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How Is The Verfremdungseffekt Created By The Set In ‘The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui’?Joshua Bingham

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ContentsPg 2-7 - How Is The Verfremdungseffekt Created By The Set In ‘The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui’?

Pg 8 – References and Bibliography

Pg 9 – Critique Of Sources

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The ‘Verfremdungseffekt’ was a technique developed by Bertolt Brecht in which the director attempts to dispel the audiences role as the unobserved observer; the ‘Fourth Wall’, and force them to take an active and analytical role within the play itself. There are many problems with the word ‘Verfremdungseffekt’ as there is no standard way of translating it into English. The closest translations are ‘Distancing Effect’ and ‘Alienation Effect’ but these do not truly express the word’s meaning and because of this many people simply leave it as ‘V-effekt’; this is what shall be used in this essay to mean ‘Verfremdungseffekt’. The desired effect is to make the audience conscious of their passive role as observer. Once this has been achieved Brecht hoped that instead of being drawn into the narrative and considering the characters as real people, audiences would be able to consider the moral and political messages contained with the play.

Brecht realised this active role was not one that audiences naturally assumed and because of this it was necessary for the composition of the play to force them into this role. There are many ways that this can be achieved. Playwrights can include asides to the audience which makes them consider the line instead of allowing it to wash over them and by including a Chorus which represents the common people. These things are just two examples of how playwrights can create the distancing effect that Brecht desired.

The V-effekt can also be created by the set of the production and it is this particular method that this essay will concern itself with. More specifically it will focus on the way in which the V-effekt would and could be created through the set design of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

Brecht’s Set Designer was named Caspar Neher and was he was one of the few men to wholly understand Brecht’s approach to theatre. He had grown up with Brecht and had collaborated with him on almost every play; Brecht even looked to Neher for criticism. Whilst The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was one of the few plays that Neher did not work on with Brecht, this essay will make inferences about what elements from Neher’s stagecraft would be included in the play in order to create the V-effekt.

In the prologue of the play the opening stage direction tells us of the signs that are hanging on the curtain. ‘Cicero taken over by gangsters’ and ‘Friends murder gangster Ernesto Roma’ [1] are two of the signs that would be on the curtain. These signs are very characteristic of Brecht and an important part of Epic Theatre stage design. There are a number of ways that the signs could be ‘attached to the curtain’ [1]. They could obviously be large card signs that Brecht frequently used in his plays with the messages clearly printed on them; an example of which can be found below:

SOURCE ONE[2]

On the left is a picture from a modernised, Italian production of The Threepenny Opera. In this source we can see the kind of signs used by Brecht being used.

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However, there is another way that this could be done. Neher frequently wrote on the curtain when text needed to be displayed to the audience. An example of this can be found below:

Writing on the curtain or putting signs on it in this fashion creates the V-effekt in two ways. Firstly, the audience is being told key plot events before they have happened. This will lessen the emotional investment the audience gives the events on stage, since they already know what will happen to the characters, and instead focus on the message and purpose of their deaths. Secondly, through reading a message directly addressed to them makes the viewer aware of their role as an observer. They are being forced to actively engage with what is happening on the stage as well as being made to realise that what they are seeing is not an accurate representation of reality; there are no hints about the future in real life.

In Source 2 we can see another of Neher’s tools for creating the V-effekt, the half curtain. Brecht thought it was more important to make the audience conscious of the fact they were in a theatre than it was to make them think that they were wherever the play is set. He said that ‘the best thing was to show the machinery, the ropes and the flies’ [4] and this is precisely what the half curtain allows him to do. Even when the curtain is down the audience can see the stage behind. Typically, the curtain falls to show a change in set and if the audience were to see this than it breaks the illusion that what is happening is reality. With the half curtain Neher embraces this. The audience can plainly see at all times, curtain up or down, that the action on stage is playing out in a theatre.

The curtain is no longer functioning as a screen to maintain an illusion. It is instead serving to show the audience that what they are seeing is taking place within the theatre; this is essential in creating the V-effekt. It was because of this that it was rare for any of Neher’s sets to have a full curtain and infact it was more common for them to have no curtain at all.

The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui is a play that parodies Hitler’s rise to power with mobsters trying to control the green grocery trade in Chicago. The play is one which relies on the creation of

SOURCE TWO[3]

Here we see that Neher has actually handwritten the message to the audience on the curtain. This is from an original production of The Threepenny Opera by Brecht.

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the V-effekt for its political impact to be fully grasped by the audience. It follows then, that the set design for this play would incorporate either a half curtain or no curtain at all.

