The alienation effect in German epic theater is achieved not only through the actors, but also through music (chorus and song) andsets (transparencies, film strips, etc.). Its main purpose is to place the staged events in their historical context.
BERTOLT BRECHTFor what’s the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?
More Bertolt Brecht Quotes
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Of all the works of man I like best Those which have been used. The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges The knives and forks whose wooden handles Have been worn away by many hands: such forms Seemed to me the noblest.
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Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.
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Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat, provided he loves peace, is a greater lover of the arts than any so-called art-lover who loves the arts of war.
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In my view, the great and complicated things that go on in the world cannot be adequately recognized by people who do not use every possible aid to understanding.
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When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!” When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.
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From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first.
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Little changes are the enemies of great changes.
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What a miserable thing life is: you’re in clover; only the clover isn’t good enough.
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There are some with brains and some without. It makes for a better division of labour.
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Their peace and their war Are like wind and storm. War grows from their peace.
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On thinking about Hell, I gather My brother Shelley found it was a place Much like the city of London.
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From the start it has been the theatre’s business to entertain people … it needs no other passport than fun.
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A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.
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What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
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Reality changes; in order to represent it, modes of representation must also change. Nothing comes from nothing; the new comes from the old, but that is why it is new.
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Sin is what is new, strong, surprising, strange. The theatre must take an interest in sin if the young are to be able to go there.
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The fate of man is man.
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Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.
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The finest plans are always ruined by the littleness of those who ought to carry them out, for emperor himself can actually be nothing.
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The war which is coming Is not the first one. There were Other wars before it. When the last one came to an end There were conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered the common people Starved. Among the conquerors The common people starved too.
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When the house of a great one collapses Many little ones are slain.
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I was called up in the war and sent to a hospital. I dressed wounds, applied iodine, gave enemas, did blood transfusions. If the doctor ordered: “Brecht, amputate a leg!”, I would reply, “Certainly, Your Excellency!”, and cut off the leg. If I was told, “Perform a trepanning!”
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I opened the man’s skull and messed about with his brains. I saw how they patched fellows up, so as to cart them back to the Front as quickly as they could.
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Impact lies in the vicinity of mistakes.
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I Who live in Los Angeles and not in London Find, on thinking about Hell, that it must be Still more like Los Angeles.
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There must always be some who are brighter and some who are stupider, the latter make up for it by being better workers.
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