The Caucasian Chalk Circle: Synopsis

The Caucasian Chalk Circle tells a parable that explores what happens when the law conflicts with justice and asks questions about who is right and wrong in complicated situations. Setting up the play, a Prologue introduces the idea that things should be given to those who will take care of them as two farms dispute ownership of a valley. Once an agreement has been reached, the villagers put on a play—The Caucasian Chalk Circle. The play begins as an uprising takes place in Grusinia (a fictional historic country in the Caucasus). When Governor Abashvili is overthrown and beheaded, his wife, Natella, flees the new regime, leaving her infant son, Michael, behind. A palace kitchen maid, Grusha, steals the child away so that it won’t fall into the hands of the new regime. Pursued by soldiers, Grusha undertakes a risky journey to carry the child to the other side of the mountains, where it will be safe, ‘adopting’ the child in the process. Two years later, when the political situation reverts, soldiers cross the mountains and take Michael away from Grusha, charging her with kidnapping the child. Grusha and Natella must appear in court to fight for custody of the child; the court in which the case will be judged is slightly unusual. Ever since the uprising in which the Governor was overthrown, Azdak has been presiding as Judge. Azdak is a rascal whose judicial decisions are highly unconventional, as they are guided not by the letter of the law, but instead by bribes and his own ideas of justice. The unconventional judge ultimately devises an unconventional scheme to decide who should be given the child—the test of the chalk circle. The results of this test convince Azdak to award the boy to Grusha. — Liana Thompson

Pre-Show Discussion Questions

Imagine you are at the mall. You find a spiffy iPod nano that someone has clearly dropped without noticing. What do you do? How far will you go to track down the owner of the iPod? What if you find two $100 dollar bills on the floor of the mall? Do you handle the situation the same way you handled the iPod? Why or why not?

Imagine you are in Boston and you are riding on the T and someone in your car is physically threatened. Do you intervene and inflict physical harm on someone else to protect that person? Do you intervene if the threatened person is your friend? What if the threatened person is a stranger who happens to be sitting near you? Do you intervene if by helping that person you put yourself in danger?

Imagine you find a stray dog in your neighborhood. It is malnourished, scarred and scared, and it looks like no one has been taking care of it. Do you take it in? Now imagine you do take it in and a week later you see flyers in the neighborhood advertising a missing dog. You realize that the dog you took in is the missing dog. Do you return it? What if you suspect that the people seeking it had been abusing it?