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EPIC THEATRE - Caucasian Chalk circle
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Bertolt Brecht aimed to use theatre to show his audience what was wrong with society and then convince them to go out and change it. (Burton:158) Brecht believed that theatre should appeal not to the spectator's feelings but to his reason. While still providing entertainment, it should be educational and capable of provoking social change. One major work of Brecht was The Caucasian Chalk Circle. This was written whilst Brecht was in exile in the United States during the Second World War. The issues raised in this work were social inequalities, government power, social standards and poverty. These issues were very apparent in scene two of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. However Brecht not only presented these issues to his audience, he aimed to convince them to go out and address the problems. Brecht utilised alienation techniques as a vehicle to educate his audience. In order to show his audience what was wrong with society, Brecht used the form of ‘Epic Theatre’. This is a type of play which tells a story, usually historical on a large scale, including a number of people in a series of events over a long period. Brecht used an episodic structure in an attempt to make the audience feel they are simply observers, watching the events happening on stage and making judgements about them. For example in The Caucasian Chalk Circle there were six independent scenes which expanded over the period of three years. Brecht also expressed the issues through didacticism. The aim of this theatre is to educate and challenge the audience’s values. By using this approach Brecht suggests that he believes social and economic conditions dominate peoples lives, and this is evident throughout his works. Brecht was a very strong follower of the Marxist theory, this was a political and economic theory with states ‘the struggle between social classes determines historical change and must lead inevitably to the replacement of capitalism by communism’ (Marxist Theory). Brecht’s support of this theory was very evident in The Caucasian Chalk Circle as the topic of social classes is addressed throughout.
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