What do you think of when you think of Bertolt Brecht? Dreary, austere, Marxist, unemotional theater built around fable-like premises. Maybe you've heard some of the Threepenny Opera with the score by Kurt Weill, or seen Mother Courage and thought, huh, no, not for me. Even John Doyle, the director of A.C.T.'s latest production, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, whose earlier stripped-down production of Sweeney Todd was called "neo-Brechtian," always thought Brecht's work had a pretty dreary reputation.

But this latest production is anything but. What Doyle has accomplished with this world premiere — along with a versatile cast of some A.C.T. regulars, a vibrant new translation by Domenique Lozano, and a new score by composer Nathaniel Stookey — is great theater. Essentially, it's everything that the last couple A.C.T. productions weren't.