Katie Kent

I came up with this sub-question to acknowledge why we want to use Brecht in our PaR performance. Rather than just using Brecht’s existing estranging techniques, it was important for our performance to try and expand upon his ideas or contribute towards his existing work. Our main contribution or expansion of Brecht’s work would be the use of breaking the fourth wall. As I have mentioned earlier, by breaking the fourth wall and setting it up again multiple times, it begins the creation of our realities within our performances. These realities are the main springboard from Brecht’s work. Brecht worked only with 2 layers of reality; the naturalistic fourth wall and then his Brechtian break of the fourth wall to acknowledge the audience. We do this, but when we rebuild the wall the second time (wall/break/new wall), it has entered a new layer of performance. The first fourth wall is the opening sequence of ‘the founding of Thebes’ cow scene. This is then broken by the Theban Players (reality 2) entering and talking about their performance. The wall is rebuilt when the Theban Players (reality 2) become the Marketplace people (reality 3), which is then broken by their acknowledgement of the audience and setting up for the storytelling of Oedipus (reality 4). The next fourth wall is then rebuilt for the retelling of Oedipus Rex (reality 4), which is broken when the Theban Market people (reality 3) return with a disruption of Teiresias. The next fourth wall is rebuilt with the Theban Market people (reality 3) retelling the story of Antigone (reality 4). This fourth wall is then broken with the return of the Theban Players (reality 2). These 4 layers of metatheatre performance expand upon Brecht’s fourth wall idea, which will contribute towards his estrangement effect through the disruptive nature of changing performative realities.

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Within all the performative realities is also an extension of Brecht’s estranging technique of multi-rolling. Within each of the 4 realities, there are many characters being multi-rolled by each of the Theban Players. This is an extreme extension of an actor playing an actor, as we have an actor (Katie) playing an actor (Katius), playing a character (Market person), playing a character (Ismene in Antigone). Multi-rolling is estranging to begin with, as we see performers transitioning into other characters, like Rafe Spall multi-rolling consistently in Death of England. But when this is applied to many characters in a multi-layered performance, it creates a definite estranging-effect. This application is to guarantee that the distancing effect is taking place with the audience, to make sure they are not

attached to the characters and can perceive the political messages.

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Another personal contribution of Brecht’s estrangement-effect would be adding even more disruption to the audience’s immersion in the performance, being commercials. The commercials in our performance would be taken from reality 1, disrupting the layers of performance as well as the audience’s spectatorship of the performance overall. During the commercial, it allows the audience to reflect upon what they have just watched, the same affect that intervals provide in live performances or adverts during live TV. This links the first reality of Canterbury 2020 into the performance subtly with the Christ Church commercials, and simultaneously distance the audience for a didactic effect. This could be seen as a contribution to Brecht’s estrangement-effect, rather than an expansion on a particular technique.