The articulations of critical spectatorship suggest that both Heathcote and Brecht aim for their audiences to take responsibility for the next stage of the narrative, that takes place in the real world, when participants apply and practice their experienced knowledge from the fictional world. This concept is echoed by McCreery’s hope that children will make decisions of their own when confronted by racism, following their experiences on Flight Paths.
In published comparisons of Heathcote and Brecht (Muir, 1996), the common ground, shared by the two practitioners, is explicitly identified. The three dimensions which are most relevant to the facilitation of critical spectators are:
Knowledge: which both practitioners view as a process and ever- changing concept of change.
Participation: in which Heathcote seeks self-spectatorship through the use of role and Brecht asks his actors to perform whilst retaining ‘a critical relationship to the character’ (Muir, 1996: 40).
The first week of my secondment to the University of Newcastle consisted of shared teaching, led by Dorothy Heathcote and Oliver Fiala during which the commonality of Heathcote’s teaching and Brecht’s theatre was explored.
Epic: in which both practitioners seek to encourage participant- audiences to find connections between seemingly separate matters; the themes of the fiction connect with the real lives of the participants.
Brecht’s conceptual framework in A Short Organum for the Theatre (1964), argues for a theatre in which audiences not only observe but also understand the social circumstances which have led to the human predicament they observe on stage (1964: 190). Although the directorial role is strangely absent from the theory, Brecht is explicit that if social change is to occur, it requires a process in which informed and thinking actors take responsibility on an equal footing with other artists. Brecht’s Marxist ideology and recognition of the value of a more pro-active audience engagement led to the articulation of the following concepts:
Verfrumsdungeffect: which consists of transforming an object in the production from something ordinary, familiar and immediately accessible, into something striking and unexpected; one which the director intends to make the audience aware of (1964: 143). The development of this concept again stems from Brecht’s determination to create a productive ‘critical distance’ through which the audience, engage in spectatorship which prompts judgement and ‘debate’. It has a dual purpose: to interrupt and jolt the flow of the narrative and to highlight moments which warrant critical reflection (Bradby and Williams, 1988: 19).
Epic Theatre; in which scenes are self-contained, episodic and seemingly unconnected, thus creating a montage of meaning about a universal theme(s) which the audience must piece together to identify the social conditions which have produced the moment being observed. ‘Epic theatre’ is relevant to directors in devised and interactive contexts as well as text-based theatre. In epic theatre, the audience is invited to address questions of relationships, social circumstances, identity or
oppression through the balanced relationship of reality and fiction, developed by the director’s craft. Brecht, as director, would use placards to critically comment on the events of the play and highlight comparable events that were taking place elsewhere in the world, in order to increase opportunities for the audience to make connections beyond the narrative and interrogate alternative courses of action (Mitter, 2005: 53).
Dialectical materialism: Brecht defines dialectical materialism as a process that ‘regards nothing as existing except in so far as it changes, in other words it is in disharmony with itself’ (1964: 193). It became the philosophy of a theatre process which Brecht envisaged would achieve his political aims, believing ‘contradictions are the source of change and progressive development’ (Mumford, 2009: 85). In Brecht’s own words; ‘I wanted to take the principle that it was not just a matter of interpreting the world but of changing it’ (Brecht, 1980: 31).
The critical spectator transcends individual fields of specialist theatre practice. It brings together directors from different traditions. Greenwood (2001) interprets the concept as a shared mission in which theatre is ‘an aesthetic event to activate human consciousness in unique ways’ (2001: 193). In his analysis of achieving Greenwood’s ‘human consciousness’ Taylor (2003) suggests ‘action, reflection and transformation’ as three key practical transitional stages which create possibilities for both facilitators and participants. He argues that artists are ‘working in unison with participants to assist them to build a critical consciousness’ (2003: 67).
Brecht’s plays reflect the same sense of prompting audience awareness of issues beyond the immediate present that Heathcote’s teaching addresses (Muir, 1996). At the end of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Brecht has the actor who is playing Ui speak to the audience in direct
address as his real self in the final speech of the play. The subject of his biting satire is Hitler and the manner of his rise to power:
Epilogue
Therefore learn how to see and not to gape. To act instead of talking all day long.
The world was almost won by such an ape The nations put him where his kind belong. But don’t rejoice too soon at your escape- The womb he crawled from is still going strong (Brecht, 1987: 213)
Brecht’s theories, in respect of critical spectatorship, have influenced practice across the applied theatre field. So prominently, that Prentki (2009) declares verfremdungseffekt to be a ‘key prerequisite for applied theatre’ (2009: 365). Brecht was part of a tradition of mainland European theatre workers who aimed for politically engaging theatre in communities. Their theatre and influence was evident on directorial practice in the UK before WW1.