Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht has been hailed as one of the pioneers of 20th century theatre. Through his didactic styles and revolutionary theories on teaching the audience instead of just entertaining them, Brecht managed to alter the general face of modern theatre and style of playwriting through many of his works such as his 1939 epic ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’. Using such techniques as alienation and historification, he presented his plays without any sense of dramatic lighting or effects, as well as trying to remove any sense of suspense from the audience. Brecht also promoted the use of Epic Structure, a way of narrating a play in which song, dance, and projected photos and music would assist regular speech.

Epic Structure is noted particularly in ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’. Each scene opens with a projected message on the stage, which is a synopsis of the coming scene. Some scenes are quite distant in terms of time setting; many years in some cases, furthering th...