The Caucasian Chalk Circle

by Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (Editor), Ralph Manheim (Editor), James Stern (Translator), Tania Stern (Translator)

Overview

Written in exile during the Second World War, the story of Brecht's classic play subverts an ancient Chinese tale - echoed in the Judgement of Solomon - in which two women claim the same child. The message of Brecht's parable is that resources should go to those who will make best use of them. Thanks to the rascally judge, Azdak, one of Brecht's most vivid creations, this story has a happy outcome: the child is entrusted to the peasant Grusha, who has loved and nurtured it.

Published in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, this edition features an extensive introduction, Brecht's own notes on the play and a full appendix of textual variants. It is the standard critical edition of the work in an acclaimed translation by James and Tania Stern with W. H. Auden.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408176818
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/13/2015
Series:	Modern Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose work has had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include Mother Courage and Her Children, The Threepenny Opera, The Life of Galileo, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. His plays and dramatic theory are central to the study of modern theatre.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is acknowledged as one of the great dramatists whose plays, work with the Berliner Ensemble and critical writings have had a considerable influence on the theatre. His landmark plays include The Threepenny Opera, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, The Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.


John Willett (1917-2002) was the greatest English language authority on Brecht the writer and man of the theatre. The foremost translator and editor of Brecht's drama, poetry, letters, diaries, theatrical essays and fiction, Willett produced a dozen volumes for Methuen Drama on the greatest modern German writer.
Ralph Manheim (b. New York, 1907) was an American translator of German and French literature. His translating career began with a translation of Mein Kempf in which Manheim set out to reproduce Hitler's idiosyncratic, often grammatically aberrant style. In collaboration with John Willett, Manheim translated the works of Bertolt Brecht. The Pen/Ralph Manheim Medal for translation, inaugurated in his name, is a major lifetime achievement award in the field of translation. He himself won its predecessor, the PEN translation prize, in 1964. Manheim died in Cambridge in 1992. He was 85.

Table of Contents

Chronology vii

Bertolt Brecht and Epic Theatre 1

Epic vs. dramatic 1

Verfremdungseffekt, or the process of making strange 3

Concept and Context 5

Inception of the play 5

Nationalism and nation after the Second World War 6

Narrative Structure 8

A play about a play within a play: Episodes 8

The circle motif 9

Brecht's epic narrator: The Singer and the song 10

Social Relations, Class and Justice 13

Socialization and socialism: The Prologue 13

Social inequality 14

Law, truth and (in)equality 18

Motherhood 21

Staging and Production 24

The Caucasian Chalk Circle 27

Notes 129

Editorial Reviews

At last—the definitive translations of one of the 20th century's most influential playwrights…Far superior to the competition.” —Theatre Jourbanal

From the Publisher

At last--the definitive translations of one of the 20th century's most influential playwrights…Far superior to the competition.

Theatre Journal