Gestus

Gestus was another technique used and implemented in Brecht's work. Rather then developing the emotional state of a character, Brecht wanted his actors to play on a gesture or movement that would represent the attitude and feelings of a character instead. For this to be effective, each movement has to be bold and exaggerated, clearly showing its importance and making the type of person that the actor is trying to present obvious to the audience. It is essential the audience can tell by the actor’s gestures alone what was happening in the scene.

The physicality adopted by an actor to fit a certain role, is based purely on the characters social role and what it is that motivates them to act in this way, as apposed to looking inwardly at emotional motivation. This means the audiences judgement of a characters is created simply on the situation they are being presented with on stage.