Mother Courage and Her Children
translated by Tony Kushner Bertold Brecht
Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage, one of the most astonishing stage creations of the twentieth century, drags her cart across the battlefields, profiteering from a war that destroys her children, one by one. Fiona Shaw returns to the National to take the title role in Tony Kushner’s inventive and vigorous translation of Bertolt Brecht’s uncompromising masterpiece. New live music by Duke Special and his band infuses this wildfire production from the team whose many international credits include Happy Days and Medea.
3.3 out of 5 based on 7 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Location |
London |
| Venue |
Olivier Theatre |
| Director |
Deborah Warner |
| Cast |
William J Cassidy, Johannes Flaschberger, Jonathan Gunthorpe, Stephen Kennedy, Youssef Kerkour, Martin Marquez, Louis McKenzie, Kyle McPhail, Siobhán McSweeney, Harry Melling, Eleanor Montgomery, Stephen O'Toole, Charlotte Randle, Guy Rhys, Clifford Samuel, Gary Sefton, Fiona Shaw, Roger Sloman, Colin Stinton, Sophie Stone, Morgan Watkins, Sargon Yelda, Gore Vidal Anthony Mark Barrow |
| From |
September 2009 |
| Until |
December 2009 |
| Box Office |
020 7452 3000 |
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Mother Courage, one of the most astonishing stage creations of the twentieth century, drags her cart across the battlefields, profiteering from a war that destroys her children, one by one. Fiona Shaw returns to the National to take the title role in Tony Kushner’s inventive and vigorous translation of Bertolt Brecht’s uncompromising masterpiece. New live music by Duke Special and his band infuses this wildfire production from the team whose many international credits include Happy Days and Medea.
Reviews
The Daily Express
Paul Callan
"There is no half-way house about director Deborah Warner’s mail-fisted, gritty production of [Brecht’s] greatest play. Like war itself, you are either for it or against it... But allowing for the deluge of imperfections that caused delays, it is an exciting, moving and formidable theatrical experience."
28/09/2009
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
"The good thing about Deborah Warner's revival is that it frees Brecht's play from pious reverence and releases its dynamic energy. Even if Warner's production occasionally throws the baby out with the bathwater, it presents the play as a piece of living theatre."
27/09/2009
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The Independent
Paul Taylor
"“Often I sit back and watch you, amazed," the smitten Chaplain tells Mother Courage in Tony Kushner's bouncy new translation of Brecht's greatest play. He could be speaking for the entire audience in the Olivier, where Fiona Shaw is delivering a phenomenal performance as this war-profiteering "hyena of the battlefield"... This is, throughout, a creatively controversial production."
29/09/2009
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The Daily Mail
Patrick Marmion
"[Deborah Warner’s] three-hour-ten-minute show, now firing on all cylinders, is an impressive piece of work, with Shaw leading from the front in fine form... Warner's production swaggers on the Olivier stage with a military confidence that belies its complexity."
06/10/2009
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The Evening Standard
Fiona Mountford
"...doom-mongers will be disappointed, as this is a competent, confident, if ultimately underwhelming reading of one of the trickiest masterpieces of 20th-century theatre... The play makes for epic theatre in every sense of the term. Amidst its bagginess are moments of undisputed brilliance but Warner fails to differentiate her scenes sufficiently. The result is a cumulative, enervating blurring of focus that even memorable work from Charlotte Randle as the raddled prostitute Yvette and Sophie Stone as Courage’s dumb daughter Kattrin fails to prevent."
28/09/2009
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Time Out
Jane Edwardes
"The level of noise as the audience walks into the auditorium is an early indication, in case anyone had any doubts, that this is not going to be a comfortable evening. White lights and white screens dazzle the eyes as cast and stage management mingle on stage. Gore Vidal's gravelly voice introduces each scene. Deborah Warner's production rethinks the play for our times but is crucially lacking in focus. It's a sure sign that all is not right when the actors shout to make themselves heard."
01/10/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
"It is one of the most embarrassing spectacles I have ever seen in a theatre, a desperate ploy to make Brecht, the discredited old Marxist, seem relevant and modern... I have no doubt that some will claim to find all this compelling and describe the production as a telling commentary on Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the show struck me as merely idiotic, full of sound and gimmickry, and signifying almost nothing."
28/09/2009
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