Between his return from the United States after World War II, and his death in 1956, playwright Bertolt Brecht, with his Berliner Ensemble, created one of the finest acting companies in the world -- one which became a testing-ground for his theatrical exploration and challenged the theatrical conventions of the day.
While alerting audiences to the devices of dramatization, Brecht's productions also allowed them to critically distance themselves from the stories being told onstage. He introduced non-naturalistic devices, such as caricatures and direct address, into the acting style of the Berliner Ensemble, and there was interaction with audiences and musicians onstage. These were all parts of a theatrical approach that he described as "the alienation effect."
As a committed communist, Brecht invested his theater with Marxist thinking, and his plays can be viewed as parables of a society whose goal is to effect change. In Brecht, there is an underlying seriousness, but his plays also depend a great deal on comedy, and are imbued with a crude bluntness.
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