February 16, 2011
Northwest imagery, original music make unusual vision for ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Alyson Roux directs "The Caucasian Chalk Circle," featuring music by James Jewell III. | Photo by Mario Lemafa.
Bertolt Brecht wasnt thinking of Seattle when he wrote The Caucasian Chalk Circle — a play with songs — in 1944. He had left his native Germany, in exile from the Nazis, and was living in the U.S., but he set his play in Soviet Georgia, near the Caucasus mountain range — thus its title.
Alyson Roux wanted to direct The Caucasian Chalk Circle as her UW thesis production, but she definitely had Seattle in mind. In fact, she wanted an “iconic American” look and sound for her production. Thats why she turned to James Jewell III to create new music for Brechts song lyrics.
“The original music is very German and very broad,” Roux said. “We have bluegrass, folk rock and kind of a Tom Waits style to the piece, which is really exciting.”
Roux found Jewell by accident, when she was directing a play in Los Angeles last summer. One of her actors insisted that everyone come to a bar after rehearsal one night to hear his cousins band play. Jewell was the cousin, and Roux was enthralled.
“I thought the music was incredible, but also the way he crafted his songwriting,” she said. “It had a sense of narrative to it, of storytelling. The stories in the songs were really palpable and powerful.”
Some fundraising in the School of Drama, where Roux will earn her MFA in directing this spring, allowed Jewell to be hired to write the music and to be in Seattle for eight weeks as the show moved through rehearsals and into production. It will open on March 2, with previews on Feb. 27 and March 1 in the Jones Playhouse Theatre.
“I have absolutely never done anything like this before,” Jewell said. “This is something Ive always dreamt of doing but never considered that I would get the opportunity.”
What he has been doing, mostly, is living the life of the singer-songwriter, playing with multiple bands in Toronto, Nashville and Los Angeles. However, he once played a role in an off off Broadway play, and that will stand him in good stead in Caucasian Chalk Circle, because the leader of the band, called “the singer” in the play, is actually the narrator.
In Chalk Circle, Brecht created a play within a play. The opening finds two groups of peasants arguing over who should control a piece of land. Then one of the groups says it has arranged for the telling of a parable to cast light on the conflict. A singer arrives with his band and proceeds to tell the story, which is acted out by the other cast members. At its end the dispute is settled.
As for the music, Roux said, Brecht worked with his composers to create an underlying layer of sound that was rhythmic, and the speaking or singing that was on top of that sound was in a different rhythm so that the words would be what was most important. Jewell said that in writing his own music, he nearly always starts with the words, so working with Brechts words was a familiar process for him.
Because the band is supposed to be a group of roving entertainers, Jewell stuck with portable instruments for his music. He plays guitar, and the three musicians in the band are a banjo/mandolin/toy piano/washboard player, an accordion/mandolin/guitar player and a cellist. The cellist is UW drama student Javonna Arriaga and the other two are Seattle musicians, found through open auditions.
In addition to leading the band, the singer often takes on the thoughts of characters, enhances the more dramatic scenes with stronger narration than simple dialogue, and is responsible for most scene and time changes.
“It was a huge risk putting all of this on James, but I think from what weve found in rehearsals so far that its certainly paying off,” Roux said. “The energy that he brings and the band hes put together — its acoustic electricity.”
Asked if hes nervous about it all, Jewell laughed. “You had to bring that up didnt you?” he said. But he allows its not greatly different from entertaining an audience with his band, although he wont have the option of changing the song lineup on the spur of the moment, as he might do in a nightclub gig.
Roux has set this Chalk Circle in Seattle, “sometime in the not too distant future,” and although the text wont be changed to include references to Portage Bay or Puget Sound, the costumes will include a lot of REI clothing and Mariners t-shirts.
Roux wants the audience to relate the plays story to their own lives and times. The idea is that when the characters in the play tell the “old story,” theyre telling pieces of our own time.
“I love Brecht’s political theater,” Roux said. “I think he found a voice for people who didnt have one. Thats something thats always interested me with theater — that it has a purpose in making our world a better place — from making people laugh to provoking questions about how they can help improve society. I like the sense of hope that this play ends with — that each of us can in fact contribute to making the world a better place.”
Tickets for Caucasian Chalk Circle are $10 for previews, $15 for Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and $17 for Friday and Saturday. Students pay $10 and UW employees, seniors and Alumni Association members pay $13. Tickets are available at the Arts Ticket Office, 206-543-4880 or online. The play runs through March 13.
