The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Modern Plays) (original 1955; edition 2010)

This play was great! I never knew Brecht could be such a humanist! I liked how it seemed like a real adventure, and you could imagine it taking place in a real painted wooden outdoors instead of on a stupid set. I liked how there were twists and turns and heartwarming young lovers with the politics! My favourite character was Azdak, though. The ending was a big challenge for me--if you're pro-revolution, you have to be okay with people getting their shit taken away, and not all those people will be the enemy--some will be the ones Brecht mentions, the ones who shelter under the big people's wings. I mean hell, that's me, and ... you? If you work a job in this economy and want to live your politics, instead of just talk about them, you're playing with fire.* And yet fire's all that warms our tired proletarian hearts! Gee whiz, Brecht really brings it all home with this one. Gewöhnungseffekt.

*(An alternative metaphor, given the subject matter of the play, would have been "stealing a baby.") ( )

I read this back when i was in HSC, about a million years ago. It was interesting to come back to it after all that time.

Way back then, we were told that it was about land ownership and socialism, but it turns out that that's not the case. In fact, to quote the rather helpful introductory comments by the legendary Eric Bentley: "The Caucasian Chalk Circle is not an inquiry into the dispute over ownership presented in the prologue but a celebration of the assignment of the land to 'those who are good for it'."

Which is a little more socialist than our teachers were probably prepared to countenance back in them Cold War days.

I'm also pretty sure that i attended a performance of the play - during my wildly radical University days - in which there was not only a prologue, but an epilogue, too, in which the actors broke the fourth wall and polled the audience to see what should happen with the valley.

According to Legendary Eric: "That, however, is politically ludicrous, if it means, as it would have to, that Soviet planners depend upon folksingers in the way that some other leaders depend upon astrologers."

So, while we were led to believe that the essence of Brechtian drama was for the audience to decide: "In this type of play there should be no doubt as to what is going to happen, only as to how and why."

Awesome.

So now i'm slightly less sure of what Brechtian drama actually is, based on the fact that everyone seems to have a different opinion.

Nevermind. Azdak is still the funniest character in a mid-20th Century socialist drama by a long chalk. He reminds me of Groucho Marx.

No pun intended. ( )

One of the weaker works of Brecht. Good writing spoiled by a demagogic treatment of the topic. ( )

Writing in exile in the USA during the Second World War, Brecht borrowed from an ancient Chinese story-echoed in the Judgement of Solomon-in which two women both claim the same child. Brecht's subversion of this tale provides a parable which seems to say that resources should go to those in whose hands they will be most productive. Thanks to the rascally judge, Azdak, one of Brecht's most vivid creations, this story, at least, has a happy outcome. The child is entrusted to the peasant Grusha, who has loved it and nurtured it.

Originally intended for Broadway, this translation by James and Tania Stern (with verse translation by W. H. Auden) has been thoroughly revised, and the volume includes a full introduction and commentary by John Willett and Ralph Manheim. ( )

Despite the content of this play, I can't help but feel romantic about this treasured little book of which we have two. On one of my first dates with my husband in 1980 we went to this play and I found when we moved in together we had the same copy of this book. As you can see I have kept them. The play is brilliant of course, and considered today , how history has changed! ( )