Historicization

The principle of historicisation is a fundamental part of the aesthetic developed by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht.

In his poem "Speech to Danish working-class actors on the art of observation", Brecht offers a vivid portrait of the attitude he suggested an actor should cultivate:

For the actor, "historicisation" constitutes a fundamental interpretative attitude (what Brecht calls a "grund-gestus").