Fabel
Encyclopedia
Fabel is a critical term and a dramaturgical
technique pioneered by the twentieth-century German
theatre practitioner
Bertolt Brecht
.
Fabel should not be confused with 'fable
', which is a form of short narrative (hence the retention of the original German spelling in its adoption into English usage). Elizabeth Wright argues that it is "a term of art which cannot be adequately translated".
. This includes three interrelated but distinct aspects: firstly, an analysis of the events portrayed in the story. In an epic
production, this analysis would focus on the social interactions between the characters
and the causality
of their behaviour
from a historical materialist
perspective; the fabel summarizes "the moral of the story not in a merely ethical sense, but also in a socio-political
one". For example, in relation to Brecht's play Man Equals Man
(1926), Wright argues that "[t]he fabel of this play centres on the transformation of an individual through his insertion into a collective."
Secondly, a fabel analyzes the plot from a formal
and semiotic
perspective. This includes the play's dramatic structure
and its formal shaping of the events portrayed. It also includes an analysis of the semiotic fabric of the play, recognizing that it "does not simply correspond to actual events in the collective life of human beings, but consists of invented happenings [and that t]he stage figures are not simple representations of living persons, but invented and shaped in response to ideas."
Thirdly, a fabel analyzes the attitudes that the play appears to embody and articulate (in the sense of the author's, the characters' and, eventually, the company's). Brecht refers to this aspect of a play as its Gestus
. Analyzing a play in this way presupposes Brecht's recognition that every play encodes such attitudes; "for art to be 'unpolitical'", he argued in his "Short Organum for the Theatre" (1949), "means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group".
or the director, that summarizes the plot of a play in such a way as to emphasize the production’s interpretation of that play-text. It is produced in order to make clear the company's particular way of understanding and rendering the story. In this respect, it is related to the concept of Gestus
(insofar as this renders an action and an attitude towards that action simultaneously); a fabel indicates the sequence of gestic
episodes that constitute the dramatic or theatrical narrative
.
Carl Weber, who worked as a director with Brecht
at his Berliner Ensemble
, explains that:
As Weber's reference here to 'scenic writing' suggests, a director or other company member may produce multiple fabels during the course of a production, each detailing and clarifying a different aspect of the process: a dramatic analysis; an interpretive proposal; an initial springboard position from which to initiate a process of exploration and experiment in rehearsals; a description of individual production aspects (the lighting fabel, the sound Fabel, the visual or scenic design fabel, etc.); an account of progress made at different stages of the rehearsal process; individual actor performance and character behaviour fabels. Virtually any aspect of the theatrical process of production may be explored through the use of a specific fabel.
John Willett
, Brecht's English translator, suggests that:
A fabel specifies, narrativizes, and objectifies the attitudes and activities involved in the process of producing a play. In doing so, it enables company members to dialecticize that process—in the sense that a particular fabel provides a fixed 'snapshot' of a transitory and constantly-developing process in a form that enables comparisons to be made. These comparisons may be between the description in the Fabel and the reality of the production as it stands or between different fabels (which have been generated by the production either at different stages of the process or in relation to different aspects—lighting, sound, blocking, etc.---of it); for example, having produced a Fabel at the beginning of the rehearsal process, the director may return to it near the end of rehearsals to check that the production is 'telling the story' intended (or, alternatively, to clarify the ways in which that story has changed as a result of rehearsal exploration and development).
The use of fabels does not predetermine the style of production nor does it necessarily require an epic
dramaturgy
or aesthetic (the elimination of suspense
and mystery, defamiliarization effects
, etc.), despite having originated in Brechtian
practice. The creation of Fabels is an attempt to achieve clarity for the producers (actors, director, designers) rather than the audience (which would characterize an epic production). One may create psychological
(in a Stanislavskian approach) or metaphysical
(in an Artaudian
approach) fabels as well as the social
ones that Brecht explored.
Dramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
technique pioneered by the twentieth-century German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
theatre practitioner
Theatre practitioner
Theatre practitioner is a modern term to describe someone who both creates theatrical performances and who produces a theoretical discourse that informs his or her practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, a dramatist, an actor, or—characteristically—often a combination of these...
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
.
Fabel should not be confused with 'fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
', which is a form of short narrative (hence the retention of the original German spelling in its adoption into English usage). Elizabeth Wright argues that it is "a term of art which cannot be adequately translated".
