Ensemble Theatre’s Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht, translated (adapted) by Tony Kushner with music composition by Duke Special, and directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz and Rebecca Moseley, is a powerful work that addresses multiple issues around war, business, and people. Although the play is set in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), these themes are universal, relevant to “any war, anywhere, at anytime” as the program states. The central character Anna Frierling, Mother Courage, is a middle-aged woman who pushes her wagon with her children, crossing the war-torn fields. They sell what they can sell—pots, pans, schnapps, soups, and sometimes, ammunition—to survive. The play is about survival, “war as a business,” sacrifice, bravery, courage, hypocrisy, and the devastation of human lives.
Though a shrewd and practical small businesswoman, Mother Courage cannot grasp realities and make “correct” decisions. Indeed Brecht, in his notes, wrote that the character of Mother Courage “never sees the light, never realizes what has happened” and is “incapable of learning” (Eric Bentley). What Brecht may have forgotten to mention here is that Mother Courage’s chance to “see the light,” “realize what has happened,” and “learn” is extremely limited due to her circumstances. She is indeed a war victim rather than a heartless profiteer. Ensemble Theatre’s Mother Courage emphasizes this point by humanizing and deepening the heart of Mother Courage as she loses her children one by one.
Laura Rauh portrays Mother Courage as a woman with vitality, determination, tenacity, charm, and feelings. When Mother Courage refuses to acknowledge the body of her second son, Swiss Cheese, after his execution by firing squad, Rauh demonstrates the character’s agony and pains through her entire body—Brecht’s Gestus.
The change Rauh illuminates between Act I and II (Act II is after she lost Swiss Cheese is remarkable. In Act II Rauh underscores the character’s determination not to feel compassion toward others. She refuses to provide fabric or any other commodities to save wounded villagers. Yet, she keeps her love as a mother; she declines to accept the Cook’s invitation to run his parents’ inn in Utrecht. Rauh shows the character’s genuine love for Kattrin. In the end, Rauh’s Mother Courage continues to pull her wagon though she may not go so far—defeated and heart-broken, without her children—especially Kattrin.
Mother Courage’s children from different fathers—Eilif (Santino Montanez), Swiss Cheese (Michael Montanus), and Kattrin (Kierstan Kathleen Conway) represent different kinds of war victims. Montanez portrays Eilif well as a young conscript who blindly follows orders to show (off) his bravery. He has no independent decision-making or assessment skills.
Montanus’s Swiss Cheese is a tall, sweet, and (too) honest son who has been taught, by Mother Courage, to be honest. He pays his life for that “flaw” when he confronts a moment of a big decision about the cashbox; the only thing he can do is how to be honest.
Kattrin, who cannot speak (due to the violent act inflicted upon her by a soldier a long time ago), epitomizes goodness, humanity, and compassion. Conway’s Katrin is compelling and convincing; she shows the character’s ability to grasp the situation (which the rest of her family lacks) and alert others. She becomes a victim of the war because of this very ability.
The Cook (Joseph Milan) represents materialistic profiteers in war, while Dan Zalevsky’s Chaplain represents hypocrisy in war—especially in “holy” war. Yet, they are victims of the war, stripped of their properties, means, and dignity. After all, real “business tycoons” who profit from war never appear in Brecht’s masterpiece.
Leah P. Smith, as Yvette, is a strong counterpart to Rauh’s Mother Courage, underscoring the character’s sleekness and survival skills. Yvette is a different kind of businesswoman in the show, Rauh and Smith serve both extortioners and victims in the lower tiers of business. Through their songs— “The Fraternization Song” of Yevette and Mother Courage’s “The Song of the Great Capitulation” — Smith and Rauh take the audience to the time when they were young, reminding them of the characters’ doomed paths from their girlhood to the present.
Brechtian theatre is supported by the ensemble. Kyle Huff, as a singer, plays the important role of a storyteller. Emily Terry, Ariana Starkman, Mattie Blick, Jabri Little, Keenan Caroslelli, and Liam Zalevsky play multiple Brechtian archetypical characters such as soldiers, a recruiting officer, a sergeant, and villagers.
Ian Hinz’s set and lighting are effective for Notre Dame College Performing Center’s black box theatre. One of the important characters is the wagon Hinz and his team constructed using things in stock, such as table tops and left-over lumber. This “recycled” set—the wagon—reflects ordinary people’s survival apparatus in wartime. It took them a lot of research and learning practical skills (from YouTube videos) to build this wagon, said Hinz. The wagon’s structure—a pipe and pipe fittings (for canvas tarps rolling up and down)— communicates the play’s dramatic circumstance: the wagon is a store and the characters’ living quarters.
Colorful hanging paper lanterns give an ironic message about war as a “festival” or “celebration” (to celebrate profits that some people make). The lanterns also underscore the function of the wagon as a make-shift canteen set up in a stretch of wasteland.
Blue and amber lights generate the atmosphere of the abandoned fields, darkness, melancholy, and devastation. Katie Wells (Costume Designer) kept the traditional/historical aura (from different centuries) in her contemporary costume designs—like wide belts, pouches, and Yvette’s long black dress with a bustle. The show uses recorded pieces of Duke Special’s “Mother Courage and Her Children.” It is also complemented by live musicians such as Liam Zalevsky (electric guitar) and Joseph Milan (accordion).
Brecht began writing Mother Courage during his exile in Sweden from the Third Reich in the summer and fall of 1939, just before Hitler invaded Poland (September-October 1939). When Germany invaded Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Brecht left Stockholm for Helsinki, Finland. He moved to the United States in May 1941. Mother Courage was thus copyrighted in 1940 and published in English in 1941 (the translation was by H. R. Hays).
The world premiere directed by Leopold Lindberg was in 1941 at the Zürich Schauspielehaus, The Berliner Ensemble production of Mother Courage was in 1949 at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin with Helene Weigel (Brecht’s wife) as the title role. Berlin was a war-torn place with burnt and uninhabitable buildings. The Berlin Blockade by the USSR (1948-49) resulted in the creation of the states of West Germany and East Germany. One can easily picture the resonance between the Berliner’s stage and the city filled with debris and rubbish. It is very difficult for today’s American performers to capture, feel, and express the wartime level of urgency and devastation; what is absent from Ensemble Theatre’s production is visceral feelings about hunger, misery, and desolation.
Tony Kushner’s adaptation (2006) contemporizes and magnifies Brecht’s anti-war and anti-war-business messages in the context of the first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2006, the US involvement in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was getting worse and deeper. The Ensemble Theatre production’s Mother Courage is relevant today in 2024 as we daily witness human casualties of war and human-made natural disasters.
Photo Credit: Lindsey Beckwith Photography.
Co-Directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz & Rebecca Moseley
Notre Dame College Performing Arts Center | Feb 9-25, 2024
Fridays, & Saturdays @7:30. Sundays @2:00.
Run Time: 2hrs & 30min. There will be one 10-minute intermission.
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