The Caucasian chalk circle
| Data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Caucasian chalk circle |
| Genus: | Epic theater |
| Original language: | German (premiere in English ) |
| Author: | Bertolt Brecht |
| Music: | Paul Dessau |
| Premiere: | May 4, 1948 |
| Place of premiere: | Nourse Little Theater, Carleton College , Northfield, Minnesota |
The Caucasian Chalk Circle (play: a prelude and five acts, drama and verses) of Bertolt Brecht was born in 1944/45 in Santa Monica (USA) and was on 4. May 1948 in Northfield (Minnesota) in Nourse Little Theater, Carleton College , premiered . It was not until October 7, 1954, that the play was first performed in German in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, with Helene Weigel in the lead role. The first print was in sense and form 1. Special edition Bertolt Brecht, Berlin 1949; the first edition in pieces Vol. 10, Berlin 1954; Collaboration: Ruth Berlau ; Music: Paul Dessau .
content
In the legal dispute about the use of a valley after the Second World War, a singer joins and sings / tells the following story:
After a coup against the Grand Duke, all of the governors of Georgia are executed, including the rich governor Abashvili . His spoiled wife Natella can escape the turmoil of the revolution, but simply leaves her son Michel behind (because clothes are more important to her). After some hesitation, the simple maid Grusha takes on the child, who is already being sought by the new rulers, and flees with him to the mountains. The henchmen of Prince Kazbeki (the armored riders) are on Grusha's heels.
In the mountains, through all the dangers and with many victims, she finally reaches her brother in safety, who is now married to a very pious woman. Although Grusha is engaged to the soldier Simon , she marries an apparently terminally ill farmer, Jussup , in order to legitimize her foster child by means of a stamped paper in the face of the growing distrust of her sister-in-law. When the news of the end of the war arrives, the terminally ill farmer suddenly rises in perfect health from his mock death bed. After the civil war, the governor's wife also returns and lays claim to the child she had born, which secures her a rich inheritance. When the arriving Simon witnesses how Grusha claims the child in front of her new pursuers with the words “It's mine: I raised it!”, He leaves her furious.
The case is presented to the simple but shrewd village clerk Azdak , who is not a legal scholar, but was judged as a mischievous practitioner in the chaos of war and was considered a judge of the poor among the rural population . In the case to be negotiated, he orders that evidence of motherhood be established through an experiment. To do this, he has the child placed in a chalk circle and orders that both women should try to pull the child out of the circle at the same time (because it says "the true mother will have the strength to tear her child out of the circle").
The governor's wife imperiously grabs her child, which Grusha lets go of pityingly. In doing so, she proves to be the "truly maternal" one who loves her child and prefers to let go of it than to hurt him. After all, it is not the birth mother of the child who receives the child, but the maid Grusha, who has proven in love and daily fulfillment of duty, “that what is there should belong to those who are good for it,” as it says at the end of the play . Azdak chases the governor's wife away and divorces Grusha from her husband so that she can marry her fiancé Simon .
background
In order to emphasize the didactic application (and to achieve the alienation effect typical of the author ), Brecht places the play in a framework plot : In the prelude, representatives of two kolkhozes meet after the liberation of Georgia in 1944 to negotiate which kolkhozes cultivate fertile valley. After a debate, the delegates of the goat-breeding kolkhoz Galinsk leave the valley to the fruit-growing kolkhoz Rosa Luxemburg , because they will achieve a far better yield for the good of the community. The decision was made in favor of the fruit growers, even though the goat breeders farmed the area before the war. As a thank you, the fruit growers in the clubhouse play the piece The Chalk Circle , which comes from Chinese and is supposed to unite old and new wisdom . The foreplay shows that "[...] humane behavior could become a social reality".
The wise judge, who recognizes the “true” mother by her love for her child, is a very old and widespread wandering legend . The motif can already be found in the Old Testament ( 1. Kings 3, 16–28 EU ), where King Solomon decides a similar case.
