Bertolt Brecht, Parables for the Theater

The epic playwright, then, strips the present-tense immediacy of performance from the drama and replaces it with the storyteller’s calm recitation. Several stage techniques serve this aim: the literal presence of a third-person storyteller; the projection of scene summaries above the stage to distance the action by blunting suspense; the use of signs and placards to label figures or enunciate messages; a preference for fable-like stories and distant settings that lend themselves to allegory; and a non-naturalistic acting style meant to encapsulate characters’ social roles rather than their psychologies.