Two groups of peasants sit in the ruins of a Caucasian village along with a delegate from the State Reconstruction Commission. It is shortly after WW II. The peasant group on the right originally owned the valley and herded goats there, and now that war is over they want to return to their valley. The peasant group on the left is a group of fruit farmers from another valley but hopes to take over this valley in order to plant fruit trees. The Delegate agrees to listen to both groups' arguments as to why they should take over the valley.
The peasants on the right unpack some cheese and argue that the taste is different since they had to leave their original valley. They also claim the land as a matter of law, arguing that since they have always been in this valley they have a right to reclaim it.
The group on the left speaks next. They have Kato, an agriculturist, explain that they have drawn up irrigation plans that would allow them to produce ten times as much fruit as before the war. He shows the other group the plans and explains that it would even convert 700 acres of infertile land into fertile land. Everyone looks at the plans and exclaims how good they are. The delegate asks the peasants on the right if they will give up the valley, and they agree.
In order to celebrate the peaceful resolution to the problem, the peasants on the left provide a singer named Arkadi. He agrees to sing a song called the Chalk Circle which comes from the Chinese. Everyone goes into the Club House to eat and be merry and to listen to the Singer.
The Singer from the Prologue begins the story of the Chalk Circle. It begins on Easter Sunday in a city ruled by the Governor Georgi Abashwili who is married to Natella and who has a son named Michael. The Governor and his family are going to church, but so many people have arrived to see Michael that the soldiers are forced to shove the common people away from the church doors. Before entering the church, the Governor is greeted by his brother Prince Kazbeki, otherwise known as the Fat Prince. The Fat Prince Georgi a good Easter..
Michael is attended by two doctors who fuss over the child and are desperate to keep him in good health. Everyone enters the church except for the Governor and a messenger who has just arrived. The messenger has important news for the Governor, but the Governor refuses to hear it, telling the messenger to wait until later.
Grusha Vashnadze, the main character of the first half of the play, enters with a stuffed goose under her arm. She is greeted by Simon Shashava, a soldier who has guard duty outside the church. The two of them flirt for a while and Simon reveals that he often hides behind a bush and watches Grusha washing the linen so he can see her dip her legs in the river. After learning this, Grusha is embarrassed and runs off.
The Fat Prince appears and makes a sign to some Ironshirts (soldiers). They disappear and within minutes the entire city is surrounded. The Governor and his family soon appear coming out of the church. He returns to his home in order to speak with some architects who are to build a new section onto his palace. The architects arrive, but they soon realize that the Fat Prince has committed a coup. They run away before they are captured.
The Governor is soon led onstage in chains. The Singer, who narrates the events to follow, comments that the Governor does not need an architect, but rather "a carpenter will do." The servants soon rush out of the house as well and start to run away. Even the two doctors who attend to Michael rush out and run away.
Simon returns and searches for Grusha until he sees her. He informs her that he will remain loyal to the old regime and that he will protect the Governor's wife as she flees the city. Grusha tells him he is being "pigheaded" by obeying orders instead of mutinying with the other soldiers. Simon then turns to Grusha and asks her several questions that indicate he is interested in marrying her. She replies to all of them and then anticipates his last question, telling him that her answer is yes. He ignores her answer and quickly tells her about himself before asking her for her hand. She again accepts.
Simon gives Grusha a silver cross to wear as a sign of their engagement. He then leaves to go protect the Governor's wife and Grusha leaves as well. The Governor's wife arrives with numerous boxes of her things and her child Michael. She makes another woman hold Michael while she runs around and packs her clothes. She realizes that she needs help so she makes the other woman put Michael on the ground in order to help her pack. The Adjutant arrives and forces her to leave immediately. In her haste to save her dresses, she leaves her child Michael behind. One of her servant woman sees Michael and hands him to Grusha. She is told by several other people that it would be safer to simply leave the child. The Cook goes so far as to tell her, "if he had the plague he couldn't be more dangerous."
Grusha watches as everyone runs away. She then hides the child under a blanket and waits to see what happens. The Fat Prince arrives with his soldiers, who carry the Governor's head on a lance. They nail the head over a doorway. The Fat Prince remarks that it is too bad he was unable to kill Michael. After the soldiers leave, Grusha goes to sit down next to the child. She sits with the child all through the night until dawn. By that point she is "seduced" by Michael and so she takes him away. Brecht ends the Act by having the singer comment, "As if it was stolen goods she picked it up. / As if she was a thief she crept away."
