For Mother Courage, hope is not redemptive but persistently cruel
For nearly thirty years, the open-air theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe has almost exclusively staged Shakespeare’s works. But this summer, Mother Courage and Her Children is the second non-Shakespeare play to be staged outdoors in their modern history – after last year’s The Crucible – marking a deliberate shift in the theatre’s programming and artistic direction, writes Frankie Jenner.
As war rages, Mother Courage drags her rickety cart through a wasteland stripped bare by greed and conflict. “War is a huge, spluttering, money-making machine” – and Mother Courage is a whore for war – selling chickens, condoms, guns, ammunition, and even sex. Her relentless entrepreneurialism means she’ll sell whatever’s left of humanity to keep herself and her three children alive.
When Brecht wrote Mother Courage in 1939, he was developing the concept of Episches Theatre (Epic Theatre) – the belief that if you can deliver information clearly and allow audiences to experience and consider it, then theatre can produce the conditions for social change. It was in this context that Brecht developed his theory of Verfremdungseffekt (unfortunately, spelt incorrectly in the programme) – which has various interpretations, including to make something strange, to alienate, or to distance. Brecht wanted to make audiences uncomfortable, restless – so that audiences would leave the theatre and start asking questions about why things are the way they are, and begin challenging these accepted norms and structures.
Whilst Anna Jordan’s translation resists anchoring itself to any specific conflict, it nonetheless alludes to many of the wars and genocides that we bear witness to today – whether through references to military drones, a makeshift refugee camp, or characters haggling in ‘sheks’ (as opposed to ‘thalers’). In this explicitly anti-war play, which addresses the devastating impact of war on human beings, I found it a bizarre choice that the programme features a photograph from a photographer who is a Pride Fellow of ‘Zioness’ – a movement that describes itself as “unapologetically Zionist”. Perhaps a little more thought should have been put into the selection of images in the programme.
This aside, Nadine Higgin delivered the opening night’s standout performance as Yvette – with such tenacious energy, she commanded the stage with her knee-high red boots and sang with a fullness that the Globe’s open stage is built for. Likewise, Michelle Terry, Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, was fierce and brazen as Mother Courage – able to carry the full weight and tragedy of the central character’s role whilst also managing to undercut this with humour and wit.
Despite its contradictions, the production found its truest register in its depiction of hope – that, for Mother Courage, is not redemptive but persistently cruel. It keeps her going until it ultimately destroys her. To stop pulling her wagon would mean she must confront what it cost her to keep going – a truth she refuses to bear.
Mother Courage and Her Children is at Shakespeare’s Globe until 27 June.
Booking and full details: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/mother-courage-and-her-children/
