UC Berkeley stages Brecht’s fiery ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’

Ensconced in the center of the Zellerbach Playhouse is a vertiginous stage, stained in aquamarine, licorice red and pale salmon. Floating around the arena are knee-high tables, an assortment of chairs and a monumental amount of tapestries, ranging from the typical pillow sham to the ones draped across a college student’s window. To the side is a nook resembling a backyard concert. It’s an array of set dressing which magnetizes in service of the story. At the convergence of the UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, or TDPS, program’s reimagining of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” is an inventive and daring perspective on neo-colonialist impositions and the caustic relations within class divides.