Scene 3 follows Grusha as she flees with Michael and saves him from the soldiers who want to kill him. She enters the stage singing "The Song of the Four Generals." When she is done singing, she spots a peasant's cottage and goes there to buy some milk. The peasant charges her two piasters, the equivalent of a week's wages for her.
Wandering on she arrives at a caravansary, at the same time as two noble ladies with their carriage. The innkeeper charges 180 piastres for a room without beds. Only after some discussion the ladies accept Grusha to share their room. Grusha uses the blankets provided to make beds. The ladies observe her and discover that she is a servant and that she hopes for a carriage ride. They have her thrown out. Grusha declines the food the innkeeper's servant offers her and rushes off.
She keeps heading north, all the while being followed by several Ironshirts who want to kill Michael. She soon arrives at the River Sirra and comes across a farmhouse. When she sees that the peasant woman has milk, she decides to leave Michael on the doorstep since she knows that the peasants can feed him. She then goes to hide behind a tree in order to watch what happens.
The peasant woman finds the child at her door and brings Michael into the house. Her husband tells her to give it to the local priest, but she indicates that she will take care of it. Grusha hurries off in the opposite direction. However, before she gets very far she encounters the Ironshirts who are chasing her. The Corporal makes several crude sexual comments to her before becoming serious and demanding to know where Michael is. Panic-stricken, Grusha turns around and rushes back to the cottage where she left the child.
She runs inside and tells the peasant woman to hide Michael in order to keep him safe. The woman tentatively agrees, but she is frightened by the soldiers. The Corporal arrives and demands to know why Grusha ran. When he turns to the peasant woman, the woman falls to her knees and reveals that Grusha left the child on her doorstep. She is led outside by the other soldier, and the Corporal goes to take a look at Michael. Grusha, in despair, seizes a log and hits him over the head with it, knocking him out. She then grabs Michael and rushes out of the house.
She eventually reaches a glacier that has a deep ravine in it. The only way across is a broken rope bridge where one rope has snapped and is hanging down the abyss. Several merchants are using a stick to try to grab the broken rope in order to repair the bridge. Grusha tells them that she must get across because Ironshirts are pursuing her. They try to stop her, telling her that the drop is two thousand feet and that she cannot possibly get across with the baby. Grusha ignores them and steps onto the ropes. She succeeds in getting across and triumphantly laughs at the Ironshirts when they arrive on the other shore and realize they cannot catch her.
Grusha walks across the glacier for another seven days until she reaches her brother's house. Her brother Lavrenti greets her. When he realizes that she has a baby, he asks her if there is a father. She tells him no, and he asks her not to tell his wife Aniko that there is no father, explaining that his wife is "religious." Aniko tries to come up with several excuses for why Grusha cannot stay with them, saying that the countryside is too boring for city folk or hinting that Grusha might have scarlet fever or tuberculosis (consumption). Lavrenti persuades her to allow Grusha to stay.
Grusha remains with her brother through most the winter months. As spring approaches, she tells Michael that they must be "small as cockroaches" so that Aniko will let them remain until it is springtime. Lavrenti enters her room and asks Grusha if it is too cold. She hastily pretends that it is warm enough for her. In his desperation to get her out of his house, Lavrenti informs Grusha that must marry a dying man from the other side of the mountain. That way she leaves the house and Michael is made a "legitimate" child since he will then have a father.
She protests, but Lavrenti explains that "you don't need a man in bed - you need a man on paper." Since the man is dying, Grusha finally agrees to marry him so that she can become a widow. She crosses the mountain and meets with the man's mother. Lavrenti has agreed to pay the woman 400 piasters to arrange the marriage. When the woman discovers that Grusha has a child, she demands more money. Lavrenti agrees to pay an additional 200 piasters in order to ensure that Grusha can live on the farm for at least two years after her future husband dies.
A drunk monk arrives and performs the ceremony. The dying man does not even move, but his mother says "yes" to the marriage for him. As soon as the marriage is over, the monk asks the mother if she wants him to perform Extreme Unction, a sacrament for anointing the dead. The mother refuses, saying that the wedding already cost enough.
