Staging the outrageous life : Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungstheater as practical philosophy of education

This chapter explores German theatre maker Bertolt Brecht’s theatre as a practical philosophy of education. Drawing on his Verfremdungseffekt (estrangement effect) and gestic acting style, I will show how Brechtian theatre aims to educate its audience (and actors) into a stance of practical philosophising. Positioning his theatre as being ‘anti-Aristotelian’, Brecht does not only seek to make social reality recognisable in the theatre. He also wishes to render possible (through his V-effekt aesthetic) the observation of the social and aesthetic processes, which bring forth the theatrical illusion of ‘reality’ – on stage and in real life. I will show that Brecht’s pedagogical intention pivots around his (rather Aristotelian) view that pleasure resides at the heart of theatre’s pedagogical task. This is an aesthetic pleasure that does not however emerge from Aristotelian/cathartic identification with the protagonist, but instead from the audience’s active reflection on the productive conditions of Brecht’s estranged theatrical mimesis. Here, theatre’s images are not to ‘govern’ the audience’s subjectivity but position people’s innate capacity for intellectual creativity/reasoning at the heart of its pedagogical and artistic work. As I will show in actress Helene Weigel’s masterful embodiment of the outrageous Mother Courage figure (in the eponymous play), Brecht seeks to move his audience into a stance of practical, joyful philosophising about how to live a good life, without re-enacting the in-human circumstances that seek to stifle our capacity for humanity?