In “On Chinese Acting,” Bertolt Brecht completely subverted my understanding of “good” theater, writing, or other forms of art. I’ve always thought that the goal of such work is to create empathy within the audience; the more that the viewer is enveloped by emotion provoked by the characters and plot, the better. This strategy, Brecht says, is characteristic of the European theatre. The Chinese theater, however, is characterized by the alienation effect through which “Any empathy on the spectator’s part is thereby prevented from becoming total, that is, from being a complete self-surrender” (131). It seems as though this distance created between the audience and the events of the play challenges the notion that the work has to feel “real” to be successful. In a way, more agency is placed in the hands of the audience members. Rather than being “tricked” into feeling as though the fiction that’s presented is reality, an audience member “feels his way into the actor as into an observer. In this manner an observing, watching attitude is cultivated” (131). 

Kat’s point that “the meaning attached to historical context is rendered void by the success with which the European acting style recreates reality” made me wonder how this technique could be a useful tool when creating art that’s intended to inspire social change. As audience members, we are made to interpret certain events through the lens of a repeated message. Viewing the “mundane” with the significance imparted on it by the theatre over time removes the power from the audience and is probably more prone to promoting conventional interpretations of happenings without questioning them. Perhaps the ability to make audience members more aware during their consumption of issues that have been “refracted,” as we’ve been discussing, through this alternative approach to theatre would allow for social issues to be viewed through a new lens with heightened awareness.