consciousness. Influenced by the aesthetics of this poetics, the viewer is supposed to change their established views on the present and, therefore, their behavior in the contemporary world, which requires a person to take active actions based on understanding the truth hidden in the depths of historical reality.
The article pays special attention to the artistic concept of man, embodied in the image of Galileo, a scientist ahead of his time who comes into conflict with the conservative majority. An artistic interpretation of the central image, in particular, Brecht’s representation of its close connection with the Renaissance, alienates the play’s material from the author’s time and personality. However, paradoxically, this alienation actualizes the lyric and biographical principle laid down by the playwright in the image of the main character; it creates prerequisites for generalization, which makes it possible to emphasize the continuity of the tradition of a selfless search for truth and constant relevance of this tradition from the era of antiquity (Socrates and Plato) through the Renaissance (Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei) to the author’s present (Brecht and his contemporaries: artists and scientists with their behaviours in the situation of severe political pressure).
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Pryshchepa, O. "MEANS OF CREATING THE COMIC IN B. BRECHT'S NOVEL "THE BUSINESS AFFAIRS OF MR JULIUS CAESAR"." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 8 (February 28, 2023): 73–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.8.2022.73-86.
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In the article, the author makes an attempt to identify the laughter types and to give them a literary characteristic, as well as to determine the means used for their creation in order to explain the artistic nature of the comic, being a peculiarity of this work of the outstanding German writer. The research is based on the original text and its Ukrainian translation. The theoretical considerations rely on the analysis of existing in modern literary studies statements regarding the artistic features of B. Brecht's work, in particular regarding the properties of his laughter, which is often outlined by researchers as an artistic trope that performs the function of expressing the artwork idea. The author of the article substantiates and illustrates her reflections with relevant quotations from the text of the novel. Since the laughter in this work actually has an ideological basis, the peculiarities of the embodiment of the work idea with the help of artistic figures, which in their essence are varieties of the comic, are paid a special attention to. B. Brecht builds the ideological background of the novel by means of characters’ remarks and thoughts, action, plot, as well as at the level of artistic images, the descriptions of nature in particular. Despite the incompleteness of this novel, its idea is clearly outlined by B. Brecht. It is developed with the help of various laughter types - from hidden irony and humour to grotesque and caustic satire and, according to researchers, sometimes to sarcasm and sardonic laughter. The author of the article proves the evolving nature of laughter in B. Brecht's novel "The Business Affairs of Mr Julius Caesar" and also makes an assumption: under the condition of this work completeness, laughter would have undergone new alterations and transformations and, at the end of the story, it would have potentially reached its apogee. On the plot level it would coincide with the moment of the final debunking of the myths about Caesar, in whose image one can read a satire on the mercantile, corrupt world and dirty politics drenched in money. Another peculiarity of the ideological background of this satirical novel is the fact that despite the tragic nature of any war (the novel deals with various wars waged by the Romans), B. Brecht finds artistic means to ridicule even the war and everything occurring around it. He also completely destroys created by historiography myths about great conquests and great conquerors, nullifying the pathos in which the narratives of historiographical sources about Rome and its rulers are shrouded. He shows in particular the conquerors’ baseness and at the same time does not deviate from the comic register of his story.
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Bortnik, Zh. "BETWEEN DOCUMENTARY AND POST-DOCUMENTARY: SEARCH VECTORS OF CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN DRAMA." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 9 (December 26, 2023): 57–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.9.2023.57-71.
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The article discusses modern dramaturgical strategies, which consist in creating a transformative field by means of documentary/post-documentary. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the search vectors of contemporary Ukrainian drama in the context of the connection between documentary and post-documentary aesthetics. "Post-documentary" becomes such a feature of liminal aesthetics, which manifests itself in its performative, active orientation to the understanding of reality through the document. The main features of post-documentary theater, identified by researchers, are the ability to bring to the fore the subject of the action, which records its own states "here and now" and turns the text into a performative event. With such an artistic strategy, the author realizes an approach to true reality, "preserves" the moment of creation, the fluid phase of "here and now", a unique moment that is valuable for its true imperfection. For a dramatic text, this can be realized in the inclusion of autobiographical material, in the metagenres of diary, notebook, letter, etc., and through the embodiment of a "draft aesthetic". "Draft aesthetics" is a contemporary strategy of "non-finito" as a type of artistic thinking and demonstrates conditional imperfection, incompleteness of the text, an open form that captures the variability, uniqueness, confusion of the subject's state of consciousness and realizes the performative nature of the dramatic text. The fixation of facts, characteristic of a document, becomes in the documentary a fixation of temporary fluid states of the character in the interpretation of events (past or present) in order to preserve and remember this liminal state. In contemporary Ukrainian drama, a field of frontier between documentary and post-documentary is being formed: playwrights, directors, drama and theater researchers raise issues of trust in the document, look for ways to find contemporary attitudes, artistic methods and techniques that would reflect the "truth of the fact", raise questions of artistic ethics regarding involvement of documentary sources. The crisis of the documentary is realized as a means of salvation in the post-documentary: playwrights embody for the recipient the maximum approximation to reality, which reflects the document as an object of artistic research.
