Mother Courage Epic Theatre

Mother Courage Epic Theatre Mother Courage is an example of Brechts concepts of Epic Theatre and Verfremdungseffekt or estrangement effect. Verfremdungseffekt is achieved through the use of placards which reveal the events of each scene, juxtaposition, actors changing characters and costume on stage, the use of narration, simple props and scenery. For instance, a single tree would be used to convey a whole forest, and the stage is usually flooded with bright white light whether its a winters night or a summers day. Several songs, interspersed throughout the play, are used to underscore the themes of the play, while making the audience think about what the playwright is saying. Another epic feature that we find in Brechts play is the presence of the songs. Mother Courage tries to teach her children the facts of life through songs, this representing a way of bonding with them, apart from the cart. This latter keeps the family together, and probably that is why in the end we see a lonely Mother Courage pulling the cart: it reminds her of her three children as well as still being a means to make a living. We do not despise Mother Courage as, in some ways, she is admirable however, the audience is exposed to intense irony: in her desire to preserve her family, she has participated in destroying it. Brecht is very famous for his modern conception of epic theatre and is tremendously important for modern theatre as he helps the audience understand that the unchangeable can change. This is Brechts term for that which expresses basic human attitudes not merely gesture but all signs of social relations: department, intonation, facial expression. The Stanislavskian actor is to work at identifying with the character he or she portrays. The Brechtian actor is to work at expressing social attitudes in clear and stylized ways. So, when Shen-Te becomes Shui-Ta, she moves in a different manner. Brecht wished to embody the Gestus in the dialogue as if to compel the right stance, movement and intonation. By subtle use of rhythm pause, parallelism and counterpointing, Brecht creates a gestic language. Epic theatre is gestrual. [] The gesture is its raw material and its task is the rational utilization of this material. (Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, 1966, pg. 3) The songs are yet more clearly gestic. As street singers make clear their attitudes with overt, grand but simple gestures, so, in delivering songs, the Brechtian actor aims to produce clarity in expressing a basic attitude, such as despair, defiance or submission. Instead of the seamless continuity of the naturalistic theatre, the illusion of natural disorder, Brecht wishes to break up the story into distinct episodes, each of which presents, in a clear and ordered manner, a central basic action. All that appears in the scene is designed to show the significance of the basic Gestus. We see how this works in Mother Courage. Each scene is prefaced by a caption telling the audience what is to be the important event, in such a way as to suggest the proper attitude for the audience to adopt to it for instance (Scene 3): She manages to save her daughter, likewise her covered cart, but her honest son is killed. The words in red express the playwrights view of how we should interpret the scene; Courages saving her business at the expense of her son is meant to prove how contemptible our actions are made by war. Anger, outrage, panic, revenge, violence => vital elements of his work, stand condemned Brecht is probably trying to master these emotions in himself, for his work exposes his desire for absolute submission, a state of being in which he can conquer his unbridled feelings, and, instead of engaging himself with the external world, merge with it. (Berstein, The Theatre of Revolt, p. 239) Throughout the twentieth century, Brechtian influence was fully present in the works of various playwrights such as John Arden, Thornton Wilder, Robert Bolt, Peter Weiss, Arthur Adamov, Roger Planchon, and even the famous director Giorgio Strehler. Compatibility between the methods promoted by Bertolt Brecht and the playwrights desire to initiate open debates on history and contemporaneity contributed to creating a strongly opinionated political theatrical genre, formed by the coalition of fringe theatre groups (who would perform on the outskirts) which the young playwrights such as David Hare, David Edgar, Howard Brenton joined. As the main proponent of political drama, Howard Brenton believed in theatres mission to shape consciences and transform society. Despite his desire to distance epic theatre, which he considered rather artificial and simplistic to suit his artistic criteria, the episodic structure and the principle of minimal scenic parts remain Brechtian in origin. In addition, just as Brecht, the playwright starts a crusade against humanist tradition of social drama, seeking for a theatrical form that would incite the lazy audience with disapproval, persuasion and argument. The English playwright is distinguished by his virulent analysis of socio-political structures and putting forward a personal dramatic style, being a master of the temporal dislocations technique and of stage embodied visual images. For him, the theatre had to be the expression of the perfect collaboration between the show and the straight-forward message of the. His first creations Christie in Love (1969), Revenge (1969) and Fruit (1970) successfully materialize this artistic goal. In Christie in Love, Howard Brenton has directed his entire attention to the effects of social injustice, which inevitably metamorphose into violence and crime (this, in fact, being a prominent feature of English political theatre of the period, where many playwrights would tell the story of society dehumanization through violence and indifference). Brenton was said to have aimed at giving the