Brecht

Excerpts from "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting" (circ 1936)

This essay is one of the most important in 20th Century Theatre. Brecht both presupposes an escapist idea of Western theatrical narrative and proposes a means by which to undo it.

"Acceptance or rejecion of their (actors) actions or utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, as hithero, in the audience's subconscious"

"He (the Chinese actor) expresses his awareness of being watched (...) the audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator at an event which is really taking place"

"The artist observes himself"

"The artist's object is to appear strange and even surprising to the audience. He achieves this by looking strangely at himself and his work. As a result everything put forward by him has a touch of the amazing"

"The audence identifies itself with the actor as being an observer, and accordingly develops his attitude of observing or looking on"

"He (the actor) is careful not to make its sensations into those of the spectator. Nobody gets raped by the individual he portrays; this individual is not the spectator himself but his neighbour"

But what relevance to Smudged?