The Caucasian Chalk Circle

To my provincial mind, this is what theater is all about.

One wants to be entertained, of course, yet the most engaging, funny, exciting plays are the ones that take you somewhere else, tap into something real, and show you something you didn't know you knew. At least I find that entertaining.

If there is political commentary and moral ambiguity, that certainly adds weight, and if the play reveals a connection between today and some historical setting, you've got something special: Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov, Arthur Miller.

Brecht!

Gven Golly and I walked over to Cowan Hall Saturday night for a student production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. We expected it to be well done. Christina Kirk, who directed the play, is Gven's colleague at the Yoga Factory and a theater professor at Evangelical Brethren College right here in Methodistville, in the patriotic heart of Central Swingstate, and I've seen enough to know that Chris does good work.

I've never seen Brecht performed straight, so I can't compare this to that, but this production was slightly unconventional and a bit challenging, but after all, in the playwright's words, "The times are out of joint!" Since he wrote this, much of the theater world - and the world at large - has gone all Brechtian anyway. So it was very layered, with multiple subplots, unexpected turns of events, and tons of irony.

In a minimalist set, charactors in circa A.D. 1000 costume are in the throes of a rebellion in some kingdom in the Caucasus. Their struggles for survival are frequently interrupted by the playwright and his translator arguing about how to stage it properly. Brecht's mistress saunters onstage to hand him a coat or a drink. The Singer (Elizabeth Shivener, a fine actress with riveting stage presence and a great voice) addresses the audience directly like a Greek chorus.

On one level, my workaday mind is yanked into the self-serving and sometimes kind intersections of regular people playing the hand they're dealt. On another level, I'm moved by the power of art to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And I'm so damn impressed with the work this small college does, which increases my respect for the academic institution, the compromises needed to keep the doors open, and the everyday folks who toil away there. I live down the street and could partake of this resource more often if I didn't have my nose in a book so much.

Funny things happen when you step outside your own bubble. I recognized one of the student ushers as Jackson H., younger brother of Rob H., Jessi's friend from elementary through high school, who was also a theater major at Ev Breth. Miraculously Jackson remembered us, even remembered our old house in the old neighborhood. His family has since moved to California, his dad now teaches at UC Riverside, and they're "living large." Even as a ten-year-old Jackson did a great Peter Lorre. Somehow that chance encounter gave even more dimension to the evening's experience.