Cloud nıne ın relatıon to epıc theatre

Abstract

Brecht is considered the founder of epic theatre. With this theatrical attitude, Brecht aims to show that realism which is imposed on people by bourgeois ideology is not the ultimate truth because reality changes in the hands of the dominant bourgeois ideology. Brecht’s basic influence in creating this specific theatrical attitude is Marx, and he has developed certain techniques such as ‘historification’, ‘cross-casting’ and ‘doubling’ to achieve his aim in the light of Marxist doctrines. With these techniques, Brecht tries to inform the audience by revealing social injustice as if they were unnatural and surprising to make the audience question the situation and take action for social change. In other words, Brecht uses these techniques to create the alienation effect. The function of the alienation effect is to make the audience aware that they are actually watching a play in a theatre and to keep them alert for critical thinking rather than emotional involvement. Caryl Churchill has used epic theatre of Brecht as a model for her play, Cloud Nine to make the audience raise voice against oppression rather than accept the illusion in relation to the concepts of gender and race. With the techniques of epic theatre, Churchill represents how people are exposed to rules and norms according to their bodies and colours of their bodies, so the audience is able to see how power relations are produced and maintained in relation to the concepts of gender and race. Thus, this study intends to analyse the techniques of epic theatre that are adopted by Churchill in her play, Cloud Nine in order to demonstrate the concepts of gender and race as constructs. Keywords: Brecht, epic theatre, alienation effect, Caryl Churchill, gender and race as constructs