ABSTRACT
The broad spectrum of performance comprises everything from stage acting and ballet dancing to arguing a case in court to displaying different emotions by smiling, weeping, frowning, or glaring in anger. This broad spectrum of performing is a continuum, each category leading to, and blending into, the next. In realistic performing, onstage behavior imitates ordinary life. This kind of acting was considered avantgarde when it was introduced in Europe in the nineteenth century. Brechtian performing is not “opposed” to the realistic but supplemental to it. Bertolt Brecht was a prolific playwright and screen writer, theatre director, poet, novelist, essayist, and performance theorist. In Brechtian performing, the performer takes a position to some degree outside the role, engaging the role and even criticizing the character. The audience is aware of the tension that both draws the performer to the role and separates her from the role.
