Cultural Values and the Purposes of the Theatre: Spectators, Brecht and Benjamin

Abstract

Bertolr   Brecht, arguably the most important theorist in the twentieth century of the   social purposes of the theatre, developed his ideas in a period -from the   1920s to the early 1950s -that had already been converted well and truly to   the cinema, but had not yet invented television. Thus Br~cht's concept of   "epic" theatre, which he distinguishes from "dramatic" or   "bourgeois" theatre, draws on the world of fllms so as to define   more sharply those features of stage work that are the most attuned to modern   times.