Caucasian Chalk Circle: performance conventions

Verfremdungseffekt or Alienation Effect

Purposeful Distancing: Brecht aims to encourage critical thinking by making the audience aware they’re watching a play, thus avoiding emotional attachment. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, conventions such as direct address to the audience, songs, and use of placards and projections seek to achieve this.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Performers talk directly to the audience, commenting on actions or discussing future events. This destroys the illusion of reality, reinforcing the artificial environment and promoting analytical engagement.

Critical Commentary: Songs are used as a form of commentary in the Caucasian Chalk Circle, helping emphasise themes and moral questions of the narrative.
Breaking Rhythm: Music interrupts the action, providing an opportunity to reflect and making the audience consider the implications of events or decisions.

Actor-Narrator: Actors often switch roles between characters and narrators. This challenges the traditional actor-character identification and acts as a direct challenge to the audience’s expectations.
Engaging the Audience: Direct address forces the audience to engage with the political and social implications of the storyline.

Character Masks: Performers, especially in the key role of Azdak in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, can use masks to highlight a character’s role or distinguishing traits.
Distancing Mechanism: Masks are another tool for the alienation effect, creating a visual barrier between actor and character.

Physical Gesture: Brechtian performances often feature heightened, exaggerated gestures to underscore a character’s social role or psychology. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle, characters like Grusha and Azdak have specific ‘Gestus’ that encapsulate their personalities.
Social Significance: Gestus is designed to signal social relationships and encourage the audience to analyse these dynamics rather than empathise with individual characters.

Actors in Multiple Roles: Performers play more than one role within the play. This reinforces the constructed nature of the narrative and encourages a critical response from the audience.
Spotlighting the Message: Multi-rolling draws attention to similarities and contrasts between characters, further emphasising themes and the playwright’s message.