A critical term
As a critical term, fabel refers to an analysis of the plot of a playPlay (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
. This includes three interrelated but distinct aspects: firstly, an analysis of the events portrayed in the story. In an epic
Epic theater
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
production, this analysis would focus on the social interactions between the characters
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
and the causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
of their behaviour
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
from a historical materialist
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
perspective; the fabel summarizes "the moral of the story not in a merely ethical sense, but also in a socio-political
Political theatre
In the history of theatre, there is long tradition of performances addressing issues of current events and central to society itself, encouraging consciousness and social change. The political satire performed by the comic poets at the theatres, had considerable influence on public opinion in the...
one". For example, in relation to Brecht's play Man Equals Man
Man Equals Man
Man Equals Man , or A Man's a Man, is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. One of Brecht's earlier works, it explores themes of war, human fungibility, and identity...
(1926), Wright argues that "[t]he fabel of this play centres on the transformation of an individual through his insertion into a collective."
Secondly, a fabel analyzes the plot from a formal
Formalism
The term formalism describes an emphasis on form over content or meaning in the arts, literature, or philosophy. A practitioner of formalism is called a formalist. A formalist, with respect to some discipline, holds that there is no transcendent meaning to that discipline other than the literal...
and semiotic
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
perspective. This includes the play's dramatic structure
Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics...
and its formal shaping of the events portrayed. It also includes an analysis of the semiotic fabric of the play, recognizing that it "does not simply correspond to actual events in the collective life of human beings, but consists of invented happenings [and that t]he stage figures are not simple representations of living persons, but invented and shaped in response to ideas."
Thirdly, a fabel analyzes the attitudes that the play appears to embody and articulate (in the sense of the author's, the characters' and, eventually, the company's). Brecht refers to this aspect of a play as its Gestus
Gestus
Gestus is an acting technique developed by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. It carries the sense of a combination of physical gesture and "gist" or attitude...
. Analyzing a play in this way presupposes Brecht's recognition that every play encodes such attitudes; "for art to be 'unpolitical'", he argued in his "Short Organum for the Theatre" (1949), "means only to ally itself with the 'ruling' group".
A practical tool
As a practical tool, fabels form part of the process of engaging with a play-text undertaken by a company when mounting a production of a play. A fabel is a piece of creative writing, usually made by a dramaturgDramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
or the director, that summarizes the plot of a play in such a way as to emphasize the production’s interpretation of that play-text. It is produced in order to make clear the company's particular way of understanding and rendering the story. In this respect, it is related to the concept of Gestus
Gestus
Gestus is an acting technique developed by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. It carries the sense of a combination of physical gesture and "gist" or attitude...
(insofar as this renders an action and an attitude towards that action simultaneously); a fabel indicates the sequence of gestic
Gestus
Gestus is an acting technique developed by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. It carries the sense of a combination of physical gesture and "gist" or attitude...
episodes that constitute the dramatic or theatrical narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
.
Carl Weber, who worked as a director with Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
at his Berliner Ensemble
Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
, explains that:
"[w]hat he [Brecht] called fabel was the plot of the play told as a sequence of interactions, describing each event in the dialecticDialecticDialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
fashion developed by HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
, MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and, in Brecht’s last years, also by MaoMao ZedongMao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
. This may sound quite theoretical, but in Brecht’s practice the fabel was something utterly concrete and practical. Acting, music, the visual elements of the staging, in short, everything an audience perceived, had to contribute to the storytelling and make it lucid, convincing, entertaining and ‘elegant’--as Brecht liked to put it. One result was that the Ensemble’sBerliner EnsembleThe Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
productions were quite well understood by international audiences who could not follow the German text. Brecht insisted that the configuration and movement of actorsBlocking (stage)Blocking is a theatre term which refers to the precise movement and positioning of actors on a stage in order to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera. The term derives from the practice of 19th century theatre directors such as Sir W. S...
and objects on stage should clearly ‘tell the fabel’. If they were to watch a play through a glass wall blocking all sound, the audience should still be able to follow the essential story. He also insisted that each of the performance elements: acting, design, music and so forth, should remain a recognisable separate entitySeparation of the elementsSeparation of the elements is an aesthetic principle formulated by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. The principle bears primarily on the theatrical register, though it has implications for the dramatic and performative as well...
while it contributed to the fabel’s presentation. Brecht liked to speak of a 'storytelling arrangement', which meant the specific blockingBlocking (stage)Blocking is a theatre term which refers to the precise movement and positioning of actors on a stage in order to facilitate the performance of a play, ballet, film or opera. The term derives from the practice of 19th century theatre directors such as Sir W. S...
of actors and all props employed in a scene. He regarded this arrangement as the most important means to achieve a clear presentation of the fabel, and the term 'scenic writing' may best convey what he was aiming for. [. . .] The thorough and extremely detailed preparation included countless discussions in which a text was dissected to determine which fabel it might yield."