audience a feeling of moral vertigo with his short piece Christie in Love. Looking at it from this perspective, the play succeeds in fulfilling Brentons wish because it did indeed outrage the collective morality. The grounds on which Christie, the serial killer, commits the crimes can be analysed from different perspectives, with little chance of running out of options. He may be the incarnation of evil, an outburst of the brutality inherent in human nature or a psychoanalytic ritual of decompression of repressed love, a deviated revenge of the man who is vulnerable to women. The numerous possibilities of understanding this stage event proves that Brenton is closer to the Brechtian view about the open theatre, the one that does not have to give answers, but to make the audience reflect on either explanation and option they consider suitable and convincing, that he had previously stated. However, it is quite obvious that if the meanings the reader and the audience can infer from this play would stop to the psychological level of killer instinct, the brentonian theme would be much too simplified. But The real purpose of the play concerns society as a whole. What the author wants to suggest is t hat the protagonists atypical behaviour, presented in an almost naturalistic way, is actually societys behaviour, however much the latter one is trying to hide it under the guise of respectability. The equality sign the author puts between a miserable bastard and the world justifies the inversion o the characters portrayals, bringing us to one of the features of the epic form of the theatre, that of presenting an image of the world, instead of ones experience. Christie, the famous mass murderer, appears as a normal human being while the police, the defenders of the people, become abnormal, achieving the bold features of some surreal characters. Roland Barthes has pointed out that the verisimilitude of [epic] acting has its meaning in the objective meaning of the play, and not, as in naturalist dramaturgy, in the truth inherent in the actor. (Styan, Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 3, 1981, p. 142) Brenton keeps the character of Christie in the objectivity sphere, thus provoking the spectators to live with the suspense throughout the play.

The Effects of Second Hand Smoke Essay -- Smoking Tobacco Health Lung

The Effects of Second Hand Smoke Did you know that 3,000 American non-smokers will die this year from lung cancer? Those deaths are entirely preventable. Their lung cancer is caused by second hand smoke. Second hand smoke is smoke they have breathed in from other people's cigarettes. It is also known as involuntary or passive smoking. There is nothing passive however about the effects of this smoke. It is lethal and it is dangerous. It may give as many as 300,000 children under the age of one and half bronchitis and pneumonia. It could even be responsible for more than 35,000 deaths from heart disease. Smoking causes lung cancer. This fact is indisputable. What is sometimes disputed is the extent to which the smoke from other people's cigarettes damages those around them. Some in the tobacco industry play down this effect. They say that passive smoking is at worst a minor irritant. They say the recorded illness, deaths and cancers of those who have to live and work with smokers is a coincidence. They even have the audacity to suggest that those illnesses may be caused by diet or other environmental factors. Let us look at the facts. There are two ways in which passive or second hand smoke can affect non- smokers. Mainstream smoke is that smoke that has already been inhaled and then exhaled by the smoker. Sidestream smoke is the smoke that comes off the burning end or tip of the cigarette. Both of these sources are responsible for passive smoke inhaled by non-smokers. Second hand smoke is chemically similar to that inhaled by smokers. After 30 minutes exposure to second-hand smoke the blood flow to the heart is reduced. On top of this a non-smoker who is regularly exposed to second hand smoke has a 20 to 30% increased risk of lung cancer. Tobacco smoke contains 4,000 chemicals in the form of particles and gases. 200 of those chemicals are very poisons. 43 of those chemicals are proven to cause cancer. This lethal combination is what causes tobacco smoke to be classified as a Group A carcinogen. Incredibly 85% of the smoke from a cigarette will not be inhaled by the smoker. Instead it will fill up the room. That means only 15% of the smoke from a cigarette is actually inhaled by the person smoking it. On top of this, many of the toxic poisons and gases in sidestream smoke are present in higher quantities than in mainstream smoke. The poisons an... ... a welcome move. It means that we can start to look forwards to a smoke free environment for ourselves and our children. Unfortunately the statistics tell us that there are still many millions of people who still insist on their 'right' to smoke. The children who are exposed to their smoke do not have such a choice. Protecting children and non-smokers from the effects of second hand smoke must be a priority for everyone. A smoker chooses to smoke but a non-smoker's risk is involuntary. Exposure to second hand smoke is a real and present threat to our health. As a result there are many non-smokers who are needlessly dying from heart disease and lung cancer. Second hand smoking causes asthma, reduces lung function and bronchitis, pneumonia and causes middle ear infections. Many of these illness are inflicted upon small children. Bans on smoking in workplaces exist. So do bans on smoking in restaurants. Unless they are rigidly enforced they won't make a difference. Smoking, unfortunately, cannot be banned in homes. Passive smoking should be shown for exactly what it is, a dangerous killer. Maybe then non-smokers, especially children, will not suffer from second hand smoke.