To greater enforce the parodying nature of the play Brecht included signs after key scenes which clearly showed the audience what had been parodied in the previous scene. An example of one of these signs is ‘The impending death of the aged Hindenburg provokes bitter struggles in the Nazi camp’ [5]. There are a number of ways that this could be done. It could be done using physical signs that were bought on, as shown below:

The other way that such signs were presented to the audience was through the use of projections. Projections were frequently used by Neher and are a highly effective way of creating the V-effekt. An example of this can be found below:

SOURCE THREE[6]

In this source we clearly see two signs indicating to the audience who is the radio (Das Radio) and who is the listener (Der Hörer). This picture is taken from the original production of the radio play The Flight Of The Lindberghs which was written and directed by Brecht.

SOURCE FOUR[7]

On either side of we see an example of captions being projected onto screens. This is taken from the original production of The Threepenny Opera by Brecht.

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The use of these captions in The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui is to clearly show the audience how what is happening on stage relates to what happened in real life. Brecht does not rely on the audience to work out how the two relate on their own and reinforces the message with these captions.

The signs create the V-effekt in a number of different ways. The audience is being directly addressed which makes them realise their role as observer. It also makes the audience aware of the political message of the play. Brecht hoped that this would turn the audience’s focus away from the characters emotions and instead make them examine their actions and thereby strengthen the political impact of play. In The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui either of these stage elements could have been used to create the V-effekt.

Neher’s approach to set design is best explained in some of the many letters he wrote to Brecht. Many people had been writing to Neher about the creation of a realistic set and this was something that Neher did not agree with. Neher vented his frustrations by writing to Brecht. In these letters he describes his opinion on the subject of realistic stage design and the German theatre term ‘Bühnenbild’ (translated as ‘stage picture’). He writes to Brecht that a picture is ‘never realistic’ whereas the stage is ‘always realistic’ [8]. He believed that the term ‘Bühnenbild’ was a contradiction in itself. In Neher’s opinion a set should, and could, only represent reality. Neher believed that you should only guide the illusion of the set and that this was best done through the use of levels and proportions. He also believed that there was no point in having anything on stage that the actors did not directly interact with.

Neher’s opinions on the set can be clearly seen when looking at his designs. The stage is usually very empty. There are usually no painted flats and often the unlit back of the stage serves as a background to the action. Also there are very little props on stage; this was something that both Neher and Brecht thought was very important.

SOURCE FIVE[9]

Here is an example of a characteristic Neher set design. Note the absence of props and more importantly the way that the presence of a town is subtly hinted at by the construction hidden in shadow at the back. Also note the black background of the production.

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All of these things help to create the V-effekt. Everything on the stage is there for a reason; there is nothing included in the set that does not fulfil a certain purpose. Brecht believed the audience must embrace the fact that what they were seeing was not real. The set is there to make the audience realise this. Once this has been achieved they can consider the drama in a more analytical light. Certainly this is something that Brecht would want to achieve with The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui and, as we see below, all these elements were included in the original set.

The original set of The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui was not designed by Neher but did contain many of the things that Neher thought a set should contain.

The large white pillar in the centre of the stage is one way in which the political message of the play can be reinforced to the audience. It is not something that has been included to mimic reality but it is instead something more symbolic. The power of Ui and his higher status is being symbolically represented by his physical location. The podium places him above all the other characters and they must all look up to look at him. This is exactly what Neher thought was an appropriate way of demonstrating something abstract like power. It is also interesting to note that the pillar has not been designed to look like anything. It is merely there as a means for Arturo Ui to get above the other character.

Through the inclusion of this pillar the V-effekt is created. The pillar is representative of Ui’s power. It is not a realistic portrayal of a podium and it is not intended to be. This is what Brecht wanted most of all. The audience realises that what they are seeing is not realistic and instead they focus on what the set represents and what the drama is trying to show.

All the elements that have been discussed in the essay can be used to create the V-effekt. Most of them can be seen in Source Six: the lack of painted flats, the black background, the absence of props and the symbolic use of levels. This essay has also shown that, through the examination of other set designs where the same things were used, the elements that cannot be seen in Source Six would likely have been included in the set design. Overall, this essay has shown that the set design

SOURCE SIX[10]

This is the original set from The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui. Note the lack of props and the black background. There is a large podium in the middle of the stage upon which Arturo is delivering a speech.

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of The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui helps to create the V-effekt that Brecht intended when writing the play.

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