The theatrical theories of Bertolt Brecht, including his theory of epic theatre, rejected conventional Aristotelian dramatic styles, and thereafter have played a great role in general artistic activities as well as in numerous plays and films. However...
The theatrical theories of Bertolt Brecht, including his theory of epic theatre, rejected conventional Aristotelian dramatic styles, and thereafter have played a great role in general artistic activities as well as in numerous plays and films. However, his works are now considered classics and the meaning of a classical text has gone through changes in the contemporary age. Accordingly, styles of visual communication have also taken different forms, requiring new manners different from previous ones.
While stage costumes for traditional theatres in general are designed based on particular times and places, those for other cases are determined by the imagination of a costume designer and a director in which dramatic themes or what they intend to express are taken into consideration. Therefore, it is likely that the dramatic themes and the characters in those dramas that are not necessarily bound to particular times and places can be expressed more freely without any conventional or traditional restriction.
In this study, we attempted to visualize Brechtian theories for designing stage costumes for one of the most significant late works of Brecht, 『Mother Courage and her Children』. In doing so, we have focused on the theory of deconstruction. The direction of this study has been deeply inspired by the film 『The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover(1989, directed by Peter Greenaway, and costume design by Jean-Paul Gaultier)』, and the play 『Titus Andronicus(1994, directed by Julie Taymor)』. Based on Brechtian theories, these works express their themes and images effectively by frequently using alienation effect as an artistic device and gesture as an acting technique, wherein visual elements with an inclination toward deconstruction are embedded.
First, those theories that could be applied to scenography among his far-ranging theoretical theories were observed in terms of alienation effect, gesture, and scenography. In the next chapter, the history and the theoretical characteristics of the theory of deconstruction were discussed, followed by reflections on how these characteristics could be associated with costumes.
Based on these discussions, what roles the stage costumes play in the film 『The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover』 and the play 『Titus Andronicus』, and what effects they had on each work were observed scene by scene.
Subsequently, an analysis on 『Mother Courage and her Children』 was conducted, with a focus on the previously discussed Brechetian theatrical theories and the background knowledge about deconstruction, in order to create a deconstructionism design for its stage costumes. With that costume design, we proceeded to produce an experimental play to demonstrate its effectiveness and potential.
The production of 『Mother Courage and her Children』 by Brecht with its stage costumes visualized from a deconstructionism perspective causes the audience psychological discomfort throughout the whole play. It is not only due to the primary effects coming from the forms, the materials, and the colors of the costumes, but also because of the combination of the movements treated under the rubric of Gestus by the actors wearing these deconstructionism costumes, the use of Differences and intertextual props, the digital images without any explicit relationship with the plot of the drama, and the stage setting's breakaway from phenomenon.
This kind of discomfort lacking in spontaneity and resonable beauty makes the audience face the dramatic conditions in a more objective way, and perceive the image as a whole to be floating around.
Thus, in contemporary interpretations of Brecht's works, a deconstructionism way of expression among others is proved to have the potential to visualize the theories of Brecht within a certain scope.