Caucasian Chalk Circle

[Katurian2]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 6:57pm

wtf is this show? I just heard that my school is doing this play in the upcoming year. Can anyone enlighten me about what this is, and if it is a normal show for a high school to do? i have never before heard of this.

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 7:00pm

I'v been wondering that too, ever since Michael Cerveris said he made his stage debut in it.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 7:03pm

Really? Apparently, it's very very pro-communist. Which I have absolutely no problem with! But I don't know much else.

[theaterFrEaK07]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 7:46pm

I saw a really good production of it at the Texas Thespian Convention by Woodlands High School. I don't know exactly how to explain it though.

[joshy]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 7:48pm

Oh my gosh. Well, there is this very famous and influential. playwright called Bertolt Brecht who lived from 1898 to 1956 and it is one of his most important works. There is a lot of information about him and the play on the internet...
I don't know if it is a 'normal' show for high schools to do, but I don't think it's beyond high school students, although it is a complicated play which would require good actors and a director who knows what to do with Brecht.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 10:58pm

I've heard of the author before- Threepenny Opera- he had at least 3 different mistresses at any given point in his adult life. Cool guy. Is the mood similar to 3 Penny Opera? Strange and sort of eerie like...without the multitudes of sexual references?

[mlsheehan]

Posted: 7/14/06 at 11:27pm

Caucasian Chalk Circle is considered by many to be one of the seminal plays of the 20th Century. Here’s some background from Wikipedia…

“The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) is one of Bertolt Brecht's most important plays and one of the most regularly performed German plays. It is one of a group of plays written by Brecht during his six-year stay in the United States, and was first staged in May 1948 by students at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

"The play is often regarded as part of the epic theatre (episches Theater) tradition. The motives used in the play are taken from the Bible, Buddhist and Islamic narrations, and the 13th-century Chinese piece Hui Lan Ji by Li-Xing-dao.”

It's not exactly like 3Penny Opera.

The complete summary of the show can be found at the below link.

(The internet is your friend )

Wikipedia on CCC

[safran]

Posted: 7/15/06 at 12:03am

mlsheehan: I agree that the internet is your friend. So is the library/bookstore.

theaterfreak: oddly enough when I went to Thespian convention a few years ago (when I was still in High School), The Woodlands (at least I think it was) did this horrendous production of Les Miz. Maybe it wasn't that bad...all I can remember was that Cosette had blonde dreads. (If it wasn't the Woodlands, I apologize.)