As Weber's reference here to 'scenic writing' suggests, a director or other company member may produce multiple fabels during the course of a production, each detailing and clarifying a different aspect of the process: a dramatic analysis; an interpretive proposal; an initial springboard position from which to initiate a process of exploration and experiment in rehearsals; a description of individual production aspects (the lighting fabel, the sound Fabel, the visual or scenic design fabel, etc.); an account of progress made at different stages of the rehearsal process; individual actor performance and character behaviour fabels. Virtually any aspect of the theatrical process of production may be explored through the use of a specific fabel.
John Willett
John Willett
John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
, Brecht's English translator, suggests that:
"[t]he primary principle which [Brecht] taught his collaborators was that of the fabel or story. The chain of events must be clearly and strongly established not just in the production, but beforehand in the actual play. Where it was not clear it was up to the ‘DramaturgDramaturgeA dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
’ to alter the text, in order to cut unnecessary entanglements and come to the point. The play itself might be by FarquharGeorge FarquharGeorge Farquhar was an Irish dramatist. He is noted for his contributions to late Restoration comedy, particularly for his plays The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem .-Early life:...
or Gerhart HauptmannGerhart HauptmannGerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...
, LenzJakob Michael Reinhold LenzJakob Michael Reinhold Lenz was a Baltic German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement.-Life:...
or MolièreMolièreJean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, but ‘the writer’s words are only sacred insofar as they are true’. This went for Brecht’s own words as well, and his plays were subject to continual small changes even in the course of a single run. Atmosphere and ‘psychology’ did not matter as such; everything would emerge given a clear and credible sequence of concrete events. ‘Each scene,’ says a writer in Theaterarbeit,
- is subdivided into a succession of episodes. Brecht produces as though each of these little episodes could be taken out of the play and performed on its own. They are meticulously realized, down to the smallest detail.
The chain of events had become his substitute for the tidy, comprehensive ‘plot’. Thus the "Short OrganumA Short Organum for the Theatre"A Short Organum for the Theatre" is a theoretical work by the twentieth-century German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. It was written while in Switzerland in 1948 and published in 1949...
":
- As we cannot invite the public to fling itself into the story as if it were a river, and let itself be swept vaguely to and fro, the individual events have to be knotted together in such a way that the knots are easily seen. The events must not succeed one another indistinguishably but must give us a chance to interpose our judgment.
‘Playing according to the sense’, the EnsembleBerliner EnsembleThe Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
calls it; and the sense is what Brecht tried to get clear in any play, first for himself and his collaborators, then for the audience too.Hence, for example, his emphasis on that side of Shakespeare’sWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
work which is so often neglected: the actual story. ‘It is a long time,’ he found, ‘since our theatre played these scenes for the events contained in them; they are played only for the outbursts of temperament which the events allow.’ [. . . ]
In such conferences Brecht would get his colleagues to make a written or verbal précis of the play, and later they would have to write descriptions of an actual performance. Both were practice in distilling the incidents that count.
A fabel specifies, narrativizes, and objectifies the attitudes and activities involved in the process of producing a play. In doing so, it enables company members to dialecticize that process—in the sense that a particular fabel provides a fixed 'snapshot' of a transitory and constantly-developing process in a form that enables comparisons to be made. These comparisons may be between the description in the Fabel and the reality of the production as it stands or between different fabels (which have been generated by the production either at different stages of the process or in relation to different aspects—lighting, sound, blocking, etc.---of it); for example, having produced a Fabel at the beginning of the rehearsal process, the director may return to it near the end of rehearsals to check that the production is 'telling the story' intended (or, alternatively, to clarify the ways in which that story has changed as a result of rehearsal exploration and development).
The use of fabels does not predetermine the style of production nor does it necessarily require an epic
Epic theater
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
dramaturgy
Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics...
or aesthetic (the elimination of suspense
Suspense
Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic...
and mystery, defamiliarization effects
Alienation effect
The distancing effect, commonly mistranslated as the alienation effect , is a performing arts concept coined by playwright Bertolt Brecht "which prevents the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the character created by the actor, and which consequently leads the audience to be a...
, etc.), despite having originated in Brechtian
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
practice. The creation of Fabels is an attempt to achieve clarity for the producers (actors, director, designers) rather than the audience (which would characterize an epic production). One may create psychological
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
(in a Stanislavskian approach) or metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
(in an Artaudian
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
approach) fabels as well as the social
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
ones that Brecht explored.
See also
- Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
- Dramatic StructureDramatic structureDramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics...
- DramaturgyDramaturgyDramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. Dramaturgy is a distinct practice separate from play writing and directing, although a single individual may perform any combination of the three. Some dramatists combine writing and...
- DramaturgDramaturgeA dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...