In fact, the story The Chalk Circle ( Chinese 灰 闌 記 / 灰 阑 记 , Pinyin Huilanji , W.-G. Hui-lan-chi ; play in four acts and a prologue , verse) is written by the Chinese Li Xingdao ( Wade-Giles : Li Attributed to Hsing-tao ), originated in the 13th century and is about the judge Bao . The first edition was in the Yuanqu xuan collection (Wade-Giles: Yüan ch'ü hsüan ) from 1615/16 and was later published by Alfred Forke (1927) and Johannes v. Guenther (1942) translated.
Li Xingdao Chalk Circle, d. H. the French translation was edited by Klabund (actually Alfred Henschke ; November 4, 1890 - August 14, 1928) and premiered as a play ( drama ) in five acts on January 1, 1925 in the Meißen city theater . Alexander von Zemlinsky wrote an opera of the same name for this , which premiered on October 14, 1933 in Zurich .
Klabund's game of the chalk circle has a static character and has epic elements that make it tend to be instructive. In the play, the emperor - similar to Azdak here - decides on motherhood with the help of the chalk circle. However, the actual child's mother is granted custody (she, too, lets go of the child several times at the crucial moment).
Brecht, in his dialectical doubt, reverses the idea of the legend into its opposite, contradicting Klabund, who uses the ordeal in the chalk circle as the glorification of motherhood. Brecht distrusts the badly strained emotional values as well as the privilege of birth and the myth of the language of blood.
Brecht occupied himself with the motif of the “chalk circle test” several times. In a grotesque interim scene it appears in Man is Man as early as 1926 . In 1938 Brecht expressed plans for a "Funen chalk circle", and some fragments of an "Odense chalk circle" have been preserved. In 1940 he wrote the story " The Augsburger Kreidekreis ". He moves the plot to his hometown in the time of the Thirty Years' War . The figures are similar to those in the Caucasian Chalk Circle , with the exception of the Judge .
The plot is a parable . The one who should have the child with whom it is better off. So Grusha, who took care of the child, gets the child even though it is not her own. In the framework of the plot, the fruit growers who use the valley for cultivation, look after it and want to take care of it, also get it. The goat breeders would only devastate the fertile landscape with their goats .
If you look at Azdak, you can see a criticism of the authorities. This is not a judge as one would imagine. He drinks alcohol and makes decisions based on his feelings, not according to the law books. Despite these qualities, he is the good judge who makes the right decisions. This mixing of properties is also typical of Brecht. Things believed to be sacred, such as the wedding, are used as a means to an end and exposed as banal things.
At the beginning of an act there is an overview of what is to come. This destroys the tension and the viewer concentrates on what is essential to Brecht in the piece. “Now hear the story of the judge: how he became a judge, how he pronounced judgment, what kind of judge he is. On that Easter Sunday of the great uprising, when the Grand Duke was overthrown and his governor Abashvili, father of our child, lost his head, the village clerk Azdak found a refugee in the woods and hid him in his hut. "
Brecht destroys the guideline by frequently changing perspective. The plot itself is broken down into two individual acts, which only come together at the end. Thus the component of time is no longer continuous either. Furthermore, he alienates the story through several interruptions in the form of sung songs, which form a kind of summary for the previous paragraphs. This gives the viewer another overview and can critically reflect on what has been told. It is also alienating that Grusha performs a pantomime in one scene while the singer is narrating the plot. In so far as it is unusual for a person not to speak and at the same time to perform the associated action.
At the end, the singer turns to the audience and explains the situation. “But you, you listeners of the story of the chalk circle, take note of the opinion of the ancients: That what is there should belong to those who are good for it, that is, the children for the motherly, so that they thrive, the car for the good drivers, with it is well driven and the valley is watered so that it bears fruit. ” This dedication is an alienation, as it often occurs with Brecht. The singer, who is also the narrator of the story, steps out of the action to enlighten the audience.
In contrast to Klabund's adaptation, which is closely based on the Chinese model, Brecht uses the chalk circle sample only as a game moment in the context of a play to convey a teaching in the Marxist sense, according to which only social aspects are decisive for motherhood. Brecht was heavily criticized for the framework story: it justifies and veils the Stalinist terror. The announcement that goat breeders (i.e. non-Russian nomads) had been sent to the east on the orders of the government in connection with the advance of the German army , played down the murderous deportation of the Crimean Tatars during the Second World War , who have been prevented from returning to Crimea to this day .
