College Brecht

The film presents a series of workshops with college students, aged 16-18, to suggest approaches to Brecht as playwright and practitioner. The sessions could be adapted to suit high school, undergraduate or youth theatre groups.

Rob Faulkner and Wynn Moran, who teach Drama at Xaverian Sixth Form College, Manchester, devised the structure of the workshops after successfully re-writing, staging and filming their own Brechtian version of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.

Two other staff members of the Xaverian Drama team: Katy Cairns and Stephen Hall, helped to conduct the workshops that cover topics such as:

• a comparison of Stanislavskian naturalism and Brecht’s political theatre
• the Street scene and the V-effekt
• Social Gestus, tableaux and archetypes
• episodic form and the use of captions and narration
• Brecht and music

The workshop film is recommended for secondary education.