Bertolt Brecht y el espectador des-alienado

Abstract

I propose an analysis of the explicit spectator in the theoretical texts of Bertolt Brecht gathered in Brecht on Theater and A Short Organum for the Theater. It starts from a reading of the Organum concentrated on the references to the activity of the theatrical spectator and is expanded with those present in the set of writings where Brecht expands his theoretical thinking.
The great weight that the author gives to the historicization and reflection on the place of the audience in the first half of the Organum highlights its centrality in the proposal of epic theater in general. I suggest that the study of the spectator in Brecht’s explicit poetics can be carried out through two interrelated axes: that of the entertainment or enjoyment of the spectator and that of the construction of their critical attitude. In this way, I seek to deepen the knowledge on the specificity of the theatrical spectator in Brecht’s explicit poetics and its historicity compared to the multiplicity encompassed by the category “spectator” in the history of theater (Dubatti, 2019). Connecting the analysis with his materialist-dialectical conception of theater, we propose the disambiguation “de-alienated spectator” for the spectator theorized by Brecht. It is sought to emphasize throughout the article that the objective of the German author was not to prohibit enjoyment in the theater to replace it with didacticism, but to restore to the spectator a type of entertainment in line with the era in which he lived, and which was denied to him.