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26-573: The Epic Theatre Ensemble was founded in 2001 by original members Ron Russell, Melissa Friedman, Zak Berkman, James Wallert, Teri Lamm, Craig Rovere, and Shaheen Vaaz. Its work is influenced by the Epic Theatre movement. In 2009, the Ensemble's remix of Shakespeare ’s plays performed in several New York City Public Schools was awarded the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award , then called

52-448: A broader artistic movement , it includes Naturalism and Socialist realism . Russia's first professional playwright, Aleksey Pisemsky , along with Leo Tolstoy (in his The Power of Darkness of 1886), began a tradition of psychological realism in Russia. A new type of acting was required to replace the declamatory conventions of the well-made play with a technique capable of conveying

78-485: A facsimile of real life except missing a fourth wall (on proscenium arch stages). Characters speak in naturalistic, authentic dialogue without verse or poetic stylings, and acting is meant to emulate human behaviour in real life. Narratives typically are psychologically driven, and include day-to-day, ordinary scenarios. Narrative action moves forward in time, and supernatural presences (gods, ghosts, fantastic phenomena) do not occur. Sound and music are diegetic only. Part of

104-490: A fifty-minute play that discusses educational equity in New York City's public schools. . The play was written and performed by students of Epic's artistic and youth development program Epic NEXT Epic Theatre Epic theatre ( German : episches Theater ) is a theatrical movement that arose in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to

130-533: A form of actor training that is particularly well-suited to psychological realism. 19th-century realism is closely connected to the development of modern drama, which, as Martin Harrison explains, "is usually said to have begun in the early 1870s" with the "middle-period" work of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen . Ibsen's realistic drama in prose has been "enormously influential." In opera , verismo refers to

156-419: A mode of acting that utilises what Brecht calls gestus . One of Brecht's most-important aesthetic innovations prioritised function over the sterile dichotomous opposition between form and content . Epic theatre and its many forms is a response to Richard Wagner 's idea of " Gesamtkunstwerk ", or "total artwork", which intends each piece of art to be composed of other art forms. Since epic theatre

182-671: A new staging by the Moscow Art Theatre brought the play and its author, as well as the company, immediate success. A logical development was to take the revolt against theatrical artifice a step further in the direction of naturalism, and Stanislavski, especially in his production of Maxim Gorky 's The Lower Depths , helped this movement achieve international recognition. The Moscow Art Theatre's ground-breaking productions of plays by Chekhov, such as Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard , in turn influenced Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Bulgakov . Stanislavski went on to develop his 'system',

208-399: A play independently, like a music hall turn that is able to stand on its own. Common production techniques in epic theatre include a simplified, non-realistic scenic design offset against a selective realism in costuming and props, as well as announcements or visual captions that interrupt and summarize the action. Brecht used comedy to distance his audiences from the depicted events and

234-483: A post-Romantic Italian tradition that sought to incorporate the Naturalism of Émile Zola and Henrik Ibsen. It included realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of contemporary everyday life, especially the life of the lower classes. As part of a strategic argument in his day, Stanislavski used the term "psychological realism" to distinguish his 'system' of acting from his own Naturalistic early stagings of

260-570: A subsequent moment of understanding and comprehension. While not invented by Brecht, the Verfremdungseffekt , known in English as the "estrangement effect" or the "alienation effect", was made popular by Brecht and is one of the most significant characteristics of epic theatre. Some of the ways the Verfremdungseffekt can be achieved is by having actors play multiple characters, rearrange

286-495: A very different world view in his dramas from that found in Brecht's, in a letter to the director Roger Blin on the most appropriate approach to staging his The Screens in 1966, he advises an epic approach to its production: Each scene, and each section within a scene, must be perfected and played as rigorously and with as much discipline as if it were a short play, complete in itself. Without any smudges. And without there being

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312-475: Is distinct from other forms of theatre, particularly the early naturalistic approach and later " psychological realism " developed by Konstantin Stanislavski . Like Stanislavski, Brecht disliked the shallow spectacle, manipulative plots, and heightened emotion of melodrama ; but where Stanislavski attempted to engender real human behaviour in acting through the techniques of Stanislavski's system and to absorb

338-578: Is not to encourage an audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is. The term " epic theatre" comes from Erwin Piscator who coined it during his first year as director of Berlin's Volksbühne (1924–27). Piscator aimed to encourage playwrights to address issues related to "contemporary existence." This new subject matter would then be staged by means of documentary effects, audience interaction, and strategies to cultivate an objective response. Epic theatre incorporates

