what is the distancing effect (verfremdungeffekt) in the epic theatre from Bertolt Brecht?
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You’ll see it translated as “alienation” or “distancing,” but the root of verfremdung (and its source, the Russian “ostraneniye”) is “making strange.” You know how when you see a play or a movie you get immersed in its world, and you start to emotionally identify with the characters and situations? Well, Brecht says that’s garbage. Nothing you see on stage or screen is real – it’s all pretend. So he and his company developed techniques to remind audiences at all times of the artificiality of what they were seeing. These techniques included direct address to the audience, interpolating songs, and playing scenes with irony or emotional remove. Only when the audience is distanced or alienated from the events can they intellectually examine the content of what they’re watching. They can start to question the ethics of the scenario depicted instead of immersing themselves in it emotionally. The familiar has been made strange so that they can consider objectively what they’re watching.
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