S.'s theatre consisted only of stars, great and small. He proved that individual playing only reaches full effectiveness by means of ensemble playing.
— Bertolt Brecht, 1952
“...[I]f communication between persons is important in real life, it is ten times more so on stage,” Stanislavski wrote. “[T]he spectators in the theatre can understand and indirectly participate in what goes on on the stage only while this interchange continues among the actors.”
During the rehearsal process, Brecht wrote, “the learning process must be co-ordinated so that the actor learns as the other actors are learning and develops his character as they are developing theirs. For the smallest social unit is not the single person but two people. In life too we develop one another."
Brecht deplored the practice of allowing the “star” to shape his or her role by “getting all the other actors to work for him: he makes his character terrible or wise by forcing his partners to make theirs terrified or attentive." Standing this practice on its head, Brecht suggested that actors change roles, and that characters be presented in “other forms.”
Brecht used a variety of exercises to, as he put it, strengthen “the all-decisive social standpoint” from which the actor should present the character “The master is only the sort of master his servant lets him be.” “The actor finds out much more about himself from the treatment which he gets at the hands of the characters in the play."
© H. Clark Kee, 2009