Positive Propaganda

Positive Propaganda

It really amazed me how many western symbolists drew inspiration from Asian theatre in a time where the art form they so dearly loved was being painted over by the realistic qualities of naturalism.  Asian theatre sought to dig deeper than the surface and operate alongside the generators and gears behind reality.  The natural flow occurring towards realism that is still kind of present today, pushed artists of the late 1800’s to find an inspiration that would put interpretation back in theatre instead of just replicating life.

Out of Yeats, Meyerhold, Artaud and Brecht, what Brecht extracted from Asian theatre interested me the most.  His use of Asian theatre within his own work was propaganda-like.  Not the kind of propaganda stigmatized as the government using various mediums to manipulate the minds of the public and influence their behavior, but a positive kind of propaganda.  Through theatre, Brecht sought to address the social issues of society.  His propaganda differs from others in the fact that he did not use emotions to sway the audience but rather maintained objectivity so the audience could come to their own conclusions based upon the symbols he created.  His separation from naturalism also stood out to me.  His plays gave off an aroma of awareness that the actors were actors and the actions were a performance- not reality.  Such an awareness was upheld by actors reacting to symbols differently than people would act in reality, a crucial point for his propaganda-like plays.  It was necessary for actors to behave differently because there needed to be a social change to the problems Brecht saw in society.  Change can only be brought on by a difference in behavior, which he hoped to accomplish beginning with his actors.