WORD: Apparatus

dictionary.com provides the following definitions for the word apparatus.

1.	a group or combination of instruments, machinery, tools, materials, etc., having a particular function or intended for a specific use: Our town has excellent fire-fighting apparatus.

2.	any complex instrument or mechanism for a particular purpose.

3.	any system or systematic organization of activities, functions, processes, etc., directed toward a specific goal: the apparatus of government; espionage apparatus.

4.	Physiology. a group of structurally different organs working together in the performance of a particular function: the digestive apparatus.

The idea that reverberates through these definitions is that of having a given entity carrying out a particular purpose. In regard to Brecht's disquisition on the opera, an apparatus is the medium through which a composer and writer represented his desired idea to his audience. The apparatus itself would come to undergo change based on the relevant desire of the audience, which consisted of a unified conglomerate dilettante made up of diverse persons and classes. In Epic theater, a term which Brecht attributes to the then modern theater, uses this apparatus not solely to present an idea or image, but to engage the audience even further by asking it to make subjective judgments not necessarily made for them by the intent of the author.