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Brecht, the ‘alienation effect’ and

Mother Courage
In his theory of theatre, Bertolt Brecht developed the ‘alienation effect’, a concept that
broke severely with the dominant Aristotelian dramaturgy in many ways, rejecting the
traditional function of art, and Aristotle’s conceptions of mimesis, catharsis and
unified plot. Brecht’s theory stems from dialectical materialism, a philosophical
system that necessarily breaks with Aristotelian logic, and is based around the need
for art to be actively involved in changing the world rather than merely ‘imitating’ it.
Seeing catharsis as a means by which tragedy demobilises its audience and reinforces
bourgeois ideology, Brecht used the ‘alienation effect’ as a means of distancing the
audience and actors from a play’s action to the point that critical reflection upon the
play comes more organically than uncritical emotional involvement. The ‘alienation
effect’ is achieved through such methods as the disunity of narrative structure and
unnatural representation of characters, betraying Aristotle’s ‘unity of action’ and
concept of ‘mimesis’ respectively.

Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children is often said to be a prime example of

Epic Theatre, containing many examples of what Brecht meant by the ‘alienation
effect’. On the other hand, the play is often labelled ‘tragic’ in literary criticism, is
discussed in reference to tragedy and appears as a text on courses dedicated to
tragedy. This is all despite tragedy being a genre that Brecht intended to aggressively
do away with via the ‘alienation effect’. This paradox emerges because of an inherent
difficulty in interpreting any Brechtian play, which is by definition “incomplete in
itself, completed only in the audience’s reception of it”.[1] Radically differing
‘effects’ are achieved depending whether you read the play in German, read it in
English, view it in East Berlin in 1949 or in New York in 2006. Mother Courage as a
read text itself constitutes only a partial implementation of the ‘alienation effect’.
Despite including techniques such as fragmentation of the narrative, and interruption
of action with song and projected text, the play still holds potential to act as an
outright tragedy. This is the only way to explain the empathy with Mother Courage
felt by a significant proportion of audience members and critics throughout the play’s
history. It is only when ‘alienation’ devices are consciously and correctly
implemented in production that the notorious ‘effect’ can occur, with Brecht himself
achieving this through set, lighting, and acting among many other things. It is of
course impossible to enter the minds of historical audiences and witness the success or
failure of Mother Courage in stimulating their critical faculties through ‘alienation’,
but it is nonetheless possible to measure the play’s qualities according to those
proposed in Brecht’s theory, and this is important to any overall assessment of
Brechtian dramaturgy as a whole.
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Brecht’s philosophy of theatre

Accurate conceptualisation of Brechtian dramaturgy requires some understanding of

his dialectical method, the most important principle of which, for our purposes, is ‘the
standpoint of the totality’. Dialectics is, first and foremost, a logic of motion and
change, applied by Hegel to the phenomenological development of the forms of
thought, and later by Marx in his understanding of human history as driven by intra-
societal antagonisms and contradictions. Thus in its foundations, Brecht’s dialectical
materialism rejects formal, Aristotelian logic, which asserts laws of identity (A = A)
and non-contradiction (A ≠ not-A). To Brecht, such formal logic is ahistorical and
cannot account for the fact that “everything that exists is continually turning into
something else”.[2] This rejection is significant if we are to understand
Aristotle’s Poetics as grounded in his method of logic. Furthermore, the dialectical
method explains Brecht as highly self-conscious of his role in history, as a dramatist
who seeks a standpoint of totality. What this means is that Brecht refuses to see his
theatrical work in isolation from the wider historical context and all interrelations
involved, i.e. ‘the totality’. The practical result of this philosophical underpinning is a
rejection of passive mimesis and a call for historically potent, interventionist theatre.

