Lehrstücke
Encyclopedia
The Lehrstücke are a radical and experimental form of modernist
theatre developed by Bertolt Brecht
and his collaborators from the 1920s to the late 1930s. The Lehrstücke stem from Brecht's Epic Theatre
techniques but as a core principle explore the possibilities of learning through acting, playing roles, adopting postures and attitudes etc. and hence no longer divide between actors and audience. Brecht himself translated the term as learning-play, emphasizing the aspect of learnig through participation, whereas the German term could also be understood as teaching-play. Reiner Steinweg goes so far as suggesting to adopt the term Theatre of Discovery, coined by the Brazilian avant garde theatre director Zé Celso, as being even clearer.
division within the theatrical apparatus characteristic of bourgeois society between the producers, or artistic labourers, and their means of production
. This relation is contradictory insofar as the ownership of the means of production alienates
the labour of the artist. The distinction is no longer operative in the Lehrstücke, Brecht argues.
The primary purpose, intention, or goal of these performances is for the actors to acquire attitudes (rather than to consume an entertainment). This relates to Brecht's theory of Gestus
, his substitution for traditional drama's mimesis
. The relation to reality is a critical one. Brecht's refunctioned
mimesis is understood not as a simple mirroring or imitation, but as a measuring; it always involves some kind of attitude on our part. It is not possible, in Brecht's view, to produce a neutral mimesis. Brecht's poem "On Imitation
" elaborates this notion succinctly:
Brecht also often had questionnaire
s handed out at the end of the performances, and would rewrite the plays based on the audiences' answers to them.
Ideally, the Lehrstücke project tries to set up a whole series of new dialectic
al relations. Firstly, the relation between form and content is subsumed or synthesised into a higher dialectic of function
; "the means have to be asked what the end is." It thus attempts to side step the whole form / content question in favour of one concerning function
. The actor / audience interaction is supposed to become dialectical, as is that between the actor and the text. Principles of interaction govern these two relations.
Brecht eventually abandoned his experiments with the Lehrstücke form, but it has been taken up and developed in the last few decades by the postmodernist dramatist Heiner Müller
(in plays such as Mauser (1975) and The Mission
(1982)) and by the Brazilian director Augusto Boal
. Boal's 'forum theatre' took the abolition of the actor / audience division proposed by Brecht and realized it through the use of what he calls a 'spect-actor' - a member of the audience who is able to get up onto the stage to actively intervene in the drama presented. The theatrical experience becomes a collective experiment and search for solutions to social problems experienced by the audience.
The German peace researcher Reiner Steinweg used his seminal analysis of the Lehrstücke form in the work of Brecht (Das Lehrstück. Brechts Theorie einer politisch-ästhetischen Erziehung) to develop his own self-reflexive peace-activist educational work, which initiated his local activism project "Gewalt in der Stadt."
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
theatre developed by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
and his collaborators from the 1920s to the late 1930s. The Lehrstücke stem from Brecht's Epic Theatre
Epic theatre
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
techniques but as a core principle explore the possibilities of learning through acting, playing roles, adopting postures and attitudes etc. and hence no longer divide between actors and audience. Brecht himself translated the term as learning-play, emphasizing the aspect of learnig through participation, whereas the German term could also be understood as teaching-play. Reiner Steinweg goes so far as suggesting to adopt the term Theatre of Discovery, coined by the Brazilian avant garde theatre director Zé Celso, as being even clearer.
Definition
Although the texts have a highly formal, rigorous structure, this is designed to facilitate insertions or deletions (according to the exigencies of the particular project). With no actor / audience separation, the emphasis in performance shifts to the process rather than the product produced. This eliminates the alienatingMarx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
division within the theatrical apparatus characteristic of bourgeois society between the producers, or artistic labourers, and their means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
. This relation is contradictory insofar as the ownership of the means of production alienates
Marx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
the labour of the artist. The distinction is no longer operative in the Lehrstücke, Brecht argues.
The primary purpose, intention, or goal of these performances is for the actors to acquire attitudes (rather than to consume an entertainment). This relates to Brecht's theory of Gestus
Gestus
Gestus is an acting technique developed by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. It carries the sense of a combination of physical gesture and "gist" or attitude...
, his substitution for traditional drama's mimesis
Mimesis
Mimesis , from μιμεῖσθαι , "to imitate," from μῖμος , "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the...
