The idea of objectivity and the absence of empathy developed into a concept of theatre that’s called Epic theatre, as opposed to what Brecht referred to as Dramatic theatre.
Dramatic theatre has a plot or story. We go to the theatre expecting the plot to be laid out before us and all issues to be resolved at the end. Epic theatre doesn’t attempt this neatness. The narrative starts and ends, leaving issues unresolved, confronting the audience with questions about what they’ll do. Ideally Epic theatre will be an inspiration to action whereas Brecht thought Dramatic theatre was entertainment. Dramatic theatre in his view should engage the audience in an emotional experience only for their time in the theatre.
Scenes are episodic, which means they stand alone and are constructed in small chunks, rather than creating a lengthy and slow build of tension. Dramatic theatre has a linear narrative which means its events happen in chronological order. Epic theatre often has a fractured narrative that is non-linear and jumps about in time.
Epic theatre also shows an argument. It’s a clear political statement. The audience remains objective and watches a montage or a series of scenes. Standing outside the action emotionally, the audience can study the story objectively and should recognise social realities. (ARTICLE 1)
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht. Although many of the concepts and practices involved in Brechtian epic theatre had been around for years, even centuries, Brecht unified them, developed the style, and popularized it. Epic theatre incorporates a mode of acting that utilises what he calls gestus. The epic form describes both a type of written drama and a methodological approach to the production of plays: “Its qualities of clear description and reporting and its use of choruses and projections as a means of commentary earned it the name ‘epic’.” Brecht later preferred the term “dialectical theatre” which he discussed in his work “A Short Organum for the Theatre”.
One of the goals of epic theatre is for the audience to always be aware that it is watching a play: “It is most important that one of the main features of the ordinary theatre should be excluded from [epic theatre]: the engendering of illusion.”
Epic theatre was a reaction against popular forms of theatre, particularly the naturalistic approach pioneered by Constantin Stanislavski. Like Stanislavski, Brecht disliked the shallow spectacle, manipulative plots, and heightened emotion of melodrama; but where Stanislavski attempted to engender real human behavior in acting through the techniques of Stanislavski’s system and to absorb the audience completely in the fictional world of the play, Brecht saw Stanislavski’s methodology as producing escapism. Brecht’s own social and political focus departed also 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. (Article 2)