Before exploring the ‘alienation effect’, it is useful to expand upon Brecht’s

‘refunctioning’ of theatre and how it entails a rejection of any traditional
understanding of theatre’s ‘function’. Philip Sidney, following Aristotle, defines
poetry as “an art of imitation… a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth… with
this end, to teach and delight.”[3] Brecht passionately disagrees that “the function of
theatre was to provide escapist entertainment” to those with the assumed “ideological
belief that the world [is] fixed, given and unchangeable”[4]. Instead, for Brecht “the
task of theatre is not to ‘reflect’ a fixed reality, but to demonstrate how character and
action are historically produced, and so how they could have been, and still can be
different.”[5] Thus in Brecht’s theory the “duality of form and content” becomes the
“triad of content, form and function”[6], with art’s function prioritised. This
‘refunctioning’ represents Brecht’s dialectical understanding of the ability of art and
culture to reflect on social reality rather being limited to mechanical reflection of, to
use Marxist terminology, the ‘base’. Robert Leach explains that “Brecht wanted his
theatre to intervene in the process of shaping society”[7], therefore Brecht’s theories
of the ‘alienation effect’, and how to achieve it, are underpinned by this intended
function of his work.

With some understanding of the broader philosophy behind Brechtian dramaturgy, we

can now look at the specific theory of the ‘alienation effect’, which seeks to break
with Aristotelian tragedy, its structure and ‘cathartic’ effect, and to produce historical
awareness in the audience. While Brecht did not reject the notion that theatre should
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be entertaining, he deeply loathed Aristotle’s theory of catharsis, the “purging of

emotions by self-identification (empathy) with those of the actor,” which he
considered essential to “hypnotic, anti-critical theatre”[8]. Brecht wanted to avoid
traditional mimesis, the drawing of the audience into an enthralling illusion of reality,
taken as ‘real’ rather than as a social ‘product’, preventing “an audience from
reflecting critically on both the mode of representation and the actions
represented.”[9] Thus Brecht, in 1927, wrote:

The essential point of the epic theatre is perhaps that it appeals less to the feelings
than to the spectator’s reason. Instead of sharing an experience the spectator must
come to grips with things.[10]

Practice of the ‘alienation effect’

The ‘alienation effect’ becomes Brecht’s “means of breaking the magic spell, of
jerking the spectator out of his torpor and making him use his critical sense.”[11] To
break the spell of catharsis, Brecht developed several theatrical innovations that
sought to distance, or ‘alienate’, audiences from a play’s action.

Brecht saw the fragmentation of narrative structure as critical to creating the

‘alienation effect’, a position that shattered any loyalty the unified plot structures of
the Aristotelian tradition. Aristotle asserts that plot “should imitate a single, unified
action – and one that is whole”[12], with “whole” referring to “that which has a
beginning, a middle and an end.”[13] Consequently, in his crusade against
“conventional illusion of reality”, Brecht attacked a necessary element of it, “the
‘single chain’ of a ‘timeless’ narrative”[14]. Brecht wanted plays that were “formally
uneven, interrupted, discontinuous, juxtaposing… scenes in ways which disrupt
conventional expectations and force the audience into critical speculation on the
dialectical relations between episodes.”[15] One method of achieving such montage is
outlined by Jean Genet, who wanted each scene, or each section of each scene, to be
“perfected and played as rigorously and with as much discipline as if it were a short
play, complete in itself”[16], leaving no indication, if viewed alone, that anything in a
wider plot should precede or succeed it. Another method is the interruption of plot by
different art forms, such as song, dance and film, “which refuse to blend smoothly
with one another, cutting across the action rather than neatly integrating with it.”[17]

The ‘alienation effect’ encourages non-traditional techniques of acting, such as the

not/but element, which simply involves an actors’ verbalization of action and
decision-making: “I did not _____, but did _____.” This breaks with tradition firstly
because the actor does not “naturally” portray human thought processes and decision-
making; this produces constant awareness in both the actor and the spectator of the
artificiality of character, helping to create the “distance” necessary for critical
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judgment. Furthermore, the not/but element destroys the sense of inevitability that
permeates Aristotelian tragedy. It makes explicit the role of subjective intervention, of
human choice, into the plot, engendering a sense of evitability. In doing so, this acting
technique is utilised with the intention to influence the spectator’s social
consciousness.

