The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Plough Arts Centre,

Torrington

Thursday to Saturday, October 1-3

The Plough Community Theatre certainly does not shirk a challenge.

Last summer the company deservedly won plaudits for their imaginative adaptation of Dylan Thomas's intricate but essentially warm-hearted Under Milk Wood at RHS Rosemoor.

Now they turn their attention to an equally demanding but much darker piece in the form of one of the 20th century's undoubted classic texts, Bertold Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

In the heat of a civil war, a servant girl sacrifices everything to protect an abandoned child.

When some form of civil order is restored, she is made to confront the boy's natural mother in a legal contest over who deserves to keep the child.

The judge must use the wisdom of Solomon to decide the case and calls on an ancient tradition – the chalk circle – to resolve the dispute.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle can be seen as a morality masterpiece, an engaging piece of storytelling shot through with unexpected flashes of humour,

The piece powerfully demonstrates Brecht's pioneering theatrical techniques.

The later work of dramatists such as Dario Fo, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Robert Bolt and Caryl Churchill can all be traced back to the influence of Brecht and his concerns that the theatre should have a social and political use.

Box office 01805 624624.