MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN

Tue 15 - Sat 19 May 2007 at 7.30pm
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Sheep Street, Northampton

Photo gallery

What is a performance of Mother Courage and Her Children primarily meant to show?

Brecht wrote of the theme ‘That in wartime the big profits are not made by little people. That war, which is a continuation of business by other means, makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors. That no sacrifice is too great for the struggle against war.’

The series of scenes are more than just business transactions though as Mother Courage takes her cart, and children, through the landscape of war.

Through her we see what men may do to men.

We see a rhythm of defiance, outrage and resistance in the microcosm of her actions that echo one of Brecht’: fundamental concepts that society makes men what they are.

Finding the balance in a large cast production to bring out Brecht's dialectic and estrangement in performance, the ‘verfremdungseffekte’, has been both challenging and exciting.

Especially when actors are able to question their previously held ideas about how ‘theatre’ works.

This production is directed by Rob Kendall. He has also directed: Twelfth Night (2005), Bent (2004), Hell Cab (2004), Murder in the Cathedral (2002), A View From The Bridge (2002), Entertaining Mr Sloane (2000), East (1998), A Streetcar Named Desire (1997) and Antony and Cleopatra (1996)