Enstrangement (Verfremdungseffekt)

Estrangement (Verfremdungseffekt) is a technique used to prevent the audience from being passively involved and to help them become conscience, objective, and unsympathetic of the piece or character. This use usually used with the destruction of the fourth wall; the actor, performer, or artist can achieve this by confronting the audience and involving them with the piece.

German Playwright Bertolt Brecht used this method in many of his plays and actually coined the term Verfremdungesffekt



"Herr Puntila and his Man Matti" by Bertolt Brecht