The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Can see his fellow man keenly with accuracy –Bertolt Brecht
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Of course Brecht’s affinity for contradiction spilled over into his art, and particularly The Caucasian Chalk Circle. In the traditional Chinese parable that is its inspiration, two women trying to prove to a judge which of them is the real mother try to yank a child out of a circle. In Brecht’s subversive version, defying traditional notions of familial rights, the biological mother loses the child. He sets the action in a corner of Grusinia, in a peaceful town overpopulated by soldiers. “No other governor in Grusinia / Had as many horses in his stable / As many beggars on his doorstep,” a wandering minstrel sings as the story begins.
In Mary-Arrchie’s Caucasian Chalk Circle director Richard Cotovsky and his cast struggle to maintain that accuracy. The piece begins with great promise. Doing away with conventional theatrical architecture, set designer Robert G. Smith eliminates any distinction between stage and audience, transforming Mary-Arrchie’s second-floor theater into a spacious beatnik cafe complete with bongos, wandering poets, and a coffee bar. At first the cast is indistinguishable from the audience, as everyone is milling about or lounging at tables. The effect is wonderfully Brechtian in its estrangement of the formerly ordinary; I’ve attended shows at Mary-Arrchie pretty regularly over the past few years, yet I found myself momentarily bewildered, wondering where I was.
As are all of the actors during the many musical passages. In these moments the actors let go of their actorly tricks and deliver Brecht’s words with great candor and simplicity. And given Brecht’s uncharacteristic optimism in The Caucasian Chalk Circle–written, after all, the year that fascism fell–that modesty is essential to the play’s warm heart. For in the end, justice and love triumph over opportunism and greed. Grusha and Azdak are harbingers of a new order, based not on class or parentage but fitness of soul. In the play’s final moments, as the cast forms a ring surrounding the audience to sing Brecht’s heartfelt benediction, you might believe for a moment that such a new order may actually come to pass.
