The Caucasian Chalk Circle

by Bertolt Brecht, Tom Kuhn, Frank McGuinness

Overview

A morality masterpiece, The Caucasian Chalk Circle powerfully demonstrates Brecht's pioneering theatrical techniques. This version by Frank McGuinness was published to coincide with the National Theatre's production which toured the UK in 2007.

A servant girl sacrifices everything to protect a child abandoned in the heat of civil war. Order restored, she is made to confront the boy's biological mother in a legal contest over who deserves to keep him. The comical judge calls on an ancient tradition - the chalk circle - to resolve the dispute. Who wins?

This version by Frank McGuinness was first presented by the National Theatre in 1997 and revived in 2007, opening at the Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, on 8 January.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780713685947
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/27/2008
Series:	Modern Plays
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	717,930
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x 0.27(d)

About the Author

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose writing has had a major influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera, The Life of Galileo and Mother Courage and her Children.

Alistair Beaton's plays and translations include Feelgood, King of Hearts and Follow My Leader and Max Frisch's The Arsonists. For television, he wrote the award-winning A Very Social Secretary (2005) and the Channel 4 film The Trial of Tony Blair (2007).

Table of Contents

Chronology vii

Bertolt Brecht and Epic Theatre 1

Epic vs. dramatic 1

Verfremdungseffekt, or the process of making strange 3

Concept and Context 5

Inception of the play 5

Nationalism and nation after the Second World War 6

Narrative Structure 8

A play about a play within a play: Episodes 8

The circle motif 9

Brecht's epic narrator: The Singer and the song 10

Social Relations, Class and Justice 13

Socialization and socialism: The Prologue 13

Social inequality 14

Law, truth and (in)equality 18

Motherhood 21

Staging and Production 24

The Caucasian Chalk Circle 27

Notes 129

Editorial Reviews

At last—the definitive translations of one of the 20th century's most influential playwrights…Far superior to the competition.” —Theatre Jourbanal

From the Publisher

At last--the definitive translations of one of the 20th century's most influential playwrights…Far superior to the competition.

Theatre Journal