Posted: 8/5/06 at 10:19pm
An excerpt:
"WHEN Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater, decided to produce Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” in Central Park, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. “Most theater people I know will agree that ‘Mother Courage’ is a great play, but nobody actually wants to do it,” he said. “Nobody’s seen a production they like.”
As it turned out, George C. Wolfe, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline wanted to, and so this 1939 classic will begin previews at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park on Tuesday.
“I’m hoping this production will change the way the American theater looks at Brecht,” said Mr. Eustis, who stressed that the crucial advantage this time — the show’s stars and director notwithstanding — is a new translation of the play by Tony Kushner. “This is the first time a truly great American playwright, with exactly the right voice and political sensibility, has turned his hand to Brecht,” Mr. Eustis said. “I think the result will open a lot of eyes.”
Brecht’s influence is so ubiquitous it is taken for granted. Though his early work received dismal reviews in the United States, Marc Blitzstein’s 1954 adaptation of “The Threepenny Opera” was a huge hit. The play had a seven-year run on Broadway while the other major Brecht plays, produced outside the commercial mainstream, made deep impressions on the burgeoning avant-garde and in universities. Brecht became a cornerstone of leftist cultural politics in America during the Vietnam era. The critic Robert Brustein wrote that he “helped to turn our Pepsodent smile into a Weimar sneer.”
But young theater artists often have no clue how much their savvy and self-conscious techniques owe to Brecht. And, “The Threepenny Opera” aside, many Americans have never really warmed to his plays, despite their influence. The underlying Marxism and a certain aura of stuffy academicism turned off many viewers. And the politically shrewd, double-edged acting style the plays called for — perfected and then enshrined by the Berliner Ensemble — was never widely understood in American rehearsal halls. (The Berliner Ensemble is putting on a new production of “Threepenny” this month in its hometown as part of a large festival to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brecht’s death.)
“Mother Courage” presents its own problems. An epic drama set in the 17th century during the politically complex Thirty Years’ War, the play follows the fortunes of a tough, resourceful woman who survives by running a commissary business that profits from all sides. As the war claims her three children in turn, the play poignantly demonstrates that those who live off war eventually pay a terrible price. On the surface the drama is openly didactic, but underneath are some of the most richly conceived characters and compassionately drawn relationships in all of Brecht’s work."
For the rest:
Still Fearsome, Mother Courage Gets a Makeover
