Brecht's alienation effect in Broadway musicals?

Pippin

COMPANY

The songs comment on the story.

If by "alienation effect" you mean eradicating the fourth wall and confronting the audience with the fact that they're watching a play - then The Drowsy Chaperone would be a good example.

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Frequently, including, of course, Brecht musicals.

CHICAGO, especially it's record-breaking revival, is a clear example of Brechtian technique.

Blood Brothers.

Telling the audience how the story ends at the start of the show to get the audience intellectually engaged rather than emotionally.

Actors playing more than one character and making it very obvious e.g "were'nt you the milkman?"

Narrator speaking directly to the audience, commenting on the action.

minimal set.

Songs.

Through costume and other design choices the Chicago revival distances the audience from the natural setting of the story, a self-referencing to the here and now of the performance which reels the audience in in pure Brechtian terms.

It's hard to find a show now that doesn't use at least some of the techniques Brecht utilized in production. It's not audacious when the audience can see lighting instruments- it's expected. It's not audacious when the presence of only a door represents an entire wall or building.
Until the 1930s or so, it was.

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Uhh...You do know that Brecht wrote a musical that has been performed on Broadway multiple times...Ever hear of The Threepenny Opera?

Other "Brechtian" shows are Cabaret (most assuredly the Mendes revival) and even some of the staging of Evita.

Guys, this is one of the most accessible school papers we've ever co-written.

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I think it is "alienation affect".

Any show that uses commentary is a descendant of Brecht.

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I think if Bertolt Brecht were alive today, his answer to the question would be, "Ethel Merman."

Apparently...when Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel were in New York in 1948, they attended several Broadway shows, including the original production of Annie Get Your Gun. Merman had a famous running gag every time she saw Frank Butler: She dropped her jaw and stared, as if she had never seen anything so beautiful.

If legends can be believed...Helene Weigel was so taken by Merman's long, slow, slack-jawed take that it became the basis for Mother Courage's famous "silent scream."

Weigel told producer Cheryl Crawford that Ethel Merman was the only "indestructible woman" she had ever met, and thus, the basis for Weigel's characterization.

By way of confirmation, Glenda Jackson also said that Lotte Lenya once told her that Weigel's nickname for Merman was "Mother Courage." According to Jackson, Weigel saw Mother Courage as having Merman's "big, blousy" quality.

In 1961, Cheryl Crawford and Jerome Robbins were (inexplicably) contemplating a Broadway production of Mother Courage, and they asked Weigel who should play the title role. Weigel's response: Merman.

Weigel as Mother Courage:




Merman as Annie Oakley:

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I read this years ago and can't source it now, but whenever Toscanini was in New York, he loved to be taken out to Merman's latest show, preferably on opening night. He called her "Iron Lung Merman."