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Diduk, M. "B. BRECHT: PROBLEMS OF TRANSFORMING A LITERARY TEXT IN THE SPACE OF PERFORMING ART." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 9 (December 26, 2023): 72–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.9.2023.72-82.
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The article is devoted to the problem of transformation of Bertolt Brecht's drama into the stage space, technical and ideological accents of his work and analysis of the key problems of artistic interpretation of the text of plays. The problem of reproducing Brecht's works is closely related to the peculiarities of the "epic theatre" and the concepts introduced by the playwright. The article identifies the peculiarities of the created theatre, defines the accents that are important in the process of staging plays, in particular: preserving Brechtian conflict in translation, introducing the necessary artistic elements (scenery, music, costumes, etc.), understanding the technique of "alienation", etc. The effect of "alienation" is a key requirement of epic theatre and aims to portray a familiar phenomenon from an unexpected perspective. In addition, the actor becomes a part of the conventional world, does not transform into his character. In this case, the viewer becomes an actor himself, tries on the role of each character and is able to draw independent conclusions, not those dictated by the author and the plot.
"The Threepenny Opera" is the most famous of the artist's other works. It is a synthesis of Brechtian innovations and complex interweaving of social themes that complement each other. When recreating this play on stage and on screen, directors must take into account the social and historical contexts, as well as the appropriateness of depicting theatrical scenes. A striking example of a misunderstanding of Brecht's work is the film by H. Pabst, in which the director pays more attention to artistic elements that shift the emphasis to visual rather than intellectual perception of the play.
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Sokolovska, S. "EPIC THEATER AS A SPECIAL TYPE OF COMMUNICATION." Brecht-Magazine: Articles, Essays, Translations, no. 9 (December 26, 2023): 94–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.35433/brecht.9.2023.94-103.
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Reviewing Brecht's theatrical system as communication reveals the symbolic nature of the process of transferring a message through theatrical language (code). Combining a significant number of arts, the theatrical code contains various artistic languages that together form a theatrical text. The coding of the idea of a work of fiction in epic theater is done through a gaming strategy of distancing, reminiscent of a demonstratively rational manner of storytelling. Like Lessing and Schiller, Brecht wants not only to entertain the audience, but also to educate them in the spirit of the Enlightenment, to stimulate learning processes, and to develop critical thinking.
The transformation of The Beggar's Opera into The Threepenny Opera is a model that demonstrates mastery of applying the material, an exemplary set of rules, and a technique of modification. The "old material" remains visible, but at the same time, the new in it allows us to "perceive things differently." Recognizability of the craft is crucial, because only transparency of approach brings the aesthetics and logic of the performance to the main denominator that makes repeatability possible: communication based on observation. Brecht conceives of observation on the basis of the visibility of a pointing gesture that functions as spectacles that the wearer does not even realize they are wearing. Everyday events are recreated in the manner of an eyewitness, repeated through demonstration, which implies the process of showing itself. The performance shows characters and scenes in an emphatically epic manner. The declared intention to avoid merging of the actor and the character as much as possible, and to demonstrate this as well, alienates the naturalness of the "street scene" and shows it as an artificially created repetition of the stage.
The staging of the play as an "opera" generates unexpected visual and acoustic effects. The viewer sees and hears twice: an opera about an opera, as well as a denial of the attempt to imitate an opera as an opera. This performance shows that the Threepenny Opera is no longer a traditional "old opera" and at the same time not the final version of the "new opera." Trivial ideas about groups such as beggars or romantic events such as weddings, stereotypical thinking are dramatized, thus exposing them and encouraging reflection.