comparative report essays

comparative report essays Scene eleven from the play Mother Courage and her Children and act one scene four from Summer of the Aliens are scenes which are performed very differently, according to their theatrical styles and using conventions relating to those styles. The context in each scene diverses too, however there are some similarities. Mother Courages scene, written in 1940s by Bertolt Brecht, is a work of epic theatre, created by the writer. It is totally opposite to realistic theatre style of the scene from Summer of the Aliens written by Louis Nowra in 1968. According to this realistic style, invented by Constantin Stanislavsky, the perforance of the scene has to be very real and believable. The actors have to re-enact the circumstances as realistically as possible through life like characters with the right use of voice and movements, realistic costumes, the overall stage resembling photographic detail of the period in the scene and the main aim for audience to empathy with characters. Along with Stanislavsky, Bertolt Brechts Epic Theatre is the very essence of non-realism with the main aim to avoid the typical theatrical conventions of realism. Through this, avoiding an illusion of realistic theatre. The acting and staging techniques such as use of a narrator, simple or fragmentary costumes, basic open wh ite stage lighting, fragmentary props and scenery, actors swapping characters mid-scene, actors playing multiple roles and occasionally speaking directly to the audience are all used in performance of Brecht's scene from Mother Courage. These theatrical conventions, according to Brecht, can portray social truths in a way audiences could not ignore. They are didactic in nature with audience alienating purposes. The purpose of performance is to teach or instruct the audience about the issue in the scene. As well as in the performance of Summ ...