“An Old Tale” “In Strong Suspicion”: ‘Alienation’ Effect in Shakespeare's Pericles and The Winter’s Tale

Abstract

Alination effect is a performing art concept by Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wanted to prevent the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the characters created by actors, and consequently lead the audience to be a consciously critical observer. That Shakespearean dramaturgy exerted an influence on Brecht is a commonplace of Brecht studies, the only disagreement being in terms of how much and in what way. This essay argues that things similar to alienation effect, a key concept in the Brechts epic theatre theory, are found in Shakespeares Pericles and The Winters Tale. The chorus in Pericles and metatheatrical elements in The Winters Tale arouse alienation effect to the audience. Chrous Gower in Pericles recounts much of the action in his eight monologues as if to emphasize their narrativity, as opposed to dramatic matrrial. In order words, what we are witnessing feels like Gowers presentation or narrative of an old story rather than a play. Gower consistently and cunningly subverts the believability of the play. Gower goes on to undermine the most basic convention of the theater. He points out that all characters in the ancient Mediterranean speak English, although this convention is so fundamental as to pass unnotices by any audience. These undermine the naturalistic illusion of the play, encouraging the audience to view events on the stage from a certain destance, thus arousing alienation effect. Metatheatrical elements are rich in The Winters Tale. Most characters play a part in their own play and express consciousness of their acting themselves, as if they wanted to remind the audience of the stages theatricality. Hermiones awakening scene performs a similar function. This scene has been believed to arouse audiences faith in the miracle of renewal and the power of art. But this scene has play-within-the-play strcuture and the audience soon come to realize that the very audience of the miraculous scene is Leontes, an audience member of the Paulinas show on stage, not the audience in the seats in the playhouse. Metatheatrical elements undermine the natural dramatic illusion, making alienation effect. Shakespeare invented experimental plays through stories based on old remances so spisodic, contaning unbelievable events, and somewhat unsuited to dramatic adaption, but the achievements are amazing.