As a playwright and director, Bertolt Brecht revolutionized theater, bringing 20th-century politics indoors and replacing escapism with an urgent and timely theme that unfolds almost on the audience’s lap.
He also provoked many theater companies. salzburg festival. In 1950, Brecht was granted Austrian citizenship after agreeing to adapt the 15th-century play “Jedermann” (“Everyman”), which had been a staple of the festival since 1920. Instead, he embraced Marxist ideology and moved to East Berlin. This caused an official boycott of his work in Austria, which lasted for ten years. Since then, his works have rarely been performed at the Salzburg Festival.
But now “Caucasian Chalk Circle” The 1944 play, written during his stay in the United States, will be performed in the United States from August 12 to 22 (in German with English subtitles). A theatrical choice that would have undoubtedly thrilled the creative Brecht, the Chalk Circle was staged in collaboration with the Theater Hora, a Swiss theater company of actors with learning disabilities, and was part of Brecht’s work. emphasizes the power to push the boundaries of the world. performers and audience. This “chalk circle” feels more urgent and well-timed for those involved.
“The play is set in a civil war and it’s all about empathy,” Salzburg Festival theater director Bettina Hering said in a video interview. “But it also shows that society is multi-layered.” .
Like Brecht’s A Mother’s Courage and Her Children, The Chalk Circle weaves motherhood into the politics and brutality of war. The play is based on a 13th-century Chinese fable about two women fighting over custody of their child. During the war, the governor’s wife abandons her child, but she is saved by a servant girl. A judge will rule that custody will be awarded to the mother who was able to safely pull the child out of the chalk circle drawn around it. Brecht used this as a metaphor for a false society.
The story of Brecht’s own family and life in the theater is like a drama. Born in Bavaria in 1898 and raised in a strict Christian family, he became interested in politics, theatre, and writing at an early age. severely criticized and avoided combat as a soldier) doctor). In Berlin, with German director Erwin Piskator, Brecht created works known as “epic theatre” or “dialectical theatre,” inviting audiences to confront socio-political issues rather than let go of disbelief. I asked.
This revolution in German theater flourished during the Weimar Republic, but when the Nazis came to power, Brecht, fearing persecution, fled Germany, Scandinavia, and then the United States, where he lived around Los Angeles, where he wrote a film story. (“The Hangman Dies Too!”), and many of his most famous plays, including “The Chalk Circle.” After World War II, he returned to Europe and, though not officially a member of the Communist Party, boycotted his activities in Austria from 1953 to 1963 due to his Marxist tendencies.
“One critic wrote that this was an atomic bomb scandal,” Haring said. “That’s the equivalent of today’s cancellation culture.”
Many of his works focus on politics and religion, from fascism (The Resisting Rise of Arturo Ui) to the clash between theology and science (The Life of Galileo). He also wrote The Threepenny Opera with composer Kurt Weill at the 2015 Salzburg Festival.
Brecht died in East Berlin in 1956 at the age of 58, leaving a significant legacy to the theater world.
“One of his poems refers to a future when we are no longer needed, but we We still live in a world that he approves of.” ” he said in a video interview. “But we have populists on our stage. We have fascism. There are wars in Europe. Brecht could comment on them in an urgent and relentless way.”
That sense of relatedness drew Haring to the “chalk circle” and chose Theater Hora as the company to make it happen. As a writer and director, Brecht’s experimental theatrical style, like the mother-child plot in “The Chalk Circle,” felt right for Hora.
“People with disabilities are dependent on others,” Haring says. “They are like eternal children in a way.”
She invited Helgard Haug, a prominent German director associated with interactive theater. Although he had never directed the Hohra troupe or Brecht’s work, he became the leader of this ‘chalk circle’. For Haug, it was both a daunting and exciting proposition.
“I’m very interested in people actually bringing their situations to the stage and being open enough to tell their own stories,” Haug said in a video interview. “This is more than a conversation between mothers. Can the system change? Can it be different? It feels special to perform Brecht together.”
The evolving relevance of Brecht’s work speaks to those still committed to preserving Brecht’s legacy and recognizing that he created new possibilities for theater to educate and inspire audiences. increase. And they inspire the performers, playwrights and directors who follow him.
“Chalk is a theater of the moment, and I see it as a way of observing the difficulties of the world and how it is possible to find the right and honest way in chaos,” said Bertolt. Brecht representative Erdomut Vizsla said. Berlin archives. “It’s an invitation to think. He’s a poet. He’s a political writer, but he’s not a politician. That’s why Brecht always has a future.”
