A new take on an old tale
A young theatre company is at the helm of a new take on an old play. Carly Thomas speaks to the team behind The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
‘‘We are inviting the audience in and letting them know this is our space and we have a lot to say about issues in the world.’’
Grace Hadfield
Don’t walk into The Basement Company’s devised version of The
Caucasian Chalk Circle thinking you know what you will find. Expect to be surprised. This is a group of buzzing young talent with an equally young and edge-pushing director, and while the play is an old one, the story is not.
Bertolt Brecht wrote the political play in 1944, during World War II, while he was in exile in the United States.
It became one of his most celebrated works and is a parable about a baby abandoned by a wealthy mother and rescued by a peasant girl.
Sitting at the heart of the play are the complexities of making decisions, the thin line we walk between right and wrong and how we treat each other.
In the audience, people are forced to think. Brecht liked nothing better than to give a crowd a moral dilemma to chew over – he hated a passive audience. So prepare to be challenged.
The Basement Company has been in its own circle for months, spiralling closer and closer to how it, in 2018, can make this play relevant.
Its members are all under the age of 22 – all emerging artists who have been exploring theatre within the intensive full-year programme with their main tutor, Dan Pengelly, artistic director of Palmerston North’s Centrepoint Theatre. Many have also pursued their own practice outside of the company.
They are our next generation and say they want to be heard, and like company member Grace Hadfield says: ‘‘We aren’t always listened to.’’ They, like Brecht, want the audience to come on the ride, go against the status quo and question things they thought they knew. ‘‘We are inviting the audience in and letting them know this is our space and we have a lot to say about issues in the world – things that are often pushed aside, things that we care about. We want to say something and we are using this play as a way to get that message across.’’
Nomuna Amarbat says it is an empowering position to be in.
‘‘We are saying what we are as young people. A lot of the time the older generation can be complacent or passive to issues that are going on in society and we want to say that we are aware and we want to do something about those issues.’’
So they are getting their time with this play and they are using the original structure, which begins with a prologue, to their advantage. Director Nathan Mudge says the prologue is a story told to parallel the moral dilemma of who should keep the baby.
‘‘It makes the audience immediately look at it critically from a different point of view. You then know how this is being framed and these are the questions that are being asked and this is how it is being told.’’
The 19-strong company has taken out Brecht’s prologue and added its own. Cast members are saying this is who we are and this is why we want you to listen. Set in an underground rave, Brecht’s ideologies and techniques have been given a skip forward to what Mudge calls ‘‘contemporary conundrums’’.
‘‘We have talked a lot about what we want to say and a lot of ideas around protest and activism have come up. We are using this play as a vessel to do that, just as he did. Brecht always asked why.’’
Actor Aaron Whale says going into the company, he knew the play was on the cards, and from what he had read he was expecting a dark and, he admits, ‘‘boring-and-a-bit-ofa-drag’’ sort of play.
But then within the group it was commented that actually this isn’t a dark play, ‘‘it is just strange and strange is good’’.
‘‘The characters are extremes and there is a lot of fun in that and so we focused in on that. We have broken away from the dark and it has become a celebration of this strange world.’’
It’s a full-on journey for the young company. Members make up the production crew, taking on every element, from the costumes to the sound, lighting and marketing. They are head-first into it and yes, says Whale, it is crazy busy.
‘‘But it’s the joy of it also. There are different facets to working in theatre and as a youth company we aren’t just confined to acting. We get to experience the other parts as well, the parts that interest us. It’s really fun.’’
A youth company was where Mudge started his acting training, so he knows the importance of them firsthand.
‘‘I come from quite a religious and very conservative background, and so the youth company that I joined was very liberating for me. It played a huge part towards who I am now. I felt like I grew because I was treated as an adult and I was encouraged to explore and express myself in ways that I couldn’t elsewhere.’’
Mudge has brought that with him into this circle, creating a place where voices are heard, ideas are burrowed into and edges are pushed. He is listening to these voices because they are important and in the realm of Brecht, circled with a parable that rings with a timeless truth that they are asking you to listen to.
The Caucasian Chalk Circle runs at The Dark Room, Palmerston North, from October 23-27. The company is also opening the doors on its final dress rehearsal on Tuesday for a koha performance. Proceeds from this show will go to Women’s Refuge.