. The relation to reality is a critical one. Brecht's refunctioned
Refunctioning
Refunctioning is a core strategy of the aesthetic developed by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht."Brecht wanted his theatre to intervene in the process of shaping society," Robert Leach explains, so in his work:-Sources:...
mimesis is understood not as a simple mirroring or imitation, but as a measuring; it always involves some kind of attitude on our part. It is not possible, in Brecht's view, to produce a neutral mimesis. Brecht's poem "On Imitation
Cognitive imitation
Cognitive imitation is a type of imitation and a type of social learning. Cognitive imitation, like the imitation of motor rules , involves learning and copying specific rules by observation. The principal difference between motor and cognitive imitation is the type of rule that is learned and...
" elaborates this notion succinctly:
He who only imitates and had nothing to say
On what he imitates is like
A poor chimpanzee, who imitates his trainer's smoking
And does not smoke while doing so. For never
Will a thoughtless imitation
Be a real imitation.
Brecht also often had questionnaire
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case...
s handed out at the end of the performances, and would rewrite the plays based on the audiences' answers to them.
Ideally, the Lehrstücke project tries to set up a whole series of new dialectic
Dialectic
Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
al relations. Firstly, the relation between form and content is subsumed or synthesised into a higher dialectic of function
Refunctioning
Refunctioning is a core strategy of the aesthetic developed by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht."Brecht wanted his theatre to intervene in the process of shaping society," Robert Leach explains, so in his work:-Sources:...
; "the means have to be asked what the end is." It thus attempts to side step the whole form / content question in favour of one concerning function
Refunctioning
Refunctioning is a core strategy of the aesthetic developed by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht."Brecht wanted his theatre to intervene in the process of shaping society," Robert Leach explains, so in his work:-Sources:...
. The actor / audience interaction is supposed to become dialectical, as is that between the actor and the text. Principles of interaction govern these two relations.
Brecht eventually abandoned his experiments with the Lehrstücke form, but it has been taken up and developed in the last few decades by the postmodernist dramatist Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
(in plays such as Mauser (1975) and The Mission
The Mission (play)
The Mission: Memory of a Revolution , also known as The Task, is a postmodern drama by the German playwright Heiner Müller. The play was written and first published in 1979...
(1982)) and by the Brazilian director Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements...
. Boal's 'forum theatre' took the abolition of the actor / audience division proposed by Brecht and realized it through the use of what he calls a 'spect-actor' - a member of the audience who is able to get up onto the stage to actively intervene in the drama presented. The theatrical experience becomes a collective experiment and search for solutions to social problems experienced by the audience.
The German peace researcher Reiner Steinweg used his seminal analysis of the Lehrstücke form in the work of Brecht (Das Lehrstück. Brechts Theorie einer politisch-ästhetischen Erziehung) to develop his own self-reflexive peace-activist educational work, which initiated his local activism project "Gewalt in der Stadt."
Some of Brecht's Lehrstücke
- The Flight across the OceanThe Flight across the OceanThe Flight across the Ocean is a Lehrstück by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, inspired by We, Charles Lindbergh's 1927 account of his transatlantic flight...
- The Yes SayerDer JasagerDer Jasager is an opera by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht .Its companion piece is Der Neinsager...
, The No SayerDer NeinsagerDer Neinsager - like its companion piece Der Jasager - is a Lehrstück by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. However, unlike Der Jasager, it was never made into an opera.... - The Horatii and the Curiatii
- The Baden-Baden Lesson on ConsentThe Baden-Baden Lesson on ConsentThe Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent is a Lehrstück by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, written in collaboration with Slatan Dudow and Elisabeth Hauptmann...
- The DecisionThe DecisionThe Decision , also known as The Measures Taken, is a Lehrstück by the twentieth-century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. Written in collaboration with Slatan Dudow and the composer Hanns Eisler, it consists of eight sections in prose and unrhymed, irregular verse, with six major songs...
- The Exception and the RuleThe Exception and the RuleThe Exception and the Rule is a short play by German playwright Bertolt Brecht and is one of several Lehrstücke he wrote around 1929/30...
- Round Heads and Pointed HeadsRound Heads and Pointed HeadsRound Heads and Pointed Heads is an epic parable play written by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and the composer Hanns Eisler...
See also
- Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
- Walter BenjaminWalter BenjaminWalter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
- Augusto BoalAugusto BoalAugusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements...
and his Theatre of the OppressedTheatre of the OppressedThe Theatre of the Oppressed describes a range of theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1960s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator and theorist Paulo Freire. Boal's techniques use theatre as... - Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...