![]() ![]() The epic theater of Brecht appeals not to the spectator’s feelings but encourages the audience to adopt a more critical attitude Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright, believed that an audience should not become emotionally involved in a play and that theater should be capable of provoking social change. However, the traits of minstrelsy in the play used in a satirical sense by Kander and Ebb also contribute to Brechtian elements of the show. Black performers during the Jim Crow era combined blackface with the newly popular genre of vaudeville and brought a black political agenda to their stage performances, a premise very prevalent in The Scottsboro Boys. The structure of the musical as a minstrel show offers compelling connections between past and present racial tensions while simultaneously developing Brechtian characteristics and satirical commentary on minstrelsy.īased on the concept of white supremacy and the belief in black inferiority, minstrelsy is distinguished by the presence of exaggerated stereotypes of African Americans. ![]() While minstrel theater isn’t inherently Brechtian, the means by which satire is used within the musical creates a dynamic that uses racism and the minstrel tradition to create Brechtian theater in The Scottsboro Boys. The intended satirical application of minstrel theater as a means to comment on racism in America establishes a duality within The Scottsboro Boys between minstrel theater and the Brechtian characteristics of the play. Throughout the show, Kander and Ebb use vaudeville music and the form of the minstrel tradition in a way that entertains, but also alienates the audience. ![]() Kander and Ebb’s musical The Scottsboro Boys addresses a historical event in which nine African American males are unjustly accused and convicted of raping two white women, a conviction based on racist fears that were present in the deep South. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |