The Nofel Loshato Theatre in Tehran will host a reading of Bertolt Brecht's German modernist playwright's play 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle' on Saturday evening, October 10th. Mehr reported on this.
The production is directed by Mortaza Sabahi, and the reading will be performed by Abbas Sherizade, Alireza Sharif, Hossein Mousavi, Hashem Issalu, Zeinab Mohiabadi, Parisa Davoudi, Bahar Samee, Masoud Mahmoudi, Farshad Asadi, Delaram Shakeri, Paeiz Gorbani, Alireza Motamedi, Aryan Naib-ol-Sadr, Sahar Kilani, Farhane Kalantari, Pegah Asharizadeh, and Fardin Kashepour.
This play, an example of Brecht's epic theatre, is a parable about a peasant girl who saves an infant and becomes a better mother than the child's wealthy biological parents.
The play was written in 1944 while Brecht was living in the United States. Eric Bentley, a friend and admirer of Brecht, translated it into English. After Bentley could not stage it at the University of Minnesota where he taught, its premiere took place in 1948 in a student production at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, thanks to his student Henry Goodman.
'The Caucasian Chalk Circle' is considered one of Brecht's most famous works and one of the most frequently performed German plays. It adapts Brecht's earlier short story 'Der Augsburger Kreidekreis'. Both works share a common origin: the 14th-century Chinese play 'The Chalk Circle' by Li Xindao.
In his typical anti-realistic style, Brecht uses the device of 'play within a play'. The frame play takes place in the Soviet Union closer to the end of World War II. It demonstrates a dispute between two communes: the fruit and garden commune of Galinsk and the cattle herder commune, regarding who should own and manage the land after the Germans retreated from the village and left it abandoned.
One group organizes a parable based on an old folk tale to illuminate this dispute. Arkady Tcheidze, acting as the singer, arrives with his musical group and tells the peasants this parable, which forms the main plot and intertwines throughout most of the play. The singer is often accompanied by several 'musicians' who help maintain the smooth flow of the performance. The singer is often imbued with the characters' thoughts, strengthening more dramatic scenes with a stronger narrative than simple dialogue, and he is responsible for most scene and time changes.
In conclusion, he asserts that the land should belong to those who will use it most productively, i.e., the fruit producers, rather than those who had prior ownership rights.