Bertolt Brecht And The Caucasian Chalk Circle

7 Pages 1653 Words

Bertolt Brecht and The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Bertolt Brecht was one of the most prominent figures in theatre during the twentieth century. A German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer, Brecht was born in Ausburg in 1898, and died in East Berlin in 1956. Throughout his lifetime, Brecht contributed an impressive body of work, including four volumes of prose and short stories, three volumes of poetry, seven volumes of plays, two volumes of scripts and scenarios, three volumes of essays on theatre, two volumes of essays on literature and art, and one volume of essays on politics and society. Some of his best known works are Baal, Man is Man, The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Galileo. One of Brecht’s greatest contributions to theatre was a technique known as the alienation effect, designed to encourage the audience to detach themselves emotionally from the play. He encouraged his audience members to think rather than feel, or become too involved in the story. Brecht developed a form of drama known as epic theatre, in which the ideas or lessons are important, and are the reason for telling the story.
Brecht was a socialist, and his political views are evident in most of his work. He used his work as a forum to address the political issues and the current events of his day. He staunchly opposed Nazi rule of Germany, and fled the country in 1933. He lived in the United States from 1941 until 1947, and it was during this time that he wrote The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Stern vii). Brecht had always allowed himself to be influenced by a variety of sources including, but not limited to, the theatres of Japan, India, and China, as well as Greek tragedy, fair-ground entertainments, and the Elizabethans (Bertolt paragraph 2).
Brecht borrowed from many sources for The Caucasian Chalk Circle. The story is loosely based on an ancient Chinese leg...