Road congestion

The underlying causes of congestion are far more complicated than many traditional interests have historically been willing to admit. The ability of available roadway space-the most traditional method of measuring supply or capacity to meet traffic demand, is just one of a set of several underlying factors that research has found contribute to traffic congestion. Whereas more than half of all children walked or bicycled to school in the 1950s, that number has now fallen below 10 percent as streets have become more dangerous due to traffic. Combined with the loss of school bus service, the resulting trend has been an overwhelming increase in parents driving their children to school, clogging local roadways during critical peak hours. An estimated 20-25 percent of rush hour traffic on local streets and roads is now attributable to the school commute. To make matters worse, not only does the typical suburban development model characterized by low-density cul-de-sacs, wide, high-speed arterials, and massive intersections make traffic management difficult, it also makes it less cost-effective for public transport to serve scattered destinations and makes walking or bicycling both inconvenient and dangerous. Many experts believe that widening motorways and main roads is only a temporary solution at best to the complex problem of traffic congestion. Indeed, research has pointed to a result known as â€Å"induced traffic† that suggests new and wider roads actually create additional traffic, above and beyond what can be attributed to rapid population increases and economic growth. In larger areas, drivers will often abandon carpools and public transport when additional roadway space is made available, thus creating additional trips and more traffic. In the longer term, the promise of more convenient transportation access allows commuters to live further from work, increasing development pressures and thus fuelling even more traffic demand. The lack of affordable and mixed-income housing near employment centres, and the imbalance between jobs and housing, creates the notorious commutes between the countryside and city areas. Also, with many people losing their confidence in public transport due to long delays, strikes and many rail crashes it seems much easier to take the car. It is important to note that the skewed pricing signals given to travellers appear to make road travel, even at the most congested periods of the day, entirely free, while public transport is often perceived as too expensive. Market failure is the inability of an unregulated market to achieve allocative efficiency in certain circumstances and we see a severe re-allocation of resources. There are various reasons why allocative efficiency may not be achieved, one of these is externalities. An externality is said to exist when the production or consumption of a good directly affects businesses or consumers not involved in the buying or selling of it and when those spill over effects are not reflected in market prices. The spill over effects are known as external costs or benefits. When people use their cars other people suffer from exhaust fumes, congestion and noise. These negative externalities make the marginal social benefit of using cars less than the marginal private benefit (i.e. marginal utility). The optimum equilibrium for society would be where the marginal social cost is equal to the marginal social benefit (Q!). However, a free market left to itself will produce where the marginal private cost is equal to the marginal private benefit (Q^). If there are negative externalities in consumption, a private market will therefore tend to over-provide a good. Congestion in urban areas can be seen as a form of market failure because the socially efficient output is not produced. The social optimum amount of vehicles on the road must be exceeded if congestion results. The marginal cost to the consumer is the only cost really considered when a driver makes the decision to use the car. What is not taken into account are the costs to other road users, the cost to society collectively; the social cost or themselves to some extent. The marginal cost to other road users is the added congestion caused by the extra car on the road. The marginal costs to society collectively are the increase in emissions produced by the extra journey made, the follow on effects from this are large, rising asthma levels in the local area, decaying buildings and collapsing roads could be caused because of the high congestion rates. The marginal cost to the individual could be the opportunity cost of the time spent in congestion. If the more space efficient bus made the journey, the traveller would be able to read the newspaper, play on a hand held computer or even do some work, this is not possible if the car is chosen to make the journey. The marginal utility of existing users of the congested roads would decrease with the addition of an extra motorist, an extra 10 or even 100 motorists would lower the marginal utility levels dramatically. But each individual's marginal cost wouldn't be affected, which explains why the marginal cost and marginal social cost diverge. Congestion is not the only cost that occurs from a large number of cars on Britain's roads. We must also consider, road damage costs, accidental externalities and of course environmental