‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ is an epigram most often attributed to French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, founder of the bulletin Les Guêpes, and it’s generally taken to mean ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’ It must be important to this production of Berthold Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children because director Jeff Szusterman uses it three times in his useful one page programme notes in support of this excellent work. I would certainly agree with him as regards the play and most certainly agree it befits the bleak, forsaken vision reflected in this towering and raw production. 

That’s not to say isn’t ever funny, ironic or profound, sometimes seemingly all at once, but the message is ultimately one of hopelessness, stupidity and greed. Clever Mr Brecht, I think, to use such tools to create what has become the most profound anti-war play of all time. Clever Mr Szusterman as well for wrenching it all off the page, understanding the intent and making it happen for us in such a confronting and powerful manner. 

Perhaps cleverest of all, though, is genius wordsmith and translator Tony Kushner. While Brecht is certainly alive and well in this work, it is Kushner’s cracking, snarling, in-your-face text that, while certainly honouring its great German master, enables director, cast, creatives and crew to smack us right in the sensitivities with this horrifying tale of man’s cold-blooded inhumanity and hunger.  

Arguably Brecht’s most complete work, Mother Courage and her Children sees the playwright pepper his austere and confronting social commentary with dark humour and a bitter irony as he inexorably drives his characters to their inevitable tragic demise. In short, Anna Fierling, or Mother Courage as she is better known, treks back and forth across war-torn Europe hocking off booze, food, garments of all sorts and anything that will make her a buck, selling to combatants on both sides of whatever divide happens to be current at the time. As she struggles to grow her fledgling operation, she loses her children to the monster that feeds her, one after another after another. 

Brecht was born to a middle class German family in 1898 and, happily, developed a love of the theatre while still a young child. He fled Nazi Germany before the onset of World War II and wrote Mother Courage and her Children (Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder), with more than a little assistance from Margarete Steffin, while in exile in 1939 and this was followed by a number of other works also aimed at opposing the rapid rise of national socialism and fascism in Europe.

The play was written in what others have described as ‘white heat’, so named because it took Brecht no time at all to write it and there is no known prior draft. John Willet and Ralph Manheim support this with: “Mother Courage, with its theme of the devastating effects of a European war and the blindness of anyone hoping to profit by it, is said to have been written in a month; judging by the almost complete absence of drafts or any other evidence of preliminary studies, it must have been an exceptionally direct piece of inspiration.” ⁽¹⁾

Who could argue with that?  

After the war, Brecht relocated to Soviet-occupied East Germany where he directed a much-revised version in 1949 to considerable critical acclaim. Known best for his political theatre and his collaboration with Kurt Weill, he died aged 58, in 1956.

The text is nominally set during The Thirty Years War, a religious clash that resulted in an enormous loss of life, and between the years 1624 and 1636 but it hardly matters because it is the didactic narrative that is critical to the success of the play so any old war would have served as well. Not that the plot is without its own antiquity as we find “Mother Courage, is drawn from the picaresque writings of the 17th-century German writer Grimmelshausen, whose central character in the early short novel, The Runagate Courage, also struggles and connives her way through the Thirty Years’ War in Germany and Poland.” ⁽²⁾

Apart from this minor contextual frippery, the story belongs entirely to Brecht and his collaborator.

Further in the same vein, “it is arguable that Mother Courage never learns anything, thus never experiences an epiphany or transformation.” In his editorial notes, Brecht adds that, “It is not incumbent on the playwright to give Mother Courage insight at the end” so he leaves this entirely in the hands of director and actors. Again, very clever Mr Brecht! 

This new production opened on Hallowe’en and this seemed more than a little noteworthy given the number of corpses – or soon to be corpses – that were strewn about the stage from time to time. 

Going up fashionably late, but not so much so as to cause too much anxiety, we are instantly greeted by fuzzed-out, discordant electronic music and a number of fairly predictable theatrical devices including slow motion movement, overt militarism, silhouettes and shadow plays all seemingly dumped onto a stage littered with the divine detritus of Rachel Walker’s deeply pragmatic set. 

It’s war time and neither Brecht nor director Jeff Szusterman lets us forget this fact for the following 2 hours 40 minutes (plus a 20 minute interval).

The Brechtian tradition of using signs and banners to communicate in written text is replaced in this case by classy electronic surtitles, many of which are then ironically redacted, and an eclectic military look that shrewdly locks us into both the Thirty Years War of the 17^th century and the many wars raging around the globe today. The state-of-the-art firepower helps, and collectively these metaphors create inescapable images that simply do not let up. 

