The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Jasmine Jung

November 13th

Review of The Caucasian Chalk Circle

I watched the play called The Caucasian Chalk Circle on November 10th, at Friday night in black box. The Caucasian Chalk Circle was originally written by Bertolt Brecht, and the play was directed by Mr. Aaronson, and produced by Mrs. Guarino. In the play, there were only 11 characters, and each of them took two roles. Since the director Bertolt Brecht did not want the play to be realistic and hope the audience to be aware of the play, he directed play through a frame narrative structure.

The play is set within the context of a dispute over land by two villagers in the caucasus region after World War two. The main action of the play contains parable that is performed to celebrate the decision of the dispute. The parable concerns the struggle between two women over the custody of a child. The dispute between the governor’s wealthy wife (Natella), who abandon the child in the chaos because of her luxury clothes, and the young woman (Grusha) who saves the child from the insurrection and cares for him, is settled by bizarre judge (Azdak) who placed the child in a chalk circle. Then, the judge declares that any woman who pulls him from the circle will be granted custody, and will have right to own him. Unfortunately, the poor woman lets the governor’s wife to have him since she doesn't want to harm the child. However, the story ends with the judge granting custody to poor woman Grusha.

The start of the play was fresh; the play began with a song and dark light, every character was sitting around, and nobody talked for about two minutes. Two groups of villagers were sitting in opposite side, and started arguing who should control the valley. During every scene while the villagers were acting out, the singer narrated the situation and what was going on, which was really helpful for audience and made them to understand the plot easily. The stage light, and background music were one of the keys during the play; dark lights and beginning song made the play more depressive and gloomy, and the background music helped the play to be more realistic. For example, I was pretty surprised when I heard the real baby’s crying sound near the basket, and it made the play more realistic. I really liked Sam’s acting so much, her facial expression made me feel how she wants to have a child, and how she cares about him. The stage light, music, and characters’ actings were great, and made the play perfect.

Personally, Linda was the most impressive character among all of them. Although all her roles were villain, she acted so differently, and well. Especially the part when she was picking her clothes and abandoning her child was really impressive that I actually felt so sympathy to the baby. Her acting was so good, but also kind of comedic. While other characters’ actings were really serious and relaxed, her acts and the way that she talk was so funny that all audience could laugh while watching. Furthermore, during the last scene when Linda started screaming and yelling after the baby was given to Sam, everyone included me were actually really shocked by her high and loud voice, and I was even little scared of that. I think Linda was one of the key characters who made the play more interesting and impressive.

Overall, I really liked the play The Caucasian Chalk Circle since it consisted of political issues that was little different with the previous plays, and every characters and background music, stage performed awesomely. Although the light, music, and content of the story was pretty dark and negative, I felt it was fresh and I am hoping to read or watch Bertolt Brecht’s other plays.