The peasants that have arrived to watch the wedding and eat the reception food comment on Jussup's condition. They indicate that everyone originally thought that Jussup was only faking his sickness in order to avoid getting drafted into the war. However, now that it appears that Jussup is about to die, they regret having felt that way. While all the guest continue to talk and eat the food, Jussup suddenly sits up and then sinks back into the bed again. Suddenly all the guests start talking about the latest news which has just arrived. It turns out that the Grand Duke has gathered together a new army and is returning to fight with the princes that rebelled against him the previous year.
When one of the guests remarks that the war is over and that the army can no longer draft anyone, Yussup suddenly sits upright in bed. Yussup then gets out of bed and throws out all the guests. After several weeks Yussup demands that Grusha start to have sex with him, that she perform her "wifely duty." She reluctantly agrees. Many months pass and Grusha starts to slowly forget about her promise to Simon.
One day she is washing linen by the stream. Michael is with her and he goes to play a game with some children. They reenact the beheading of the Governor, Michael's father. However, instead of playing the part of the Governor like the other children want him to, Michael insists that he be allowed to behead the fat boy, who represents the Fat Prince.
Grusha laughs at the children playing, but when she looks up she sees Simon. He has returned to marry her. She sadly informs him that she is now married and she tries to explain that Michael is not her real child. He first demands that she give him the silver cross back, but she refuses. Simon then waits while two Ironshirts grab Michael. The soldiers ask Grusha is Michael is her child. Grusha is forced to say that Michael is in fact her child. As soon as she makes this claim, Simon leaves her. The Ironshirts state that the child actually belongs to Natella, the Governor's wife, and they take Michael with them. Grusha follows them back to the city where the her case is given to Azdak, the city judge.
The play now goes back two years to the time when the Governor was beheaded by his brother the Fat Prince. A clerk named Azdak finds a fugitive and agrees to protect the man. He takes the man back to his hut. The man promises to pay Azdak 100,000 piasters for a night's lodging. When Shauva, a policeman, arrives and demands that Azdak give him the fugitive, Azdak slams the door in his face and makes him leave. The fugitive takes off the next morning.
Azdak, realising that he has given shelter to the Grand Duke, goes and makes Shauva arrest him. He then drags Shauva into the city and denounces himself, informing everyone that he protected the Grand Duke and therefore must be killed. The soldiers think that he is a fool and refuse to believe him. When he asks for the judge, they show him that the judge has just been hung. Azdak then sings a song for the Ironshirts, but the song is about the injustice of war.
The Fat Prince arrives with his nephew. He is planning on appointing his nephew to be the new judge. However, because his power is not yet solidified, he offers to allow the soldiers to choose the next judge, thinking that they will obviously choose his nephew. They do a mock trial in which the nephew pretends to be the judge and Azdak pretends to be the Grand Duke. When accused of running a war badly, Azdak blames the princes rather than himself. This implicates the Fat Prince as well. Azdak continues to speak the truth, much to the delight of the Ironshirts, but he eventually causes the Fat Prince to demand that they hang him. Instead, the Ironshirts make Azdak the new judge.
Azdak next proceeds to give judgment on four very unusual cases. He begins all his cases by saying, "I accept," meaning that he is willing to be bribed. The first case is between an invalid and a doctor. The Invalid claims that he paid for the Doctor to study medicine and that he then had a stroke when he heard that the Doctor was practicing for free. He blames the stroke on the Doctor and wants to be paid back the money he spent in getting the Doctor trained. The other case is that of a Blackmailer who demanded money from a landowner who had raped his [the landowner's] niece. However, the Blackmailer refuses to divulge the name of the landowner. Azdak rules that the Invalid must pay 1000 piasters as a fine, but that the doctor must treat him for free if he suffers a second stroke. The Blackmailer is required to pay the court half of his blackmailing fees since he would not give the landowner's name. Azdak then advises the Blackmailer to study medicine.
The next case is that of an Innkeeper who is bringing suit against his stableman, whom he claims raped his daughter-in-law, Ludovica. The Innkeeper claims to have caught the stableman in the act. Azdak tries to get a bribe from the Innkeeper by asking for a "little roan," but the Innkeeper refuses to pay him. Azdak then has Shauva drop and knife which he makes Ludovica pick up. He watches as her hips sway. He then says, "The rape is now proven...you have raped that unfortunate man." Azdak then fines the Innkeeper the little roan that he wanted and lastly takes Ludovica to the stables on the pretext of investigating the scene of the crime.
