All Articles by Amy Powell Yeates

Arts

THEATRE REVIEW - The Caucasian Chalk Circle

The WYP take on Brecht's tale of motherhood

Two ladies claim mothership of one young boy: one gave him life, the other saved it. Nature or nurture? Blood or water? Parent or guardian? Pass the chalk then, and hurry up about it, the bell’s just rung for last orders.

Nancy Meckler’s (artistic director of the Shared Experience theatre company) new production of Brecht’s classic meta-theatrical tale draws on the ancient tradition of the chalk circle. It certainly emphasises the humour in the play, enhancing its existing comedic potential and playfully developing it with a radical new translation by Alistair Beaton. The two potential mothers emerge from a country amidst a heated civil war that exposes a world both of class hierarchy and of corrupt, selfish individuals. The judge present for the title-referenced court case is drunk and disinterested. Meanwhile, flamboyant, upper class, and demanding women hold up an unavoidable mirror to the capitalism-induced greed in Britain today.

So why are we laughing? Not, in fact, for comic relief but the entertaining characterisation. One actor morphs fantastically from a Nick Cave-type singing narrator to a Jack Sparrow-style drunken judge,… Continue reading...