Rethinking Brecht The Reinvention of Contemporary Politics and Political Theater

Lauren Nash

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Myhill, Nova

Keywords

Brecht, Bertolt, Churchill, Caryl, Parks, Suzan-Lori

Area of Concentration

Literature

Abstract

This thesis traces the use of Bertolt Brecht's dramatic theory in the works of playwrights Caryl Churchill and Suzan-Lori Parks. Both English-speaking feminists, Churchill and Parks use the techniques of Brecht, a German, Marxist, male playwright, for rather different ends. Though the women share Brecht's goal of politically influencing their audiences, their plays demonstrate differences in ideological beliefs about theatrical limitations and the nature of society. Churchill, by largely using the alienation-effect to different ends than Brecht's historicization, questions the efficacy of his epic theater in a post-modern context. Parks similarly uses the alienation-effect to display frighteningly repetitive societies, opposing the dialectically evolving one Brecht imagined. Parks also manipulates his technique to develop a political theater aiming neither for empathy nor complete intellectual distanciation but instead sympathy.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS