Brecht’s anti-war play can be daunting – but this staging is a gripping triumph
The Globe’s brilliant new production of Mother Courage and Her Children feels topical in today’s conflict-ravaged world
As the former Telegraph theatre critic Charles Spencer once so memorably and wearily wrote when confronted with another production of Mother Courage and Her Children, “Here she comes again, dragging her bloody cart behind her.” Brecht’s hefty thump of an anti-war drama, written presciently in 1939, can certainly be a daunting prospect, yet the Globe’s first ever foray into the German playwright’s work has two glorious weapons in its (pacifist) arsenal. The first is Anna Jordan’s astute and nimble adaptation and the second is artistic director Michelle Terry triumphing in the towering central role.
“War has been raging for decades” is the first line of the play and, as we note the musicians in the gallery dressed in combat fatigues, we hear of a grindingly abstract conflict being fought by armies named after assorted colours. Brecht’s controlled tirade in 12 scenes is against the brutality and futility of war, with everyone so jaded and cynical that they can no longer remember why, or even who, they are fighting. Without hammering home their point, Jordan and director Elle While reflect uncompromising home truths back at the conflict-ravaged world of 2026.
Mother Courage is, above all, a pragmatist and a survivor. Along with her three children, she treks across lands in a rackety travelling wagon-cum-mobile shop, making her living selling supplies to all the warring factions; companionship and loyalty are transient commodities here and Terry greets each sale with a grimly cheerful “kerching!” To her horror, her eldest son Eilif (Vinnie Heaven) runs away to join the army and we track the subsequent ups and inevitable downs of his military career.
As that other former Globe artistic director Mark Rylance did before her, Terry knows exactly how to play this wraparound space so as to draw in all spectators and her command is a delight to watch. In a show-stopping number at the end of the first half, Courage sings her life story and the look of theatrical faux-surprise on Terry’s face when the band starts up is cherishable. “I sell to whoever’s buying” might be Courage’s motto, yet she forges alliances en route with Nicolas Tennant’s tired Chef and Ferdy Roberts’s Minister, a man whose faith is anything but unwavering. Her rough protectiveness towards her mute daughter Kattrin (Rachelle Diedericks) is a constant, even though absolutely no one is going to emerge victorious here.
In rep until June 27 (shakespearesglobe.com)
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
