Bertolt Brecht: Mother Courage and Her Children
             Brechts intensions when writing Mother Courage and her children were to communicate his beliefs and make people aware of two issues facing society: war and capitalism. According to Brecht, people deserve the wars they get if they subscribe to a political system which is unfair and favours a specific sector of society, namely capitalism. In other words, if the system is unjust in any way, war and conflict is inevitable. For this to be understood, it was important and essential that the audience sees the play and nothing more. To do this Brecht jolted audiences out of their expectations and deliberately avoided theatrical techniques that would make appearances realistic. By using this dramatic technique, people were forced to confront the issues at hand and see the real issues behind what they were being shown.
             Brecht incorporated alienation techniques in the methods of staging used in performances of Mother Courage, firstly through lighting. Brecht focuses on a very bright white light trained evenly upon the set throughout. This was done to eliminate any opportunities for creating an atmosphere. Any magical or romantic views of the stage were kept strictly at bay, and at no time does Brecht attempt to convey a specific place.
             Breht uses a banner to introduce every scene as opposed to a narrator, which was most common in dramatic performances of that day. Instead Brecht introduced the banner. This innovative technique appeared unusual o the audience and moved away from the traditional story telling. This made it even more difficult for the audience to become involved within the story as no one was talking to them and there were no chances to become moved through some ones tone.
             Scene Changes were made in full view of the audience, reminding them of its existence as
             ...