Exploring Spectatorship

Abstract Chapter 1 explores Brecht’s formative experiences of spectatorship in Augsburg and Munich. Drawing on his satirical poems, journals, letters, and theatre reviews, as well as testimony from his contemporaries, the chapter examines his attacks on ‘culinary’ spectatorship in theatre, his interest in the active, engaged audiences of the circus and fairground, his activities as a theatre critic, and his responses to Frank Wedekind, Karl Valentin, and Charlie Chaplin. By observing the audiences at different performance locations, Brecht developed an understanding of how the frame and venue of a performance prescribe particular codes of conduct, and how these codes might be changed. In his first full-length play Baal, he explores the dynamics and social codes of spectatorship in settings ranging from the soirée and the tavern to the theatre and the cabaret. He tests the ways in which a charismatic performer can provoke, manipulate, control, and entertain spectators, and he investigates how the performer–spectator relationship can enable transactions involving cultural capital, material rewards, and erotic desire.