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The Caucasian Chalk Circle opens next weekPublished by the Communications and Development Department
10 February 2004
Puppets, martial arts and acrobatics combine in the Free Theatre’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
The play, which opens at the Old Queen’s Theatre on Wednesday 18 February, is directed by Sharon Mazer, Senior Lecturer and Head of Canterbury University’s Department of Theatre and Film Studies. The department’s technical director and resident designer Richard Till is artist and designer for the production and Canterbury alumna Diana Looser is combat choreographer.
Set in a time of revolutionary war, The Caucasian Chalk Circle uses puppets and performing objects, song and dance, martial arts and acrobatics to tell the parable of a kitchen maid who, after rescuing a royal child from certain death, battles greedy merchants, dangerous mountains, menacing soldiers, forced marriage, and lost love. In a carnivalesque court, she faces the ultimate test: the chalk circle.
Brecht wrote The Caucasian Chalk Circle while in exile in America during the Second World War. He took an old Chinese folktale and the story of King Solomon as a starting point and, bringing together bits and pieces of earlier theatrical experiments, he created a new epic theatre which confronts world events through parable, song and dance, and direct audience engagement.
The Free Theatre is exploiting Brecht’s prescriptions for an epic theatre, using an engaging, even romantic, story of love, loss and redemption with a dialectical provocation to contemporary political debate.
The production is set on a revolving stage in the Old Queen’s Theatre and uses an East-West fusion form of Asian combat performance (Zen Do Kai) along with music, song, puppets and performing objects to tell the story in 21st century Christchurch.
The production has been made possible with the support of Creative Communities NZ Christchurch City.
The Free Theatre was established in 1982 with the objective of staging new New Zealand works, rarely staged European plays in original translations and classical English texts in an unusual experimental style.
The Caucasian Chalk Circle runs from Wednesday 18 February to Saturday 28 February (no shows Sunday and Monday). Tickets cost $10 and $5.
For further information contact:
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