'Chalk Circle' disregards Brecht, disappoints

Bertolt Brecht was a cabaret singer before he was a playwright, and though he never had the greatest voice (as anyone who has heard his rendition of "Mack The Knife" can attest), it is said he could sway a crowd simply by putting all his soul into his songs. For all the detached politicism of his epic theater style, Brechtian irony and several songs in every one of his plays made his works entertaining even when they presented the most difficult of questions to his audiences. And unfortunately, for all its technical ingenuity and excellent performances, the Dramat's production of Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle is not a success because, in several ways, it simply does not allow the audience to enjoy it.

COURTESY MELISSA FELDER Sorry, but if you want to check out full frontal nudity and people in animal suits, you'll have to see the show...

The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the story of the chambermaid Grusha's (Natalia Payne, TC '03) flight to the Caucasian mountains with the abandoned child of an assassinated governor, and her ensuing struggle to keep the child as revolution rages, is an epic tale even by Brecht's standards—the cast list of the original script stretches down a full page itself. Throw in the second story of Azdak, the mischievous, drunken judge (Nate Schenkkan, BR '02) who decides whether Grusha or the child's birth mother (Julia Kots, TC '01) will keep the baby, and frame all this within a Communist group's struggle against the Nazis, and you have two tales within a tale.

Brecht's own techniques of projecting messages of what will happen in proceeding scenes can often make his complicated plots less confusing. However, in Director Jay Scheib's interpretation of Brecht, this turns even more complicated because there are no projections, little assistance is given in the program, and the plot that Brecht editors John Willett and Ralph Manheim call "delightfully unpolitical" is in fact highly politicized. According to the production's promotional materials, this epic tale is framed within events beyond Brecht's lifetime; "the fall of Berlin, and the eventual death of Communism." Scheib certainly cannot be faulted for lack of ambition, but sensational images such as the General's daughter lifting a massive boulder, a portrait of Marx being replaced with a bloody head, actors and actresses moving in mechanized circles, and two male actors giving brief full frontal nudity create total confusion.

This reverse synergy even works into the narration of the Singer; whereas usually the role is handled by one actor who actually sings, here it is split by two capable actresses, Lyric Benson, PC '02, and Nell Rutledge-Leverenz, PC '03. This split makes for often incomprehensible lines spoken over each other. The dramatic original score of Kyle Jarrow, SM '01, looped over and over, loses its effect before the end of the two-hour first act. In the horrifying yet hilariously successful clown show with Mr. Smith (Brian Mullin, DC '01), there are two untranslated poems by Inge Muller that alienate non-German speakers. Even the costuming often misses the point—the Fugitive's silly Lorenzo Lamas-like getup takes away much of Isaac Laskin's, ES '02, brooding performance, and the blue "Y" the Nephew wear's (Raphael Soifer, TC '04) may be the most absurd use of the Yale logo since Eyes Wide Shut.

These elements detract from much of what is admirable in this production—creative use of the Yale Rep and excellent acting. Producer Mollie Goldstein, PC '02, and scene designer Suzanne Wang have put together an amazing set, mixing real (a working shower) and unreal (bare, green brick walls) components that place The Caucasian Chalk Circle into a Brechtian metatheater. And the cast is uniformly excellent, though Payne and Schenkkan particularly succeed in holding the play together. Grusha is an unusually sympathetic character for Brecht, and Payne takes full advantage of the role without overacting, even in multiple wistful songs. Schenkkan manages some of the biggest laughs of the play in a performance equally loopy and serious. Unfortunately, many characters seem constrained by their direction and forced to speak their songs. When such simple allowances as a character in a polar bear and an abrupt "fuck you" are the highlights of a show, something has definitely gone wrong.

Gunshots, odd lighting, and the sour sounds of the Hitler Youth choir destroy the erstwhile happy conclusion to The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Mind you, a production of Brecht is meant to be thought-provoking and raise large questions, rather than answer them. Unfortunately, this Chalk Circle provokes more questions about the production itself than anything in the post-Communist world.

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