The last case is that of Granny, an old peasant woman who has had several miracles occur. She claims that she miraculously was given a cow, that she had a ham fly into her house through a window, and that her landlord waived her rent. Three farmers are also present, each claiming that Granny's brother-in-law Irakli has stolen a cow, stolen a ham, and killed the landlord's cattle until the rent was waived. Azdak rules in Granny's favor, and fines the farmers for not believing in miracles. He then has wine with Granny and her brother-in-law.
After two years the Grand Duke returns to power and Azdak fears for his life. He tells Shauwa that the rich and powerful want to kill him because he has always ruled in favor of the poor people. The Governor's wife soon arrives and demands to have her child back. Azdak promises to oblige her, bowing all the while.
Grusha has returned to the city where she is about to face a trial for having taken the Governor's son. The Cook from the first act tells her that she is lucky that Azdak is the judge, since that means she will have a chance at winning the case. Simon is also present, and he tells Grusha that he will swear he is the child's father. The Ironshirts are still present and one of them recognizes Grusha. It is the corporal she hit with a piece of firewood. He leaves cursing, afraid to say anything because then he would have to admit that he wanted to kill the child.
The Governor's wife, Natella, arrives and comments on how much she hates the smell of the common people. Her lawyers advise her to not say anything against the poor until they are certain that the Grand Duke has appointed a new judge. Azdak is then led onstage in chains, having been arrested because he worked for the Fat Prince. The soldiers rip off his gown and start to beat him. The Governor's wife claps her hands while this occurs.
Suddenly a messenger arrives with news from the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke appoints Azdak to be the new judge. This is done to pay off his debt to Azdak for having saved his life. Azdak is immediately put back into his judicial position and the soldiers stop beating him. He gets up and gets ready to judge the case.
He starts the case by taking a bribe from the prosecutors, who are working for Natella. They explain that Grusha has stolen Natella's child and refuses to hand it over. Grusha claims that Michael is her child and that she brought him up. The lawyers point out that Grusha does not claim to be a blood relative of Michael's. One of the lawyers then also adds that Natella needs to get Michael back in order to take over the Governor's former estates.
Azdak questions Grusha and discovers that she was forced to marry to protect Michael. He also learns that she and Simon are in love, even though Simon is not her husband. Both Grusha and Simon get mad at Azdak because they think that he has already decided in Natella's favor. Simon starts quoting folk wisdom to Azdak, who finally fines Simon indecent language. Grusha then accuses Azdak of taking bribes and calls him a "drunken onion." Azdak fines her thirty piasters for her rudeness and moves on to another case.
The other case is that of an old couple who have been married forty years. They claim they always disliked each other and now they want a divorce. Azdak tells them he will think about their request and then returns to Grusha's case. He calls Grusha to him and asks her why she will not give Michael up. He points out that Michael would be very rich since Michael would inherit the estates. Grusha remains silent and Azdak tells her that he understands her.
Michael is brought into the courtroom and Natella accuses Grusha of dressing the child in rags and raising him in a pigsty. Azdak watches as Natella throws herself at Grusha, but is restrained by her lawyers. He then orders Shauwa to take a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the floor. Michael is placed in the middle and both women are ordered to take an arm. Azdak tells them that whichever woman can pull the child out of the circle will get him. Natella pulls hard and yanks the child out of the circle; meanwhile, Grusha has refused to pull. Grusha then apologizes to Azdak for having insulted him earlier.
Azdak orders them to make the test one more time. Again Grusha lets go of the child's arm. Azdak then says that it is now obvious who the true mother is. He gives Michael to Grusha and advises her to leave the city. He then orders Natella to disappear before he fines her for fraud. Michael's estates fall to the city and he decides to have them called Azdak's Garden. His last act is to sign the divorce papers. However, Azdak "mistakenly" divorces Grusha instead of the old couple. Everyone present then starts dancing. During the dancing Azdak slowly is hidden from view until he disappears by the end. The Singer ends the play by describing Azdak's reign as a "brief golden age, / almost an age of justice." He then concludes with the lines, "Children to the motherly, that they prosper, / Carts to good drivers, that they be driven well, / The valley to the waterers, that it yield fruit."
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