CACCC play review

Play Review: Reemergence Of Brecht’s Masterpiece In CA

This weekend, I went to the CA varsity players’ fall production—Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, directed by Marc Aronson. Actors list: Grusha Vashnadze--Samantha Weed, Azdak--Peter Deng, The singer--Amalia Gutierrez, Simon Shashava--Aaron Luo, Shalva/Ludovico/1st lawyer--David Mathisson, Natella Abashwili/corporal--Linda Li, Georgi Abashwili--Jason Lin, Prince Kazbeki/2nd lawyer--Erin King, Shauwa/peasant--Zoe Genden, Ironshirt/maid/doctor--Helen Zheng, maid/mother-in-law--Keystal Charter. It was so good to see classmates and friends acting such a masterpiece and it was inspiring.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a play inside another play. The story happens right after the world war 2, 2 kolchos are arguing for the ownership of a valley. The fruit kolchos cultivates the valley during the war time while the original owner goat kolchos runs away. As a result, the fruit kolchos invites a singer with all the kolchos workers to present a play to argue for the valley. The story in the play takes place in Caucasian area a few hundreds years ago. The governor of Grusinia has been killed in a revolt, his wife leaves without taking her child. The young maid Grusha has to take him with her to run away. After so much hardship in the journey, Grusha decides to be the mother of the child. She sacrifices herself many times only to save the child. After she loses almost everything, the governor’s wife comes back to take the child away. Meanwhile, Azdak, a town clerk, becomes the judge of the city accidentally after he surrenders himself to the police for saving the grand duke and letting him flee away. However, when the grand duke back to power, he is saved by the grand duke as a return. As a result, the case between Grusha and Natella will be judged by him. He uses the old Chinese method chalk circle and sentence the child to Grusha. Additionally, he write Grusha and Yussup’s name on a divorce document so Simon and Grusha can be together again. He disappears after this case and becomes a legend of the city. The story ends and the valley should belongs to fruit kolchos.

The director made a lot of change on the original plot. Some scene were eliminated. The scene that Grusha tries to travel with 2 rich women has been eliminated. The reason I guess could be the time limitation and also could be this scene stresses the same thing as the buying milk from old man scene—people’s selfishness during war time. In the Grusha entering peasant’s house for shelter scene, the process for the peasant woman to confess seems been accelerated. I think that was because the director wanted to show the extreme selfishness and cowardice of the woman. However, I don’t see the cut of the scene in her brother’s house as a successful one because the performance after did not express the sarcasm of the sister in law enough. And the cut of the beginning of Azdak scene I do not think that was really good though Peter was doing well in presenting a true Azdak. Here, before the audience realized who is Azdak and what is happening, Azdak start to shelter the grand duke. Overall, the reasons of cutting the scene could be over-repeating or time control. The light and sound control were also worth to praise,the sound effect connection and scene connection were fairly good.

My favourite actor in the play was David Mathisson. David’s relatively short shape, morbid manner helped him acting characters such as the grand duke in a difficult condition, the useless and feeble nephew, the henchman lawyer. His ability to control his voice helped him get the characters well. All his characters were kind of weak, coward or silent. I have to agree that people picked the characters which are the most suitable for them. People appeared as what I think the characters should be. I really enjoy David Mathison, Linda Li, Peter Deng’s acting. Linda Li’s wiry voice also helped her to get the characters. Natella and the corporal are both mean and greedy characters. She used her voice and exaggerated facial expression to express how mean and greedy is she. The screaming in the end was a punchline of the play: symbolize the evil’s cry though it was scary. Peter Deng, he is the guy looks like a straight drunk buddy when I first saw him. He did act such a person in the play—Azdak. His heavy voice made him a trustful male character in the play. We can see his the excitement he gave on his speech on the order of the society.

In the end, the play was wonderful. As an audience, I enjoyed this 2 hours play without being bored and tired. The actors were representing the book except for those intentional deleted part. Thanks again to the hardworking performers, crews and the director!