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FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE BONDIAN ÁPPROACH
The relation of the two approaches to the audience is a useful point to start
from in the discussion of Bond’s approach because his work has been often
discussed in the light of Brecht’s theory??? which Bond himself has widely
argued against.*** Amoiropoulos engages in a detailed exploration of authors
who link Bond’s work with Brecht and concludes that “when commentators
try to illuminate in more detail Bondian practice as a Brechtian development,
they frequently fall into inconsistencies”.**
Brecht wrote extensively in a variety of genres. In-depth analysis of his
theory has been the subject of numerous other studies. I will just present
those elements of his thinking that will be useful in understanding the major
differences with Bond. Brecht defined his own work as epic theatre,
distinguishing it from Aristotle’s theory of drama. He writes about the role
of the audience in epic theatre as the following: “The spectator was no longer
in any way allowed to submit to an experience uncritically (and without
practical consequences) by means of simple empathy with the characters in
a play. The production took the subject-matter and the incidents shown and
put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to
all understanding”.**°
The critical attitude of the spectator needs to be activated according to
Brecht?" in relation to specific social circumstances “to discover means for
their elimination”.*** The social change that Brecht strives for should be based
on the observation of social and historical phenomena that appear in events,
and the epic theatre observed and presented these “and then the thick end of
the wedge followed: the story’s moral”.**” In epic theatre Brecht aims to offer
his audience the possibility of understanding social practices by distancing
them from these and offering a moral in some form to enhance that they have
“practical consequences”*“° outside the theatre as well.
383 Scharine: The plays of Edward Bond; Hay—Roberts: Bond; Hirst: Edward Bond.
334 Edward Bond: Selections from the notebooks of Edward Bond, lan Stuart (ed.), London,
Methuen, 2000, 179; Edward Bond: Edward Bond Letters 5, Ian Stuart (ed.), London,
Routledge, 2001, 7.
Amoiropoulos: Balancing Gaps, 6.
Bertolt Brecht: Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction, in John Willett (ed.): Brecht
on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, London, Eyre Methuen, 1978, 71.
Schechner (Schechner, Richard: Performance Theory, London, Routledge, 2004, 176.)
explains that Brecht wants the theatre audience to ask questions that a crowd would ask
when they gather around the site of an accident in the street. Brecht (Brecht, Bertolt: Brecht
on Theatre, New York, Hill & Wang, 1964, 121) explains the mode of acting in Epic Theatre
through an analogy of an accident on a street in his essay titled The Street Scene. While
the dramaturgical function of a crisis creating possibilities for questioning is similar to
Bond’s DE, the demonstrative mode of acting Brecht refers to here is in sharp contrast to
what Bond describes as enactment, discussed in detail further on in this chapter.
Brecht: Theatre for Pleasure, 75.
339 Ibid.
340 Tbid., 71.
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