On the day of Bertolt Brecht’s birth anniversary, here’s is a muse based on the playwright’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Brecht uses the device of ‘a play within a play’.
It is set in the Soviet Union around the end of WW2. It shows a dispute between the Collective Fruit Farm Galinsk fruit growing commune and the Collective Goat Farmers, over who is to own and manage an area of farm land after the Nazis have retreated from a village and left it abandoned.
An old folk tale, is played out. A peasant girl who rescues a baby, becomes a better mother than the baby's wealthy biological parents. In the trial, the baby is placed on a circle and both ‘mothers’ are asked to pull it to their side, but the peasant girl refuses to do anything that will hurt the child. The true mother is obvious!
The circle teaches us the connection between the individual characters and the larger community, highlighting the importance of collective action and solidarity. We must understand the importance of collective action and the struggle for justice and equality.
In the folk tale we learn that love overrides different truths which are after all just spins of perception and positioning. The circle of humanity should engulf all other circles, connected or not connected. Nothing is greater than justice born of sensitivity and sensibility.
In Caucassian Circle, truth is spun
Justice needs humanity to be won!
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