Lesson 1: Epic Theatre and Theatrical Philosophy

We began lesson one by discussing in groups why theatre exists and what is it’s function. My group took a piece of paper and created a mind map, contributing all the reasons we believe theatre exists for.  Some of our points were that it exists to give audiences a chance to spectate different lives; that it allows artists a chance to spread new ideas ad thoughts in an easy to digest format; and to explore the bounds of the human body and what is capable to portray and become. There were common threads running throughout all the conversations in the room: that some of theatre’s main purposes are to teach and to entertain

We then had an entire group discussion on whether or not these two things are possible simultaneously or if there was instead a double pronged approach to creating interesting theatre. I personally think that there is no way of entertaining without teaching, as an audience has come to a theatre with an open mind, expecting to see something new. After all, if an audience learns nothing, what is it to say that the piece of theatre is in any way innovative; could it be the same as every other piece of drama that they have seen previously? At the same time, an audience will learn nothing if they are not engaged by the piece, so it is equally important to make a piece of theatre entertaining in order to open the audience up and make them susceptible to the message of the play.

Our next task, this time in our smaller groups again, was to create a piece of theatre based on a news article we found. We were then given a sheet detailing the differences between dramatic theatre, the style we have previously studied, and epic theatre, the style Brecht was fond of and the one we were beginning to study this term. We were then challenged to create a piece based on the article, first in a more dramatic style, then using epic theatre. Our group decided to use an article based on government cuts leading to a lack of medicine in wards, pictured left.

For our Epic performance, we adapted our piece so that instead of speaking, we used the sound of heart monitors to express the tensions that our voices would normally make clear.