At its core, the intended effect of all techniques of ‘alienation’ is the overcoming of
reification; this goes hand in hand with the destruction of organic, mimetic unity that
characterises Aristotelian drama and mystifies the commodity form of modern theatre.
From a Lukácsian perspective, one aspect of reification entails that the ‘objective’
world of commodities and their movements on the market “confront us as invisible
forces that generate their own power”[18], rather than as products of human labour.
Fredric Jameson applies this concept to the ‘hypnotic’ form of tragedy to which
Brecht was opposed: “The well-made production is one from which the traces of its
rehearsals have been removed (just as from the successfully reified commodity the
traces of production itself have been made to disappear)”[19]. Brecht’s ‘alienation
effect’ is an attempt to ward off such commodity fetishism, and engender
consciousness, amongst producers and spectators alike, of theatre’s status as a
constructed entirely by social labour. Theoretically, with the ‘alienation effect’
theatre’s spectator is no longer the passive consumer of a mystical commodity, but is
critically engaged with the themes of the play and conscious the role of human
activity in shaping reality.

The problem of Mother Courage

A major problem for Brecht as a theatre practitioner arose when a production

of Mother Courage was responded to as a cathartic tragedy, an outcome that the
‘alienation effect’ sought to avoid. As we have seen, Brecht’s dramaturgy was
fervently anti-Aristotelian and consciously opposed itself to the tradition of tragedy.
Catharsis was seen as objectionable in its engenderment of hypnotic empathy with the
tragic figure, and thus the ‘alienation effect’ was the practical attempt to bring critical
engagement to the forefront of theatre: “To alienate an incident or a character means
to take from that incident or character what makes it obvious, familiar or readily
understandable, so as to create wonderment and curiosity”.[20] Hence, in
writing Mother Courage, Brecht wanted “no tragedy… and no catharsis, since he
believed that such a purging would incapacitate the audience for political action”.
[21] However, after Mother Courage’s premiere at the Schauspielhaus Zürich Brecht
was disgruntled when audience members described his play as “a Niobe tragedy”
conveying “the amazing vitality of the maternal animal”.[22] Fiona Shaw, who played
Mother Courage in 2009, correctly describes the character’s constant self-
contradiction:
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She curses the war, then in the very next scene says that poor people do much better in
war than in peace. She speaks in every scene with whatever point of view she has at
that moment, which is generally the practical, amoral, politically incorrect point of
view.[23]

Brecht intended such anomalies to compel the audience to criticise her behaviour as
“inconsistent and self-defeating”,[24] but Ronald Hayman claims that the unintended
result of exploring such contradictions in character is the play’s strong focus on
Courage’s individuality; “We get to know her more intimately than any of Brecht’s
other characters, and we identify with her”.[25]

Mother Courage of course has not been universally perceived as tragic, with various
critics describing its engagement of reason over emotion, and insisting that it stands as
an authoritative implementation of the ‘alienation effect’. In keeping with his
conception of ‘interventionist’ theatre, Brecht claims to have written Mother
Courage in “white heat”[26] as a response to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in
1939. Its social function is made clear in its “theme of the devastating effects of a
European war and the blindness of anyone hoping to profit by it”.[27] As such, it has
been praised in its ability to make a viewer “consider the consequences”[28] of little
people trying to make big profits in wartime, to make us recognise “that her business
interests prove to be incompatible with her second avowed concern which is to bring
her three children safely through the conflict”.[29] Indeed, when Mother
Courage succeeds in producing this anti-tragic response, it is usually attributed to the
fact that “Brecht had never made better practical use of his ideas about Epic Theatre
than in writing Mother Coruage”.[30]

A paradox has become apparent: more than any of Brecht’s plays, Mother

Courage has a history of being labelled tragic and analysed through tragic discourse,
but is simultaneously “regarded as the masterpiece of Brecht’s concept of Epic
Theatre”.[31] To determine the extent to which Mother Courage stands as an
implementation of Brechtian theory requires an assessment of the ‘alienating’ devices,
and their effectiveness, present in the text and in production.

