Gestus

Brecht created a theatre technique called Gestus which we were studying in class, this technique involved exaggeration and specific movements to create a "slapstick" character.  During the exercise one of the characters which we were shown to create involved walking around the space with our pelvis pushed out and walking with our feet slightly turned out, like waddling. We all came to the conclusion that we were portraying a lazy, tired, sluggish sort of character. Then jack asked us to put one hand just in front of our stomach, then in a split second it was clear to all of us that we were playing a pregnant character.

This technique shows so much but is so simple and this is why I love it. We played around with social status with the different characters and how they may react with each other and Brecht technique allowed us to tell a simple but effective story with our bodies and not just our vocals. It allows characters to get across their ideas to the audience without the actor's having to connect emotionally with their character's situation and just using gestures. Another exercise we did was we had to stand at opposite ends of the room in two straight lines and my side was the "tough no emotion" soldiers and the other side was the old people trying to get past us, I thought it was a very interesting exercise as even though the characters why quite "stock" characters the actions and reactions were quite realistic as a group we really channelled into the fact that realistically would a soldier push and old person to the floor or would they just stand guard maybe raising their hand or even their gun. Brecht exercise allows us to convey a message to the audience through our gestures rather than our voices and the fact that we are studying political theatre our end goal is to create a message for the audience to either understand or question the idea.