We are greeted almost immediately by the arrival of Mother Courage’s travelling medicine show, a dray-like cart pulled by her bullock-like sons Eilif and Swiss Cheese. Atop the wagon is the minute mute Kattrin and an imposingly blonde Mother Courage who makes up the entourage. 

Even this early we are left in no doubt that director Szusterman is informing us that not only is war hell but that, in his opinion, it’s sexy as hell as well.  This Mother Courage, in the safe hands of Elizabeth Morris, has both the gift of the gab and a good handle on both the intelligence of the text and the need to set a ripping pace most of the time and she sets about her work with vigour.

Morris makes absolute sense of this stunning text and this is, in large part, the reason for the success of this production.  It helps, of course, that this sublimely modern translation has been crafted by that master of the modern allegory, Tony Kushner.

Brecht’s plays can be treacherously elusive but this ensemble, led by director Szusterman and Morris herself, has found a consistent mode of delivery that moves flawlessly between extreme naturalism and didactic declamation. There are moments of intense alienation, particularly in the songs, and the scene changes themselves reek of an entirely appropriate, student-like theatrical anarchy. When the actors in the smaller roles aren’t screaming ‘fuck you’ with their performances, Racheal Walker’s ever-interesting set is doing it for them.

The faux-military costumes (Lucy Holloway) range from martial chic to designer poverty and all are immensely effective in conveying a message that is beautifully integrated with the text and the performances. There’s a hint of exploitative sexualisation; plenty of flesh but nothing you wouldn’t want to expose your proverbial grandmother too. Kushner’s text, on the other hand, is peppered with a battery of F and C bombs and confronts us, in 2014, exactly as Brecht’s productions did in the late 1940s when the world was threatened with imminent nuclear annihilation and the cold war. The script, in my view, is not quite so ‘granny-friendly’ – but what would I know about your granny when push comes to shove. 

Director Szusterman moves bodies extremely well in this expansive space and this helps us to understand the vast travel of the play. In this world there is the juxtaposition of acted poverty, real poverty and designer poverty with the over-all effect being one of raw, naked loneliness and it would come as no surprise to hear a faceless voice intone “winter is coming” with all the contemporary brutality that this implies. 

Ragged, half-finished scene endings contribute to a sense of disconnectedness and the gross immorality of Courage’s plea, while all around her are dying, to “just let me do business” adds to the catastrophic lack of empathy that has grown up in this world. “Everyone deserves to have hope,” says the Chaplain, of Kattrin. “Not her,” is her mother’s cold reply. 

Throughout there are excellent, selfless performances and Elizabeth Morris leads from the front. She’s word and picture perfect and drives the play – all the way to her own downfall – with a relentless energy and intelligence that is admirable.

As the mute Kattrin, Elizabeth Turner is exquisite. She communicates superbly without words, is as good an active listener as you’ll ever meet and her temper tantrum is worth the ticket price alone. Kattrin is meant to tear our hearts out and Turner does this with ease. Brecht is often quoted as saying “silence sometimes makes the most noise” and this is exquisitely true in Turner’s eloquent performance. 

Craig Wilson’s Cook is excellent throughout but at his very best in the tension-riddled scenes with the ever-present Chaplain (Richie Grzyb) towards the end of the play. Grzyb has imbued the Chaplain with just enough sleaze to make him avoidable but an equal amount of charm that insists we never stop watching him. 

Courage’s sons Eilif (played by Ziad Al Tarek) and Swiss Cheese (Shane Jefferys) are as unalike as, well, chalk and cheese. Eilif is debatably courageous – his mother certainly thinks so – and intelligent, while Swiss Cheese is dense and unevolved. Both actors do fine work in bringing their characters to life and serving Brecht’s every need. 

Perhaps the ultimate survivor is Yvette, the prostitute who is in love with the Cook but who marries a general and is played by Gracie-Rose Kay. Exotic, erotic and classy, Kay provides a vivid and deliciously carnal texture to what might otherwise have been a much slighter role. 

Kelly Taylor plays The One with the Eye Patch and while she has little stage time she makes every post a whipping post.

Having said that, it’s the ensemble that makes the greatest impact. They create the waves the principles ride on and they constantly enrich the narrative that feeds the audience. 