Alienation in the text

In assessing the implementation of alienating devices in the text itself, the play’s
narrative structure is an important place to start. In twelve scenes, Mother
Courage spans over a large time period, from 1624 to 1636, and geographic region,
with action occurring in Sweden, Poland and Saxony. The scenes are relatively
episodic, assisting Brecht’s attempt to present the contradictory interests of Courage at
different moments and “force the audience into critical speculation on the dialectical
relations between episodes”.[32] For example, at the end of scene 3, Courage
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“suppresses every natural feeling”[33] and allows the Sergeant to “chuck [Swiss

Cheese] in the pit”.[34] This is juxtaposed with the beginning of scene 4, in which she
is prepared to voice anger at soldiers who “slashed everything in me cart to pieces”,
[35]highlighting the prioritisation of her commodities over her son’s life before the
‘Song of the Grand Capitulation” reminds her that “offending the authorities is never
good for business”.[36] A more explicit example of this structural technique occurs
with the juxtaposition between scene 6’s end – “war be damned”[37] – and scene 7’s
beginning – “I won’t have you folk spoiling my war for me… war gives its people a
better deal”.[38] We are shown the process by which Courage adopts “whatever
stance her business interests require in the situations as they arise,” revealing “to the
audience the false principles that underlie her actions”.[39] Such narrative
fragmentation, where Brecht envisions “each scene [as] self-contained”,[40] assists
the “alienation effect”, placing the reader/viewer at a critical distance rather than
evoking empathy with Courage’s ideology.

While narrative structure assists the ‘alienation effect’, the text itself does not
constitute a comprehensive implementation of this device. The episodic structure
itself harks back to Shakespeare’s history plays,[41] and Hayman goes as far as to
claim that, far from self-contained scenes, in Mother Courage “one [scene] leads to
the next, as fortune’s wheel inexorably pushes her downwards”.[42] It is not a stretch
to argue that, considering the incessant worsening of her situation, her suffering is
“closer to tragedy than [Brecht] intended”.[43] Certainly, Lukács interpreted Courage
as a tragic figure “who goes to meet her doom subjectively, because her actions show
her to be in direct contrast to the objective tendencies and significance of the play’s
general social trend”.[44]

One Brechtian response to the allegation of Mother Courage as tragedy might be to

cite ‘alienating’ devices in the text apart from the narrative structure, such as the
narrative’s interruption by text and song. Brecht produced “a set of summaries to be
projected on a screen or displayed on a banner before each scene”,[45] which not only
situate each scene historically and geographically but also indicate the dramatic
content of each scene. Thus before scene 3 even plays out, we are made aware that
Courage “manages to save her daughter, likewise her covered cart, but her honest son
is killed”.[46] Furthermore, songs frequently interrupt the play’s action to focus on
themes, comment on incidents and give the audience “time to judge and form their
opinions regarding the episodes presented to them”.[47] However, it could just as
easily be argued that such interruptions are compatible with tragedy; Lucius sings a
song to Brutus in Julius Caesar, for example, and the audience of Romeo & Juliet are
certainly made aware of the play’s tragic content in the prologue.

Alienation on the stage

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The fact that Mother Courage as a text can be considered tragic reveals the problem
of assessing Brecht’s plays in abstraction from their performance onstage. Unlike
Lukács, Brecht “is not in the least interested in Mother Courage as a tragic figure;
what matters is that the audience realizes why she goes to her doom”.[48] Thus in
Brecht’s direction of Mother Courage, particularly the revised version for the Berliner
Ensemble that emphasises “the villainous side of Mother Courage’s character”,
[49] numerous aspects of production contribute to a practical implementation of the
‘alienation effect’.

