In addition to multiple role casting, another epic theatre device being employed as a way of creating
Alienation Effect is direct address to the audience from the characters, that is, the performers' becoming the narrator throughout the play by either stepping out of their roles or in their roles.
Accelerated release of detainees can reduce this
alienation effect and meet political demands to free Iraqis, but it also risks having them rejoin the insurgency and could jeopardize fragile security gains.
It's not the
alienation effect of agitpop or even a protest, but a deeper existential ambivalence about the state of the world, as if to ask, Is it even worth saving?
But I also remember the director explaining the rudiments of the
alienation effect and how Brecht used foreign China as a symbol for native Germany.
The titles indicating chronological movements are essential for Vogel's use of a performance technique called the "
alienation effect." As articulated by German playwright Bertolt Brecht, the "
alienation effect" draws audience members' attention to the theatricality of drama in order to make the familiar unfamiliar and suggest that seemingly natural social conditions can be changed (Brecht on Theatre, trans.
Helmer David Fuller may not have managed a consistent company style, but he clearly understands the Brechtian principle of "the
alienation effect," which demands intellectual rather than emotional engagement in the harrowing dramatic events that befall the characters.