An exciting collaboration between the BA(HONS) in theatre arts in english and mandarin. The Chalk Circles was presented at the studio theatre at nafa on 16 february 2017.The director marc goldberg had done a great job in fulfilling his directorial vision in this play that was adapted from bertolt brecht and li qianfu.
The play begins with two group of people, the native chinese and the caucasian settlers. The themes and issues of the play revolves around who should have the ultimate claim of the land, the native asian who has historical claim to the land or the caucasians who has developed it.To discuss this topic they have taken the interesting concept of story telling of the chalk circle that was being told by both the caucasian and…show more content… The two mothers were told to draw a chalk circle with the child in the middle, and only the true ‘mother’ will be able to tug the child out of the circle, but the true mother who cares for the child will refuse to pull him in fear of hurting him, thus the true mother will prove herself.However there is a difference between the Asian and Caucasian chalk circle. The Asian chalk circle suggested that the biological mother should have the claim over the child, on the other hand the Caucasian chalk circle suggested that the foster mother should have claim over the child.
Marc goldberg made an interesting directional vision in making the play an intercultural show by introducing two languages and two cultures, this made the play arguably successful with mix reactions. There were flaws and success to the script and…show more content… This shows the simplicity of the directional figure.
The Lighting and music was at a minimum too, there was only a use of isolated lighting at the final scene when the mothers were told to draw the chalk circle and the only music heard were from the actors with pots and pans and simple drums.
It was clear from the play that the director wanted to break the fourth wall, the imaginary wall between the actors and audience which keeps them as observers the audience become an active member of the theatrical experience as they are kept thinking throughout.this can be seen by the successful attempt
Freeze frames,when the asian and caucasian took turns to tell their story towards the end when both stories were merging into one.
Coming out of a role, this was interesting as the asians and caucasians were telling the story of the chalk circle thus they came out of their roles many times but still staying in character.
Speaking directly to the audience, this was mostly used when the character was saying out his thought and when the narrator spoke directly to the audience an example would be the intermission when the narrator spoke to us