The Form Of The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Abstract

THE POPULARITY OF Weill's music to The Threepenny Opera, together with the exaggerated claims made for Brecht's work in general, obscured for some time the quality of his two or three finest plays. One of these clearly is The Caucasian Chalk Circle and, although productions are now frequent, we still seem not to have recognized quite where its strength lies. Grusha, of course, has plenty of vitality, and the anarchic humour of Azdak takes to the stage like a seal to water; but beyond this, discussion seldom goes further than surprise at the banality of the prologue or a tribute to the realism of the peasant wedding. Now certainly the play is realistic. Money is needed, almost everything has its price, and Brecht, as always, delights in irony and contradiction. He has a grasp not only of the world of the peasant—what we can touch and smell and taste—but of emotions uncorrupted by sentiment or romantic idealism. This much, however, could be claimed for a very much weaker comedy like Puntila. The distinction of The Caucasian Chalk Circle is the energy with which Brecht's realism has shaped the whole play. It is a vision personal to Brecht, nowhere explicit yet everywhere implied in the dramatic form. The purpose of this essay is to indicate those ways in which the form of The Chalk Circle (structure, characterisation, speech, etc.) expresses and defines Brecht's vision.