364-537: Is so focused on the specific relationship between form and content, these two ideas contradict each other, despite the fact that Brecht was heavily influenced by Wagner. Brecht discussed the priorities and approach of epic theatre in his work " A Short Organum for the Theatre ". Although many of the concepts and practices involved in Brechtian epic theatre had been around for years, even centuries, Brecht unified them, developed

390-669: The Coming Up Taller Award. Significant productions include the 2010 rendition of Sarah Ruhl ’s Passion Play and Pike Street in 2015. In 2012, the theatre received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to create a contemporary interpretation of Shakespeare's MacBeth . As well as performing traditional dramas, the Ensemble also commissions and stages new plays. The Ensemble includes both professional and student actors. In 2016, Epic Theatre Ensemble presented 10467 ,

416-538: The approach, and popularised it. Near the end of his career, Brecht preferred the term "dialectical theatre" to describe the kind of theatre he pioneered. From his later perspective, the term "epic theatre" had become too formal a concept to be of use anymore. According to Manfred Wekwerth , one of Brecht's directors at the Berliner Ensemble at the time, the term refers to the "' dialecticising ' of events" that this approach to theatre-making produces. Epic theatre

442-551: The audience completely in the fictional world of the play, Brecht saw this type of theatre as escapist. Brecht's own social and political focus was distinct, too, from surrealism and the Theatre of Cruelty , as developed in the writings and dramaturgy of Antonin Artaud , who sought to affect audiences viscerally, psychologically, physically, and irrationally. While both produced 'shock' in the audience, epic theatre practices would also include

468-480: The fourth wall") and play multiple roles. Brecht thought it was important that the choices the characters made were explicit, and tried to develop a style of acting wherein it was evident that the characters were choosing one action over another. For example, a character could say, "I could have stayed at home, but instead I went to the shops." This he called "fixing the Not / But element". Realism (theatre) Realism

494-443: The plays of Anton Chekhov , Maxim Gorky , and others. Jean Benedetti argues that: Naturalism, for him, implied the indiscriminate reproduction of the surface of life. Realism, on the other hand, while taking its material from the real world and from direct observation, selected only those elements which revealed the relationships and tendencies under the surface. The rest was discarded. As used in critical literature today, however,

520-405: The political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas . Epic theatre is not meant to refer to the scale or the scope of the work, but rather to the form that it takes. Epic theatre emphasizes the audience's perspective and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that deliberately cause them to individually engage in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre

546-448: The production is merely a production instead of reality. As with the principle of dramatic construction involved in the epic form of spoken drama amalgamated or what Brecht calls " non-Aristotelian drama ", the epic approach to play production utilizes a montage technique of fragmentation, contrast and contradiction, and interruptions . While the French playwright Jean Genet articulates

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572-486: The set in full view of the audience, and "break the fourth wall " by speaking to the audience. The use of a narrator in The Caucasian Chalk Circle is another example of Verfremdungseffekt at work. Lighting can also be used to emulate the effect. For example, flooding the theatre with bright lights (not just the stage) and placing lighting equipment on stage can encourage the audience to fully acknowledge that

598-485: The slightest suggestion that another scene, or section within a scene, is to follow those that have gone before. Historicization is also employed in order to draw connections from a historical event to a similar current event. This can be seen in the plays Mother Courage and Her Children and The Good Person of Szechwan , both written by Brecht, which comment on a current social or political issue using historical contexts. Brecht, too, advised treating each element of

624-599: The speech and movements found in the domestic situations of everyday life . This need was supplied by the innovations of the Moscow Art Theatre , founded by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko . Whereas the subtle expression of emotion in Anton Chekhov 's The Seagull through everyday small-talk had initially gone unappreciated in a more traditionally conventional production in St Petersburg,

650-439: Was a general movement that began in 19th-century theatre , around the 1870s, and remained present through much of the 20th century . It developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances. These conventions occur in the text, (set, costume, sound, and lighting) design, performance style, and narrative structure. They include recreating on stage

676-432: Was heavily influenced by musicals and fairground performers, putting music and song in his plays. Acting in epic theatre requires actors to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they have "become" the characters. This is called Gestus when an actor takes on the physical embodiment of a social commentary. Actors frequently address the audience directly out of character ("breaking

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