costs. Heavy vehicles basically cause Road damaging as the damage to the road pavement increases to the fourth power of the axle load. Accident externalities arise when extra vehicles on the road increase the probability that the other road users will be involved in an accident. Accident probability depends to a large extend on distance, driving time and particularly the other traffic. This is why accident costs will be treated like congestion costs. Environmental damage comes in various forms, such as local: emission of CO, NC, NO2, global: emission of CO2, CFC, water pollution and noise and vibrations. Congestion is inefficient, polluting and dangerous. Removing just 5% of traffic at peak times could substantially reduce or even eliminate rush hour congestion from many cities. One approach that is starting to stoke interest among municipal leaders is road pricing. The theory seems sound enough: introduce a price on bringing cars into congested areas that incite drivers either not to travel unnecessarily or to vary their times of travel or, indeed, to try public transport, walking or cycling. With the right approach, drivers who incur higher prices during rush hour periods would benefit from reduced congestion and travel time, while nonessential travel would take place at less congested and cheaper times. Road pricing has been debated in political circles for many years. The main debate was about the difficulties that would occur in trying to impose a system in order to toll drivers. These problems no longer exist, and advances in electronic devices have made sophisticated road pricing schemes more feasible. The new technology of electronic tolls no longer requires motorists to halt at tollbooths. Therefore, it prevents additional congestion. Drivers would be given an electronic number plate, which signals to the recording computer the presence of a vehicle. This would be the most direct way to charge the amount specific to the road and the time of the day. The devise could charge users via bank account or monthly bill. This would also allow a central computer to monitor roads with the greatest amount of use. Also, another method that has been put forward is for drivers to buy a travel card (similar to those on London Transport) and display these on their dashboards when driving in and out of priced roads. However, the political will is often lacking, perhaps because of uncertainty about voter reaction. I believe there are both advantages and disadvantages to the proposed road pricing theory. ADVANTAGES OF ROAD PRICING Road pricing is a good instrument to use to internalise most of the external effects mentioned earlier, especially in the case of congestion costs, it appears to be the optimal method of internalisation because a price mechanism would replace the present queuing mechanism, which is allocatively inefficient. Because road prices would be primarily connected with congestion costs, some distributional and locational effects could arise. Costs of driving in non-urban areas would probably fall whereas urban driving costs would increase so that in the medium run, the quality of the public urban transport system would improve. In the case of pricing highways on the continent, road pricing is a good instrument to overcome the free rider problem of foreign carriers using â€Å"home country† highways. This is especially interesting against the background that current ways of financing highways are very different. It is fair to say that foreign carriers buy their petrol abroad, which is cheaper, and they do not contribute to business in the UK. For that reason actual competition between international carriers is not neutral. With the proposed electronic system, there seems to be 2 benefits. The first of these is the business generated from the insertion of the microchips and the second is the ease of use i.e. simply driving past a scanner. Furthermore, Ken Livingston has stated that he believes traffic will reduce by 15% with the implementation of the system and he says money generated from the implementation of such a scheme will be used not only on the maintenance of our roads but also into investment of our public transport which again reduce the number of cars on the road leading to a better environment for all. A recent survey suggested that 70% of the public would not mind paying fuel tax if it was invested in public transport. The system is already used in Singapore and the immediate reaction was a reduction of 24,700 cars during the peak time and also, traffic speed increased by 22% at this time. And also, in Trondheim in Norway the toll was not introduced in order to make people leave their cars at home but soon, it was noticed that congestion was reduced and political consensus was that some of the money generated could be used for public transport within the city. DISADVANTAGES OF ROAD PRICING The cost of implementing electronic toll system is very high. The UK government estimates that the implementation of the system will cost à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½2 bn for only a small area such as London. Plus individual costs for every vehicle of à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½40 each, not including additional costs of controlling the system. Also, we are likely to see a lagged response and it would take time to raise revenue. The initial costs are