Mother Courage and Her Children
Jake Halverson
Last month Theater on the Park produced Bertolt Brech's anti-war play Mother Courage and Her Children. From her note to the audience in the play's program, director Maxine Klein states that "There is, perhaps, no play in all history that is more piercingly relevant to today's political situation than [Bertolt Brecht's] Mother Courage and Her Children."
The plot follows a weary band of wayward travelers cross Europe back and forth throughout the dragged out 30 years war in the 17th century. Starvation, looters, rape and death are only a few of the odds that they must face in order to survive this horrid war of lost reasons.
Brecht wrote MCAHC in order to counter the movement in Europe towards fascism and Nazism. It portrays what reality comes of warlords and bureaucrats fighting for lost causes and the death and annihilation that accompany the wars of ages.
Klein describes the relations between the U.S.'s current military operations to what happened over 400 years ago. "…we have at least 700 overseas bases in about 300 countries so it seems that not only are wars our mired present but our fated future as well."
The experience of working with Klein is unlike anything some actors have ever taken part in. "It was interesting", says Benjamin Bailey who played Eilif, one of Mother Courage's children. "It was frustrating at times", he continues, "I thought it was entertaining when she would yell at Jim (Jim Oestereich, Klein's husband and music arrangement specialist). Frustrating yet entertaining"
MCAHC went into production in November and the play immediately ran into problems. Actors were joining and leaving the cast for various personal reasons throughout the production and towards the end of January there was an unsettling feeling in the stomachs of some of the cast. "I was skeptical at first…", says Bailey. However, since the play opened on Wednesday 10th Bailey feels that the show has been running wonderfully.
Along with a constantly changing cast there were other problems that came up. Actor Farrah Buffington, who has done four shows now with Maxine Klein and plays the narrator in MCAHC, broke her right index finger in rehersals. "My third broken bone with Maxine…" Buffington says, "…A broken nose for Alice in Wonderland and a broken arm for The Women." The outcome however is always a grand performance.
In the end Mother Courage and Her Children grasped the audience in just the way Klein wanted. "People have been liking it", Klein said briefly after the matinee performance on February 13th. She was also glad to see that it was to be covered in the school newspaper.
If the reader wishes to read the play for themselves it is available in various bookstores and online.
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L. Lewis
posted 3/27/10 @ 11:48 PM CST
I was surprised to read the review for the play Mother Courage, because although there were some facts on what they play was about there was no actual review of the play. (Continued…)
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