Circle of Chalk by Li Xingdao

Li Xingdao

Li Xingdao was a 14th century Chinese playwright. His works include Hui Lan Ji which was used as the basis for Bertolt Brecht's 1948 play Caucasian Chalk Circle....

 (李行道, also transliterated as Li Xingfu, Li Ch'ien-fu, Li Hsing-tao, or Li Qianfu), is a Yuan dynasty

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

 (1259–1368) Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 classical zaju

Zaju

Zaju was a form of Chinese drama or Chinese opera which provided entertainment through a synthesis of recitations of prose and poetry, dance, singing, and mime, with a certain emphasis on comedy...

 verse play, in four acts with a prologue. It was preserved in a collection entitled Yuan-chu-po-cheng, or The Hundred Pieces. The Chinese language

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 original is known for the beauty of its lyrical verse, and considered a Yuan masterpiece; a series of translations and revisions inspired several popular modern plays.

Plot

A beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, Hai-tang (also transliterated Hai-t'ang, Hi-tang, or Chang-hi-tang), is sold into a house of prostitution by her impoverished family, after her father's death. There she is befriended by Ma Chun-shing, a wealthy and childless tax collector, who takes her into his house as his second wife. She bears him a son, Shoulang, but earns the jealousy of his first wife, Ah-Siu. Ah-Siu accuses Hai-tang of adultery

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

, poisons Ma, blaming Hai-tang for the crime, and claims to a court that Shoulang is her own child, so that she can inherit Ma's fortune. Hai-tang is arrested, and beaten until she confesses

Forced confession

A forced confession is a confession obtained by a suspect or a prisoner under means of torture, enhanced interrogation technique or duress.Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession may or may not be valid in revealing the truth...

. As Hai-tang is about to be hanged, she is rescued by the Emperor or a powerful nobleman in a scene similar to the Judgement of Solomon: Shoulang is placed in a circle of chalk between the two women, and each is ordered to pull; as Hai-tang can not bear to hurt her child, she is judged his true mother.

Adaptations

The play became first known in the Western world

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

 in a French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 translation by Stanislas Julien

Stanislas Julien

Stanislas Aignan Julien was a French sinologist.-Biography:Born at Orléans, he studied the classics at the Collège de France, and in 1821 was appointed assistant professor of Greek. In the same year he published an edition of The Rape of Helen of Coluthus, with versions in French, Latin, English,...

, published in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1832 as Le Cercle de Craie. This was liberally re-translated into German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 by Klabund

Klabund

Alfred Henschke , better known by his pseudonym Klabund, was a German writer.-Life:Klabund, born Alfred Henschke in 1890 in Krossen, was the son of an apothecary. At the age of 16 he came down with tuberculosis, which the doctors initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia...

 as Der Kreidekreis in 1924, which was very popular. In Klabund's version, the Emperor marries the heroine at the end of the play, while in the original she returns to live with her brother, who is now a court official.

Klabund's version was translated into English by James Laver

James Laver

James Laver CBE FRSA was an author, art historian, and museum curator who acted as Keeper of Prints, Drawings and Paintings for the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1938 and 1959...

 as The Circle of Chalk, in five acts, published in London by William Heinemann

William Heinemann

William Heinemann was the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London.He was born in 1863, in Surbiton, Surrey. In his early life he wanted to be a musician, either as a performer or a composer, but, realising that he lacked the ability to be successful in that field, he took a job with...

 in 1929. It was put on stage in March of that year, produced by Basil Dean

Basil Dean

Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, film producer/director and theatrical producer/director....

, starring the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress Anna May Wong

Anna May Wong

Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star...

, Australian actress Rose Quong

Rose Quong

Rose Quong was a Chinese Australian actor, performer and writer.-Early life:Rose Quong was born in Melbourne, Australia to Chinese parents Chun Quong and Annie Moy Quong. She grew up in Australia and was employed by the government and performed with the Melbourne Repertory Players until 1924,...

, and British actor Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

. As of 2008, this version is still being produced by various theatre groups.

In 1940, Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

 wrote Der Augsburger Kreidekreis, a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 based on Der Kreidekreis, which reworks the story by omitting any Imperial intervention and making the first wife the biological mother, but having her abandon the child. The heroine is a serving girl who rescues and raises him, becoming the "real" mother. In 1944, he further reworked the story as the play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother than its natural parents....

, moving the events to medieval Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

, adding a prologue set in Soviet Georgia, and greatly elaborating the narrative. In 2000, The Caucasian Chalk Circle in turn was rewritten as Full Circle, or The Berlin Circle, by Charles L. Mee

Charles L. Mee

Charles L. Mee is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts.-Early Life and Early Career:...

, set in 1989 East Germany after the fall of Communism.

External links

• Full Circle, script by Charles L. Mee
  Charles L. Mee
  Charles L. Mee is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts.-Early Life and Early Career:...
  
  at his site.