“The Caucasian Chalk Circle” is unlike most other plays because a singer tells most of the story, while in other plays there is usually a narrator. Brecht uses anti-natural techniques like creating characters that are representative, rather than realistic, the characters class or rank determines the way the characters behave. In “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” the working class people are represented by Grusha while the upper class are represented by Natella Abashvilli. Brecht shows that the “upper class” are selfish and only thing about themselves, and the “poorer class” are caring and thing about other people, Brecht shows this through Natella Abashvilli, when her husband is being prosecuted, she escapes from the city and forgets her child, she only cared for her clothes and not her child, she says, “Maro! Bring the child! No, First take the dresses to the carriage. Grusha is the one who decides to take care of Michael in the end. Brecht makes Natella one of the most superior characters in the play, the way she behaves shows that she shouldn’t even have to stand near lower class people, when she is near them she says that they all smell or shes says, “I’m getting this terrible migraine again.”
By the end of the play it concludes to a trial between the “upper class” and the “working class” to see who gets custody of a child. The judge of the trial is a man named Azdak who despises the upper classes to give justice to the lower class, all this is done through bribery and cheating. Azdak as the judge has come to this position only through a matter of chances and mistakes. Firstly he harbours the Grand Duke from Shauva, then he confesses to the Ironshirts only to be made judge because the Duke escaped. Then through shear chance, just before his execution the Duke redeem him and makes him judge, finally making him the judge of the trial between Natasha Abashvilli and Grusha. This shows that the poor class can only get justice under a system of extraordinary circumstances and that justice is basically linked to a series of chances and not linked to the law, as it should be in a normal circumstance.
Brecht does try and make the last scene a scene of suspense, and avoids some aspects of epic theatre and just tries to entertain the crowd, but he still tries to send out a moral to the audience. The humour that Azdak displays toward the upper class is entertaining, he constantly refers to them as "arse-holes… sows… well-born stinkers. Azdak is so disgusted by the odours the upper classes emit that he occasionally says, "Before passing judgement, I went out and sniffed the roses."
The play is written in the past as the singer tells the story, he starts his story with, “once upon a time…” and he sums up all the events that happen from scene two and onwards. Other natural plays are set permanently in the present. The singer makes the play narrative rather than having a realistic plot. Natural theatre has enacted plots, it involves the audience and stimulates their emotion, only to drive away their active responses. In epic theatre man’s thinking is conditioned by his social situation and ill change if that changes. The singer sums up the meaning of the entire play, linking the prologue with the stories of Azdak and Grusha. "That what there is shall belong to those who are good for it, thus the children to the maternal, that they thrive; the carriages to good drivers, that they are driven well; and the valley to the waterers, that it shall bear fruit." The play is also set over a long period of time of approximately three years. This is shown through Michael, he is a baby at the beginning of the play and grows up to be a toddler by the end, this also shows that the play is unrealistic and anti-natural, Michael couldn’t of been an actor on the stage, the other actors and actresses would have had to pretend that there was a child on the stage.
One of Brechts other main aspect of Epic theatre is that each scene stands for itself. In “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” each scene does stand for itself and doesn’t flow on forward, the scenes don’t build up to carry on in the next scene. Each scene can be like a mini play, the play can finish at the end of any one of the scenes. In natural plays, one scene makes another and each scene builds up to conclude the final scene of the play.