Bertolt Brecht was a fascinating theorist and a great playwright, but the two didn’t always go hand in hand. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, written in 1944 while he was in exile from Germany, gives some epic illumination to socialist ideas about ownership and injustice. But more than that it’s a story about love winning out over endemic corruption, its cast of grasping characters finally no match for the pure heart of the servant girl Grusha.

The point is finally made, and made well, in this production by Nancy Meckler for Shared Experience, from an adept new translation by Alistair Beaton. Before its affecting conclusion, though, it’s a bit of a bumpy evening.

What’s needed to sell Brecht’s often humorous harshness is a rude vitality. But the cast isn’t always sure quite how to focus it. Matti Houghton, as Grusha, has the right spunky defiance as she takes the Governor’s abandoned baby, Michael, and goes on the run as civil war rages. But as she rubs up against grasping locals, noblewomen and soldiers, the tone can veer from underplaying to pantomime as the cast of 11 plays 60-odd roles.

You relax in your seat when Nicholas Asbury, as the lewd Sergeant, or Christian Patterson, as Grusha’s henpecked brother, grab the text and make it their own. There are some smart touches, such as the puppet Michael, puppeteer clearly visible. And when, in the second half, James Clyde stops narrating as the Singer and slips on his padding to have fun as the maverick judge Azdak the show becomes simpler, suppler, stronger.

Yet Meckler doesn’t look as if she’s in complete control of the material. The set, a large wooden structure upstage, is too busy. The transition is confusing from the prologue — which takes a crack or two at US interventionism — to the main story. The violence is fey. The actors need to relate to each other more, whether or not they’re highlighting the mechanics of the storytelling. And the 30-piece choir is a big distraction. As they join Clyde in songs flavoured with Gallic romanticism, backed by accordion and percussion, the swoony sound overwhelms the songs’ storytelling function.

Thankfully, the show settles down in a second half that’s more comfortable with itself. It’s funny, folksy, finally affecting. “Everything belongs by right to those that care for it,” sings the Singer. And you’re re-energised, even if just for a moment, into wanting to work for a world where that’s not just romanticism.

Box office: 0113 213 7700, to Oct 17 , then touring to Richmond, Nottingham and London (www.sharedexperience.org.uk)

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