For example. This is Brecht (and a more radical departure from the fantastically eerie Pirandello I could not have imagined).
What does this photo have to do with whatever the distancing effect is?
The distancing effect (the unpronounceable German term for which Brecht coined, incidentally) is in essence forbidding the audience to fall into the theatrical illusion - and forbidding the play to produce that illusion. And isn't he kind of doing that in the photo - staring right at you, announcing his presence, and making you think about who he is, and who you might be in relation to him?
Brecht's shtick (say that five times fast!) was always to engage the audience's thoughts. In order to do that, he figured that they could never allow their emotions to be swayed by the illusion of reality that theatre generally considers crucial to its success. In Brechtian theatre, the play and the audience should work together, aware of each other, trying to figure something out.
To this I can attest. Two summers ago, I saw "Life of Galileo" in Philly. If that was anything to go by, an audience's mind can't help but be engaged by Brecht's text - I was doing mental gymnastics the whole night trying to keep up with incredible actors playing dazzlingly intelligent people, speaking words that wove in and around each other like spiderwebs. I did fail to keep my emotions from being engaged - I held my breath (along with everyone else in the audience) when we were all waiting to see whether or not Galileo would recant his position, even though I already knew what happened. But the production was clever at reminding us over and over that this was play, not an illusion of reality. Take a look at the set they built:
Basic, structural, almost looks incomplete, like the set crew went on strike halfway through the rehearsal period. I particularly loved the banners (there were more than the one in this photo) they strung across the top, like the Star Wars opening summaries. "Read along to catch up. Think, audience, think!"
It got even more fantastic when most of the actors were on the stage proper and only a few were let loose on the catwalk-set:
This was a heartbreaking moment in the play (Galileo's daughter Virginia, running in her wedding dress to meet her long-term fiance, finds out that he's been using her to spy on her father, and that since he's found out what he wanted to know, the wedding is off). And it's so surreal here that you can't help but remember: THIS IS A PLAY. These are other people's thoughts, put here for you to make your own thoughts out of them.
Or even here, near the beginning (as I recall) where most productions want you to fall right into the play's world and never leave:
You can't see it, but the telescope is pretty much pointing right at the audience on the balcony level. "Look at those crazy people coming to watch us!" says Greg Wood. "And look at them thinking about what we're slyly doing!" says John Campion. It worked, for me at least, and I didn't know squat about the distancing effect.
If I had, I think I might have enjoyed the play even more. In the same way that knowing Shakespeare enriches Shakespeare performances, I imagine that knowing what Brecht was going for would only have made this (pretty fantastic) production better.
Which is my very long and roundabout way of saying, I'm glad I get to read "Mother Courage" with that in mind. Maybe someday I'll get to see it, and I'll annoy all my friends by telling them what it is that Brecht is doing.
Disclaimer: I do not think that the distancing effect is even close to an excuse for people to talk IN the theatre.
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