Caucasian Chalk Circle

Nov 21: We went to the last night of the 'Caucasian Chalk Circle' production at Nottingham Playhouse (joint production with Yorks Playhouse).

This was a remarkable evening, with the first half a bit like Les Miserables - the city burning, execution, fleeing, danger, human cruelty and some human goodness amongst it. The second half was brilliantly enjoyable and comedic, more like a pantomime with a wonderful performance from the Judge/Azdak - and a very happy ending.

As the whole thing is meant to be a play within a play, and played by the villagers not by professionals, so the actors have to ham it up a bit at the first, and gradually raise the professionalism as you get absorbed into the action.
A host of characters are played by a small number of actors, so there are constant costume changes - the only character to stay throughout is Grusha, the servant girl who becomes the mother of the child - brilliantly played by Matti Houghton, and a small puppet. The Singer, a character who starts out like a cruise liner crooner at the start becomes the centre of the action in the second half, as Azdak the Judge, and I kept thinking he must be Robert Lindsay, but he was too young for that.
The programme is actually a paperback book of the entire screenplay by Alistair Beaton, and the music for the song sections was composed specially for this production.
Guardian Review