Brechtian lighting

[fireball40k]

This is not something that I need to do (or have ever seen), but since hearing David Bowie describe his awe at first seeing a show that was lit in the Brechtian way, I have always wondered about the secrets to creating 'white' lighting that looks beautiful and modelled, rather than just being washed out. Is it about light and shade, is it about different tones of white - or is it supposed to be completely washed out to emphasise the stark nature of epic theatre?

 

Several Google searches have not come up with any information about the specific techniques employed, so I just wondered whether anyone had done one or knew of any how-to guides out there?

 

Many thanks

 

 

Steve

[EmmaThompson]

This is not something that I need to do (or have ever seen), but since hearing David Bowie describe his awe at first seeing a show that was lit in the Brechtian way, I have always wondered about the secrets to creating 'white' lighting that looks beautiful and modelled, rather than just being washed out. Is it about light and shade, is it about different tones of white - or is it supposed to be completely washed out to emphasise the stark nature of epic theatre?

 

Several Google searches have not come up with any information about the specific techniques employed, so I just wondered whether anyone had done one or knew of any how-to guides out there?

 

Many thanks

 

 

Steve

 

Epic theatre is all about constantly reminding the audience that they are watching a play, rather than sucking them into the magical world of theatre, through set, acting and lighting. Todays "working lights", florries etc would probably have been his ideal. he also didn't want to hide the light source - no birdies hidden in sets etc.

 

It's a very different approach to lighting, and really interesting, but the whole show has to be done in "epic" style, or it doesn't really work.

[litemog]

This is not something that I need to do (or have ever seen), but since hearing David Bowie describe his awe at first seeing a show that was lit in the Brechtian way, I have always wondered about the secrets to creating 'white' lighting that looks beautiful and modelled, rather than just being washed out. Is it about light and shade, is it about different tones of white - or is it supposed to be completely washed out to emphasise the stark nature of epic theatre?

 

Several Google searches have not come up with any information about the specific techniques employed, so I just wondered whether anyone had done one or knew of any how-to guides out there?

 

Many thanks

 

 

Steve

 

I remember reading many years ago that Brecht's theatre company The Berliner Ensemble created quite a stir in the sixties by colouring their entire lighting rig with the old Cinemoid no17 steel blue gel. I think it might have been in the original Pilbrow lighting book.

[ramdram]

Currently doing Travels with my Aunt across West Country.

 

(T-I-c warning) The Brechtian idea is that the audience is to be reminded they are watching a play and not being drawn in and not identify with a character...allegedly...except that when Wordsworth's body is found in the garden covered with orange blossom Henry suggests that Wordsworth had returned to the mansion to try to persuade Aunt Augusta to come back to him. At that point most of the female audience utter a collective "aww".

 

That's the problem with psychology, people are always mucking up the theory.

 

Plus the lighting in some low ceilinged VHs borders on the Brechtian anyway.

 

This might of interest:

 

http://www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/mothercourage/Design

[Junior8]

The only Brecht I've ever done was the Caucasian Chalk Circle, in 1976, performed against a matt black cyc with only token props and furniture. As I recall - and I may go and dig the folder out later - I used a lot of open white at pretty harsh angles with no attempt at finesse at all. If they wanted alienation they could have it as far as I was concerned! And as all the gear was by Furse they could enjoy the visual feast of exposed equipment as well.

 

Mind you I never actually saw the show as this was about the last time I did anything from a wing control with no real view of the stage - and the director actually did most of the plotting as he was something of a Brecht addict and had pretty fundamental views on what he wanted.

 

As my preferences ran and still run counter to this style of drama, indeed to the kind of theatre Brecht was reacting against, I was prepared to leave him to it!

 

Mind you I think this piece has more in common with the 'well made play' than Brecht might like to admit...

 

(I bet if you google Brechtian Lighting - Thesis you'll find material from US Post-grads to fill you in.)

[J Pearce]

I've never lit any Brechtian style theatre with 'beautifully modelled' states. I've always gone for very non naturalistic stark lighting - my interpretation of reminding the audience this is a theatrical story, not reality acted out in front of you.

