"The Caucasian Chalk Circle" by Bertolt Brecht. I will respond to three sections of the workshop. To begin this assignment we looked at the setting of the play.

Authors Avatar

Elizabeth A

Section One – Response

For our second exam workshop we studied a play. “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” by Bertolt Brecht. I will respond to three sections of the workshop.

        To begin this assignment we looked at the setting of the play. The Caucasian Chalk Circle is set in a split city. The rich are very rich and own everything. There is a police force called the Ironshirts who are dishonest and the workers are taxed so highly they cannot feed their families. The rich look down on the workers and the workers hate the rich.

Role Play: Rich Family and Poor Family

        

We were asked to create a short play either being a rich family or poor family and to show the circumstances. We were asked to split into five groups. Two groups were a poor family and the other three were a rich family. My group was poor. We were given a piece of paper with some information about the family. The father works in a factory. He complains about being underpaid and he is stressed. The mother sews and cleans for the rich families. She is very weak. The son (which is me) is ill from not eating. The daughter is a maid for a rich family.

 The short play starts with just the mother and son. The mother is sewing quickly to finish the job on time and the son is coughing on the floor. The father comes in and starts moaning about his job. The daughter comes in and starts complaining about the rich people but she has managed to steal some leftover food. We all freeze in different positions.

We were able to show that we were a poor family and had no money and no food. We did this by complaining about how we haven’t got them. I think we created a believable atmosphere   I showed I was ill by coughing and holding by stomach. When I spoke I tried to sound upset. The mother was really fussy and did things quickly. This showed that she was scared of the rich people. When she spoke she tried to sound calm but really was anxious. The father was tired and moved slowly. His tone of voice was depressed. The daughter was angry and frustrated.  Her movements were sudden and quick. Her tone of voice was annoyed. It seemed like she was grinding her teeth.

 Doing this short role-play helped me increase my understanding of the play. I now understand that the poor families were upset and angry towards the rich. The poor think they deserve more money and food. The rich families are comfortable and bossy. They think their slaves should work harder and should have no more money because they do not deserve it. They are starting to get greedy and are also requesting more than they all ready have. In this play you are either rich or poor and there is no in-between. It was clear to me why the workers started the revolution.  

Join now!

Still Image with Thought Tracking: Before / after the revolution

After some time the poor people had enough of the situation and decided to do something about it. The poor start a revolution against the rich. The next task we were asked to do was perform two still images with thought tracking. One still image before the revolution and another still image after the revolution. We had to show how things have changed.  We decided to use a freeze frame from the last play but add thought tracking. In the next freeze frame the poor are in a ...

This is a preview of the whole essay