History of origin
According to the actress Luise Rainer , Brecht wrote his chalk circle for her. In a 2009 interview she said:
“[Brecht] came to the USA and asked if I had an idea for a piece for myself. I said: 'Every actress dreams of playing Joan of Arc . You have already written to Saint Joan of the slaughterhouses . But there is one piece that made a deep impression on me: Klabund's chalk circle . ' He threw up his arms and said, 'I gave this story to Klabund back then. But I'll write my version now. ' He came back with the script and wanted me to play the lead. I refused. "
Film adaptations
Brecht's play was filmed in a television production under the direction of Franz Peter Wirth in 1958 in a production faithful to the work and the text, also under the title The Caucasian Chalk Circle . Hans Gottschalk wrote the additional script . The main roles played: Käthe Reichel (Grusche Vachnadze), Hanns Ernst Jäger (Azdak), Rolf Boysen (Simon Chachava), Paul Edwin Roth (The Singer), Eva Maria Meineke (Natella Abaschwili), Ernst Mitulski (Arsen Kazbeki).
In 1983 the production by the Berliner Ensemble was recorded for GDR television. The main roles played: Franziska Troegner (Grusche Vachnadze), Ekkehard Schall (Azdak), Hans-Peter Reinecke (Simon Chachava), Peter Tepper (singer), Christine Gloger (Natella Abaschwili), Heinz-Dieter Knaup (Arsen Kazbeki).
reception
In 1964 the play was performed at the Vienna Volkstheater under the direction of Gustav Manker , after the Vienna Brecht boycott was broken the year before with Brecht's " Mother Courage and Her Children " . Hilde Sochor played the Grusche, Fritz Muliar the village judge Azdak and Kurt Sowinetz the Schauwa. The performance garnered "unanimous, almost demonstrative applause for Vienna's bravest theater" ( Ernst Lothar on April 27, 1964 in the " Express "). The “ Salzburger Nachrichten ” wrote: “If Brecht's exile was interrupted for the first time with 'Mother Courage', it now seems to have been lifted with the 'Chalk Circle'” and “ Die Bühne ” called the performance a “theater event” . The “ Wiener Montag ”, however, saw the play “a pure Marxist teaching demonstration” and wrote: “After three hours of 'pleasure' you left the theater ice cold to your fingertips and disgusted by such political rallies on the stage” .
The Canadian rock band Chalk Circle named themselves after the work.
literature
Text output
- The Caucasian chalk circle. Text and Commentary , Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-18842-2 (Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek, 42).
Secondary literature
- Horst Grobe: Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk Circle. King's Explanations and Materials (Vol. 277). Hollfeld: Bange Verlag 2004. ISBN 978-3-8044-1781-6 .
- Franz-Josef Payrhuber : Key to reading: Bertolt Brecht “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” . Stuttgart. Reclam 2005. ISBN 978-3-15-015351-2 .
- Michael Duchart: Explanations and documents on: Bertolt Brecht “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” . Stuttgart. Reclam 1998. ISBN 978-3-15-016007-7 .
- Kyung-Kyu Lee: A comparative study: Lessing's “Nathan the Wise” and Brecht's “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” , In: Linguistics and Literature Studies , Volume 23, Utz, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8316-0728-0 (Simultaneously Dissertation at the University of Munich 2007).
- Karl-Heinz Hahnengress: Reading aids Bert Brecht, “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” . An introduction to epic theater. In: Klett reading aids. 3. Edition. Klett, Stuttgart / Dresden 1995, ISBN 3-12-922323-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The model was Bao Zheng .
- ↑ Oster, Anne-Karina / Knopf, Jan: "The Caucasian Chalk Circle". In: Kindlers Literatur Lexikon Online.
- ↑ Jürgen Kreft: Brecht's realism problems or: How realistic is Brecht's realism? P. 25f. (PDF file; 276 kB) ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marten Rolff: The last goddess . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of July 23, 2009, p. 9
- ↑ The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1958) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1983) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ^ Paulus Manker: "The theater man Gustav Manker. Search for traces." Amalthea, Vienna 2010 ISBN 978-3-85002-738-0 .
