Zeal Theatre’s The Apology is set in present day Brisbane. The key themes and ideas of this play are self control, determination, choices, conflicts and resilience. The play is done in an epic style that is known in Brechtian Theatre. This assignment will analyse the dramatic and theatrical ‘Brechtian’ techniques used to challenge the audience’s viewing experience.
The human context of the drama is established when a year 9 excursion to Boggo Road Gaol occurs. The protagonist, Ray Bones, is taunted by who he considers his “friends”. The antagonist, Eneme, is in a way the ring leader and leads the rest of the boys in bullying him. A few years after leaving school, Ray encounters Eneme again and is once again picked on by him. Finally Ray snaps from all the chaos this one person has caused in his life and in a fit of rage, purposely runs over Eneme. The key themes that underpin the play are self control, choices, conflicts and resilience. The didactic purpose of the play is to show that bullying and harassment can have long term effects on people and is not acceptable to start with.
Throughout The Apology, a variety of alienation techniques were employed to communicate themes of justice, morality and inequality. Throughout the performance there were a lot of techniques used. Three dominant techniques used were actors swapping roles, direct address/narration and sets/props. These techniques are conveyed to the audience through Zeal Theatre’s production to successfully realise the didactic purpose of the play.
In Zeal Theatre’s production of The Apology one specific alienation technique helped to make explicit the messages in the drama. That technique is the direct address/narration. Without direct address/narration the audience would have been lost or confused. Not only did it help to bring to life the ideas that the actors were trying to convey, but it made clear that the audience was watching a performance. This is what Bertolt Brecht wanted in his style of theatre. He wanted the audience to think about the issues being dealt with in the performance. The dramatic action was enriched by the fact that there were only two actors playing all of the characters. It helped to make the Brechtian technique a lot clearer to the audience.
The Brechtian acting style was embodied most clearly in the performance of Adam Drake. He brought his characters to life very effectively. With just the change of position in his hat, he became a completely different character. Even the positions of his cap for each character suited the characters personalities in a way. For example, Ray Bones was a shy character who liked to keep to himself, so the hat was to the front and on a downwards angle almost covering his face, which helps enhance the effect.