Always though, there is Morris’s Mother Courage. Statuesque and imposing, Morris never misses a heartbeat throughout the evening and her capacity to move from the intensely personal to a chill detachment is tremendously impressive. 

There are great lines too – “I’m not broke,” says the cook, “I’m between money” – but then you’d expect nothing less from the man who wrote both halves of Angels in America, would you?

There are songs and there is an excellent band (Darcy Mataio, Christopher Ngai, Leki Mausia, Junior Aratangi and Adam Larsen). The songs are a bit of a mixed bag but there’s a show-stopper in ‘The Cook’s Song’ which is both profound and superbly performed. 

It’s a bit of a show of two halves and by the interval I am still a bit unsure of where the production is going or, indeed, has been, but the second half puts paid to any of my anxious doubts. It is simply stunning with all the threads coming together stylistically and emotionally as the final curtain call – ensemble only, no stars – takes place. The narrative is taut and satisfying and conceptually the memory is complete: not bad for a production of approaching three hours duration. Don’t be put off by the length though, there’s never a dull moment and it’ll get even better when it’s run in a bit. 

Mother Courage starts the second stanza with what seems like a quote cycle of half statements and snatches that ends with “common people have no aspirations.” It’s an emotional kaleidoscope too, and sets up what is to come. There are resonances of that other mother, The Mother of Modern Theatre, Joan Littlewood, and her anti-war musical Oh What a Lovely War but it in no way detracts from the authenticity of this work. If anything, it adds subtly to it. 

The anti-war message grows ever stronger as the work progresses until we reach the most ethereal and climactic moment in the entire piece, the moment when women from a village, having just witnessed the horrific death of Kattrin, ritually shroud her body in white and take her away. You could hear a pin drop. 

By now there is a sense of people, nameless, clad only in self-loathing, a hint of life feeding on itself as this fine cast shed their existentialism for pure heart. 

Not to be left out, the audience engage delectably as Yvette says her farewells to Peter the cook, the man she loved and followed for so long, with “now, piping Pieta, you can kiss my arse.” It is a magnificent moment accompanied by the exquisite laughter of relief and, looking to my left as I hoot, I observed my son, age twelve, giving the cook his own parting gift, silently, with the middle finger of each hand. 

But life goes on and we return to being the silent witness to Mother Courage, alone, stoically pulling her wagon to the next theatre of war.  Alone we are born, and die alone – and Brecht has it right yet again.

I’ll leave the last words to Tony Kushner who said the following about his Mother Courage in ‘The Guardian’ on 8 September 2009:

“Mother Courage and her Children, in my opinion the greatest of his many great works, is not a simple play. It places us in judgment of the actions of a woman who inhabits a universe defined by war, who often makes calamitous choices; but her choices are unbearably hard, and sometimes all but impossible. She refuses to understand the nature of her tragic circumstances; she is afraid that looking back will weaken her. She reaches correct conclusions and then immediately discards them. We watch her world grow lonelier and less forgiving with each bad choice she makes. We feel we are watching her dying, yet she refuses to die. Her indomitability, her hardiness, come to seem dehumanising, less mythic than monstrous. 

“And yet we are moved by this woman, as, inarguably, Brecht meant us to be. She’s egoistical because she has almost nothing. She has a vitality and a carnality. Even though her appetites seem obscene, set as they are against widespread carnage, the grinding down of Courage’s ambition and self-possession are devastating to watch. She’s smart and she thinks her cleverness has gained her the little something, the small sufficiency – her wagon – by means of which she attains a degree of agency and power in her malevolent world. The shattering of that illusion leads her to self-loathing, and from that to a bitter contempt for the powerless – and then on to a creeping slow stupidity.” 

I think that says it all. 

Very soon these fine young student actors will trade their theatrical garb for graduation regalia, as this cast comprises the graduating year students at UNITEC. We should thank them and their teachers, praise them all for a job well done, welcome them to their new careers and say, in time-honoured fashion, “Break a leg!” 
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References

⁽¹⁾ Introduction,” Bertolt Brecht: Collected Plays, vol. 5. (Vintage Books, 1972) p. xi

⁽²⁾ Oscar Eustis (Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Festival), Program Note for N.Y.S.F. production of Mother Courage and Her Children with Meryl Streep, August, 2006.

http://plays.about.com/od/plays/a/Mother-Courage-And-Her-Children.htm (retrieved 02/11/2014)

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/sep/08/tony-kushner-mother-courage (retrieved 02/11/2014)

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