VERFREMDUNGSEFFEKT

The Verfremdungseffekt is a German word that translates into: Effect of making strange. Duhhh. 

An exercise we did to understand the Verfremdungseffekt was to get into pairs and create a naturalistic scene with dialogue that had some form of deep emotion in it for example: Harrison and I were two small children playing but then he tells me his mum is ill with cancer and I don't understand what that is but he tells me its bad, really bad and I hold his hand. Then when you have got your scene and can perform it, share it with the rest of the class one pair at a time and then get feedback about how they felt watching it. The feedback that was generally given was things along the lines of 'that was really powerful' or that was really sad'. The next step of this exercise is to take the scene you have created and pick the section of it that has the climax, once you have done this rehearse the scene a few times so you know the stage directions very well. Finally when you are sure of your stage directions, when performing your scene speak the stage directions out loud while still doing the dialogue, what this does it it makes it strange, unnatural and it reminds the audience that it is a performance and keeps them from becoming to connected and you becoming your character. This exercise is very good and extremely helpful when learning or teaching the Verfremdungseffekt. As an actor the hardest part of learning the V effect was being able to perform in the style of Brecht and make it look good. I believe the easiest part of learning the V effect and the Brechtian style was representing a character in an extreme and stereotypical way rather than becoming the character completely.