The most immediately noticeable aspect of staging was the “bare grey stage” with
“merely had enough scenery and properties to show where the scene was taking place,
and to ensure that there was a chair to sit on or a roof to climb on when the text
required it”.[50] This starkness surprised “an audience that expected a detailed,
realistic set”,[51] and was compounded by the simple Brechtian technique of “turning
every available light full on”.[52] Whether the stage conveyed a Swedish spring
afternoon or a winter dawn at the Fichtelgebirge, Brecht flooded each scene with a
bright, white light that was said to be “surprising and sobering”[53] for the Berlin
audience. These techniques, among many others, sought to remind the audience “that
they were being exposed to the techniques of theatrical production, so that they would
apply their critical faculties to the events they were seeing”.[54]

Certain techniques that sought the same end as those aforementioned were innovative
in Brecht’s time but are commonplace today, strengthening the case that a Brechtian
play such as Mother Courage cannot be assessed as a single unchanging work.
Among these include the scene changes in the Berliner Ensemble, where actors would
openly walk on and off stage carrying parts of the scenery, a technique now employed
in the usually curtainless productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company.[55] There
is also the use of the songs, which under Brecht’s direction invited actors to “step out
of their roles and address themselves to the audience”,[56] thus breaking the fourth
wall and intending to produce awareness of events as theatrically produced. The
golden age of American musical theatre normalised this process and limited its ability
to be ‘alienating’ in the contemporary theatre setting. Thus Hugh Rorrison suggests
that the models of the ‘alienation effect’ established by Brecht’s work in East Berlin
“can become progressively duller if fresh new equivalents are not found”.
[57] Therefore, in keeping with Brecht’s conception of historical materialism, Mother
Courage can only constitute an implementation of the ‘alienation effect’ when both its
production techniques and the wider context in which these techniques occur are taken
into account.

In practice the ‘alienation effect’ rests largely on the performance of actors,

necessitating observation of acting techniques employed in Mother Courage under
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Brecht’s direction. A strong example of ‘alienating’ acting occurred with Helene

Weigel’s performance as Courage at the end of scene 3 following the revealment of
Swiss Cheese’s corpse. This scene was among the most problematic for Brecht, as he
could not rewrite this ‘tragic’ scene “in such a way as to destroy all sympathy for her
in her grief”.[58] Only with Weigel’s ‘silent scream’ did this incident achieve a truly
Brechtian ‘alienation effect’. After the death, Weigel adopted a purely physical
posture “without a trace of emotion”, with “her drooped jaw, mouth agape with head
thrown back and eyes closed, shoulders shrugged and hands lying in the lap”[59] an
image said to have been “inspired by a photograph of a mother mourning her child’s
death after a Japanese attack on Singapore”.[60] This anti-naturalistic performance
makes Mother Courage’s mourning seem as alien as a newspaper photograph of a far-
off war crime.

Conclusion

The ‘alienation effect’ calls for a merciless subversion of the principles found in
Aristotle’s Poetics, and of the long tradition of tragedy consciously or unconsciously
influenced by these principles. From its dialectical foundations, Brechtian theatre
consciously takes on a raison d’être entirely incompatible with that of all preceding
tragic theatre, from Sophocles to Goethe. Brecht conceived of catharsis, unified plot
and traditionally mimetic acting as forming an ideological hindrance to critical (in his
words, ‘scientific’) thought and historical self-awareness. Thus the ‘alienation effect’
turns all of these elements on their heads in an attempt to ‘alienate’ the audience from
the production and do away with the uncritical emotional involvement demanded by
the traditional tragedy. Ultimately the ‘alienation effect’ attempts to produce
unceasing recognition of the play as a play: not as a reified illusion of reality
abstracted from the totality of society, but as a consciously constructed agent within
that totality.

Mother Courage and Her Children constitutes an implementation of the ‘alienation

effect’ only to the extent that any given production allows it to do so. The text itself,
although displaying certain Brechtian devices in its narrative structure and its use of
text and song, is only partially ‘alienating’ in the Brechtian sense and even ceases to
be anti-tragic when readers and literary critics empathise with the title character. The
same response was garnered by early productions of the play, with Brecht dismayed
by the audience’s identification of Courage as a ‘tragic hero’ and failure to see her as
villainous in her pursuit of petit-bourgeois interests. It was only when, with the
Berliner Ensemble, Brecht allowed Mother Courage to reach its full potential as an
example of the ‘alienation effect’, with the stage design, lighting, acting, songs, scene
changes and every aspect of production geared toward the purpose of destroying the
tragic illusion of reality.
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