 

The last piece I lit in Brechtian style was a production of Berkoff's The Trial which used many epic theatre techniques, and the whole setting was abstract with lots of very strange chorus work. I lit the whole piece in open white from side only or top only, with the end in just enough light to see. I probably only used 10 lanterns in total, and could have done it with 3.

This is probably a departure from true Brechtian lighting which, as Emma pointed out, is probably best fulfilled with just 'some light', and not much change or mood enhancing.

[kerry davies]

Try the John Willett books about Brechtian theatre and search the internet for the Modellbuch photographs of the Brechtian Berliner Ensemble. JW's last book was a comparative study so should be interesting in the context of your question. The book by John Alton,, "Painting With Light" is one I recommend strongly to young people interested in lighting and might be interesting for a contemporary background.

 

I met Mr Willett before his death working on a youth drama festival in a studio space which he found ideal for the purpose. He told us that the lighting was important but the "mechanics of theatre" were the basis for Brechts' thinking. Hence no "hidden" stage hands, no curtain, no hiding and glossing over the realities of life. When Brecht died in the mid-fifties the Berliner Ensemble then produced work by other writers and went somewhat more technically complex, gels etc, but one thing JW did say was that rock and roll lighting where the lanterns become a visible part of the set owes its' genesis to Brecht, which is arguable but interesting.

 

One thing to bear in mind is the time we are talking about and the events Brecht lived through, a very "black and white" era. Not much colour film, World War One, extreme poverty, nazism and exile, HUAC, East Berlin in the fifties, politics of the far right and extreme left etc. The ripping away of the facade was an understandable reaction and the theatre was epic because the times were epic, in my opinion.

To get underneath the skin of the technicalities I think that one has to understand "where it is coming from", in the vernacular of the hippy.

[kerry davies]

Try the John Willett books about Brechtian theatre and search the internet for the Modellbuch photographs of the Brechtian Berliner Ensemble. JW's last book was a comparative study so should be interesting in the context of your question. The book by John Alton,, "Painting With Light" is one I recommend strongly to young people interested in lighting and might be interesting for a contemporary background.

 

I met Mr Willett before his death working on a youth drama festival in a studio space which he found ideal for the purpose. He told us that the lighting was important but the "mechanics of theatre" were the basis for Brechts' thinking. Hence no "hidden" stage hands, no curtain, no hiding and glossing over the realities of life. When Brecht died in the mid-fifties the Berliner Ensemble then produced work by other writers and went somewhat more technically complex, gels etc, but one thing JW did say was that rock and roll lighting where the lanterns become a visible part of the set owes its' genesis to Brecht, which is arguable but interesting.

 

One thing to bear in mind is the time we are talking about and the events Brecht lived through, a very "black and white" era. Not much colour film, World War One, extreme poverty, nazism and exile, HUAC, East Berlin in the fifties, politics of the far right and extreme left etc. The ripping away of the facade was an understandable reaction and the theatre was epic because the times were epic, in my opinion.

To get underneath the skin of the technicalities I think that one has to understand "where it is coming from", in the vernacular of the hippy.

[fireball40k]

Thank you all for your responses and thank you Kerry for your book recommendations.

 

I think I'm getting the message: Keep the lamps on show; open white or steel blue; stark angles and no fancy stuff!

[Ken Coker]

open white or steel blue; stark angles and no fancy stuff!

 

Might I commend a brisk study of Caspar Neher?

 

KC

 

(and no, this isn't what I was originally going to write...)

[kitlane]

 

The Lighting by B. Brecht

Electrician

Give us light on our stage

How can we disclose

We playwrights and actors

Images to the world in semi-darkness ?

The sleepy twilight sends to sleep.

Yet we need our watchers wide awake.

Indeed we need them vigilant.

Let them dream in brightness.

The little bit

Of night that's wanted now and then

Our lamps and moons can indicate.

And we with our acting too can keep

The times of day apart.

The Elizabethan wrote us

Verses on a heath at evening

Which no lights will ever reach

Nor even the heath itself embrace.

Therefore flood full on

What we have made with work

That the watcher may see

The indignant peasant

Sit down upon the soil of Tavastland

As though it were her own.

 

B Brecht

From Brecht's 'Poems on the Theatre' (Gedichte aus dem Messingkauf)