Complex seeing

The English term Complex Seeing is taken from Bertolt Brecht's writing on theatre and opera. First found in Brecht's notes to the Threepenny Opera, a subsequently edited and updated version was published. This text can be found in English translation as "The Literarization of Theatre" from 1931, in Brecht on Theatre, where the key passage on complex seeing reads:

“Some exercise in complex seeing is needed—though it is perhaps more important to be able to think above the stream than to think in the stream."(44)

Here Brecht describes a desired form of spectator activity, in which the 'stream' of the play's action does not entirely capture the audience's attention, which is instead divided within and without. This is part of Brecht's many attempts to open a new critical possibilities for theatre, which in this case emphasizes a type of expert-detachment on the part of the spectator. Continuing the quotation from above:

"Moreover the use of screens imposes and facilitates a new style of acting. This style of acting is the epic style. As he reads the projections on the screen the spectator adopts an attitude of smoking-and-watching. Such an attitude on his part at once compels a better and clearer performance as it is hopeless to 'carry away' any man who is smoking and accordingly pretty well occupied with himself. By these means one would soon have a theatre full of experts, just as one has sporting arenas full of experts. [...] Unfortunately it is to be feared that titles and permissions to smoke are not of themselves enough to lead the audience to a more fruitful use of the theatre."(44)

A major source for the concept of complex seeing in English is Raymond Williams' writings on the subject, which include his 1961 "The Achievement of Brecht", published in Critical Quarterly, as well as the relevant chapters of his 1966 Modern Tragedy and 1968 Drama From Ibsen to Brecht. Here Williams develops the idea of complex seeing away from Brecht's discussion of the audience and instead towards the plays. Williams' complex seeing departs from Brecht's metaphor of 'above' and 'within' a flow of action towards a type of double vision which presents contradictions in social life without attempting to resolve them.

Bertolt Brecht

Plays	Baal Drums in the Night A Wedding Driving Out a Devil Lux in Tenebris Mysteries of a Barbershop In the Jungle of Cities Edward II Man Equals Man Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer The Elephant Calf Little Mahagonny The Threepenny Opera The Flight Across the Ocean The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent Happy End Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Der Jasager / Der Neinsager The Decision Saint Joan of the Stockyards The Exception and the Rule The Mother Kuhle Wampe The Seven Deadly Sins Round Heads and Pointed Heads The Horatians and the Curiatians Fear and Misery of the Third Reich Señora Carrar's Rifles Life of Galileo How Much Is Your Iron? Dansen Mother Courage and Her Children The Trial of Lucullus Mr Puntila and his Man Matti The Good Person of Szechwan The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Hangmen Also Die! The Visions of Simone Machard The Duchess of Malfi Schweyk in the Second World War The Caucasian Chalk Circle Antigone The Days of the Commune The Tutor Die Verurteilung des Lukullus Report from Herrnburg Coriolanus Joan of Arc Turandot Don Juan Trumpets and Drums

Theories and techniques	Epic theatre Non-Aristotelian drama Lehrstücke Fabel Gestus Defamiliarization Demonstration Not / But Historicization Refunctioning Separation of the elements Interruptions Complex seeing The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre The Street Scene A Short Organum for the Theatre Messingkauf Dialogues

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