Unit 2

• Non-realism


  Presentational drama
• This unit


  • Students have the opportunity to research and collaboratively workshop, interpret and perform drama texts related to non realism and presentational drama
• Within the focus of non-realism and presentational drama

  • Students must investigate the approach of Bertolt Brecht
• Investigation must include


  • The background
  • The ideology
  • The application of the approach in rehearsal and in performance
• Character


  Presenting identifiable and defined traits
• Role


  Presents a persona and/or stereotype
• Relationships


  Connection between two or more characters
• Situation


  Specified and unspecified setting and circumstances
• Voice


  Use of accent, articulation, emphasis, pace, pause, pitch, projection, tone and silence
• Movement


  Use of energy, facial expressions, gait, gesture, pace, posture, proxemics, stillness and weight
• Focus


  Where attention is directed
• Tension


  Anticipation or conflict which drives the dramatic action
• Space


  The physical and fictional space
• Time


  The fictional time and non-linear structure
• Language


  Credible and/or heightened and/or non sensical
• Symbol


  Literal and/or metaphoric
• Audience


  Passive viewers or interactive participants
• Mood


  Intended by text and/or creative team
• Atmosphere


  The impact of a drama performance felt by an audience
• Drama processes


  • Brechtian approach to non-realism and presentational drama
  • Themes/issues
  • Director's visions which informs rehearsal and performance
  • Improvisation in rehearsal and performance
• Contextual knowledge


  • Drama conventions
  • Form and style
  • Historical, social and cultural context
  • Character value/s
  • Point of view
• Production and performance


  • Spaces of performance
  • Performer and audience interaction in the theatre space
  • Theatre spaces, including thrust stage, theatre in the round, traverse stage, amphitheatre and black box theatre
  • Site specific spaces
  • Design and technology
  • Collaboration of creative team
  • Application of design language
  • Principles of design, such as emphasis and repetition
  • Elements of design
  • Application of design role and theatre technologies
• Movement workshop


  1. Explore Viewpoints

  2. Walking the Grid

  3. Devising technique of Anne Bogart

  4. Building ensemble

  5. Creating movement

  6. Obstacles = opportunities

  7. Discovery

  8. No right or wrong, just possibility and choice

  9. Let it happen, don't force anything
• Students walk on a grid line

  1. Change tempo (on a scale of 1 - 10)

  2. Shape - sit, stand, walk

  3. Change direction

  4. Only using 90 degree angles
• Presentational theatre


  A genre of theatre that confronts the audience by acknowledging them through language, movements and signs that the actors are aware of the audience's presence
• Presentational theatre is theatrical because it is presented by a live performer to an audience, but it remains nondramatic so long as it has a purely presentational quality rather than a representational one
• Conventions of presentational theatre

  • Prologue
  • Epilogue
  • Induction
  • Play within the play
• Conventions of presentational theatre

  • Narration
  • Direct address
  • Multiple roles
  • Gesture
  • Acting
  • Breaking the 4th wall
  • Actors interacting with the audience
  • Music
  • Gestures
• Bertolt Brecht


  German poet, playwright and theatre practitioner, born 1898, died 1956, theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes
• Epic theatre


  A style of theatre that features a non-linear plot and episodic movements that, when put together would create a montage effect
• Conventions of epic theatre

  • Narration
  • Direct address to the audience
  • Placards and signs
  • Projection
  • Spoiling dramatic tension in advance of episodes (scenes)
  • Disjointed time sequences – flashbacks and flash forwards – large jumps in time between episodes (scenes)
• Epic theatre emerged


  Early to mid-20th century
• Epic theatre is now most often associated with the dramatic theory and practice evolved by the playwright-director Bertolt Brecht in Germany from the 1920s onward
• Epic theatre emerged from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas
• Purpose of epic theatre

  • Present a series of loosely connected scenes that avoid illusion
  • Address the audience directly with analysis, argument, or documentation
  • Emphasize the audience's perspective and reaction
  • Make social and political criticism
  • Challenge the audience's beliefs and values
• Techniques to apply in a performance based on Brecht's method

  • Verfremdungseffekt (V-effect or Alienation Effect)
  • Gestus
  • Historification
  • Fragmentation
  • Songs and Music
  • Minimalist Scenery and Props
  • Multi-Role Casting
  • Social and Political Themes
• Presentational Theatre


  • Does not mimic real life- it suggests it/symbolise it/distorts it
  • Actors can play more than 1 role
  • The stage is exposed and audience can see lighting and set changes
  • Projections, music, sound effects
  • Breaks the fourth wall of the proscenium arch
  • Uses a variety of stage types
  • Characters can be real or types or animals or objects
  • Includes dancing/mime/acting/tableaux/movement etc.
  • Includes choral speaking/ song/ poetry
• Hoods


  Two Hoods ride the train each night to a wrecking yard on the outskirts of the city. Here, in this cemetery of stories, they are storytellers with the power to fast forward, pause and rewind. Tonight, they tell the story of three kids left in a car.
• What is Hood's summary?

  1. It's Friday, KFC night and the last day of school before Christmas

  2. Kyle broods in the front seat with visions of X box dancing in his head while Jessie begs him for a game of eye spy

  3. As night closes in, the shopping centre shuts down, their Mum still hasn't come back and the baby just won't stop crying
• Presentational theatre techniques


  • Narration
  • Direct address- group and individual
  • Placards/signs
  • Projections
  • Episodic structure- flashbacks and flash forwards
  • Spoiling dramatic tension
  • Physical theatre styles- mime/dance/tableaux
  • Music/sound effects/lighting
  • Suggested setting using representational set pieces and props
  • 1 actor performs multiple roles
  • Puppets/masks
  • Transitional props