ABSTRACT
Diderot and Brecht's respective concepts of the exterior sign herald a significant clash between the two theorists. Their different ways of relating the actor's self-alienation to the notion of illusion, however, reveal the most conspicuous contradiction between them. Brecht's idea of epic theatre, modeling a form of spectatorship that turns the audience into an active and independently thinking protagonist is turned on its head. By the same token, just as the actor is empowered by the process of self-alienation, the spectator becomes disempowered. Diderot balances the concept of an activating self-alienation against the idea of a spectatorial alienation resting on passivity. The production of illusion becomes organized through a polar relation between performer and spectator. The theatre of the theatrum mundireverses the relation between actor and spectator. With Diderot, the meshes between aesthetic alienation and a critique of social alienation are also present, but they are more loosely woven.