high thus; they would have to pay off in the long run. Ken Livingston, has suggested a charge of à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5 for entering London, many believe that when we consider, fuel taxes, road tax, and maintenance of a car, à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5 to enter London is extortionate. It is important to consider those on lower incomes, who may find it difficult to pay a regular à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½5 charge. This could lead to the displacement of traffic, in the way that people will try to avoid the tolls and take other routes down side roads- this is likely to cause congestion in quieter streets not to mention accidents because the streets are so narrow. The introduction will be hard and people will object to it. They believe it affects their rights of passage and with an estimated 230 cameras per zone it compared to the big brother phenomenon. Tax on roads may have damaging effects on the economy. Because the cost to firms will be greater and it may also serve to make London a less desirable centre, there will be a reduction in Aggregate Supply. There will be growth in unemployment as firms will not be able to afford workers, this will cause a slowdown in economic growth and could even cause an inflationary threat. In terms of negative environmental externalities, road pricing is (with the exception of noise) probably not the optimal instrument for internalisation. Taxes on fuel or emission fees, for instance, charge vehicle emissions in a more direct way and they are very simple to design. Some believe that there should be different taxes for those people who do not have public transport available to them easily and those who do but choose not to use it. Furthermore it must be mentioned that the effect of road pricing depends to a large extent on the authority that receives the revenues and its way of using the money. Economists would argue that the profits made should be reinvested into the transportation system to generate an efficient outcome rather than cross-subsidising other traffic modes or other state activities. CONCLUSION In conclusion I believe that road pricing is the best instrument to internalise the costs of congestion and road damage. Although the initial costs of installation are high, these costs would probably quickly be exceeded by the efficiency gains of corrected prices. Nevertheless, road pricing cannot perfectly internalise external environmental costs. That is why instruments like â€Å"fuel taxation† or â€Å"emission fees† will still be necessary to design an optimal price mechanism in the transportation sector that sets the correct incentives. I believe pricing could be the trick to remove that 5-10% of traffic that causes congestion in peak periods in our cities. If that means picking up the children on time and being able to drive into city centres to shop, then surely that would be a price worth paying. Finally, what's perhaps most important is a recognition that solving these problems will require strong leadership from a government level in addition to management, planning and eventual implementation at the regional and local levels. Traffic congestion must thus be tackled within a broader context of economic, environmental and social goals and its solutions must be compatible and work in support of solutions for a broader range of issues.

Sea Turtles Are Not Only Affected By Pollution - 1030 Words

Sea turtles are not only affected by pollution, but they are also affected by tourist attraction. On September 5 in Costa Rica, a large group of tourists prevented sea turtles from nesting along the coastline. Due to the high volume of tourists on that day, the Ostional Wildlife Refuge was unable to prevent the disturbance from happening. The Tico Times described what happened. â€Å"Some tourists touched the turtles, others stood on top of the nests, and parents placed their children on top of the turtles to take photographs† (L. Arias, 2015). It’s ironic to think that the adults were the ones who disrupted the nesting. Adults are supposed to be mature, yet they caused the most damage. Human beings need to learn how to respect animals and their lives. There is already a low population of sea turtles. If disturbances like this keep happening, soon sea turtles will not be around anymore. Global Warming Leads to Temperature and Weather Changes Due to our mass pollution to the atmosphere, humans are the main cause of global warming. â€Å"Since the beginning of the 1900s, the average surface temperature of Earth has risen by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit† (Levete, 11). Global warming leads to temperature change. Iceberg and glaciers are melting at a rapid rate. This will cause sea level to rise. The Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets â€Å"lost an average of 571 trillion pounds (259 trillion kilograms) of mass every year during the six-year study period, making the oceans rise 0.03 inches (0.7 mm)Show MoreRelatedLight Pollution and Sea Turtles Essay1154 Words   |  5 Pages Light pollution has become a problem for sea turtle hatchlings along developed coastlines. The hatchlings have a natural instinct to move to the brightest direction which on a naturally lit beach is the night sky over the ocean. 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