The use of props in a play adds an extra visual dimension to the scene and helps to engage the audience in a way that aids willing suspension of disbelief. Greek drama used this technique to its advantage with elaborate costumes and backdrops. Two very important aspects of props in Greek theatre were firstly the deus ex machina (translated to god from the machine) and secondly the eccydema. Deus ex machina was a crane in which the person playing a god entered the stage and the eccyclema was a platform with wheels on which a tableau was formed; it was rolled across the stage for dramatic effect. A Greek stage used props to help convey meaning to people in the back rows of the theatre and they were commonly very grand, elaborate and large. Props on a Brechtian stage are kept to a minimum as Brecht believed that they drew attention away from the dialogue. It is most common for there to be only one representational prop per person on stage and as the stage space is generally quite!.
limited this belief serves well. The type of props used is usually quite simple and small, which suits the small audience of a Brechtian stage quite adequately. Everything in a Greek theatre was quite elaborate and large and props were no exception which was quite the opposite to Brechtian drama where things were kept on a smaller and simpler scale, including the props. This is attributed in part to the scale of audience each theatre was designed for.
The technical aspects concerning the two types of theatre are on quite the opposite scale to props. Greek dramas are kept very simple as making intricate technical aspects accessible to the entire audience would have been very difficult. The use of masks, however, did enter most productions and the workings of the deus ex machina and the eccyclema were detailed. Brechtian theatre on the other hand involved a varied array of technical aspects, to explain messages or reinforce ideas.