Brecht’s message still relevant, if didactic

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/02/2010 (5945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This time there weren’t five curtain calls greeting the triumphant cast at the conclusion of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children at the Manitoba Theatre Centre.

Unlike the rapturous outpouring of approval that followed the antiwar epic’s legendary Canadian première at MTC in 1964, a revival’s opening night performance Thursday drew a respectful ovation from a small audience thinned to half its size at intermission.

The night was all about survival and war: the Thirty Years War on stage and an attrition war in the seats, as patrons struggled with a three-hour running time that sometimes felt like a forced march. Brecht can be didactic as he hectors on about how war is hell.

Those who stayed for the duration were treated to an impressive stage spectacle, a powerful title performance and Brecht’s compelling portrait of our capacity to bear suffering and endure.

The MTC/National Arts Centre co-production, which opened in Ottawa last month, debuted a new version by Peter Hinton, the NAC’s artistic director of English theatre. Without taking any major liberties, he restores the colloquial power of Brecht’s original script with modern language like "frickin" and "as if," while tightening the focus on the cosy connection between war and business.

The latter is the first word spoken by Anna Fierling, a.k.a. Mother Courage, and the last. In between she hauls her wooden wagon of wares and woes across the battlefields of Europe, vainly struggling to get her children through the war alive.

This mother of all mothers is a fast-talking, hard-nosed wheeler-dealer, a 17th-century blend of Groucho Marx and Winnipeg sales icon Nick Hill. At one point she is told to "cut with the floor show" but she never does.

Mother Courage follows the armies seeking the spoils of war but watches her family spoiled. No matter whether you’re tough and smart (son No. 1 Eliff), lucky and guileless (Swiss Cheese) or innocent and brave (Kattrin), no one is spared war’s wrath.

Tanja Jacobs doesn’t carry the same acting pedigree that Zoe Caldwell conveyed to Winnipeg in 1964, but she meets all the demands — apart from her plainly average singing — of a role that is often called the female King Lear. In the brutal scene where Mother Courage pretends not to recognize the dead body of her son, Jacobs’ face captures all at once a mother’s anguish, pragmatism and resignation.

Brecht provides lots to think about, and Hinton’s creative team supplies plenty to catch the eye. Set and costume designer Teresa Przbylski rolls out seven upright pianos on wheels for both musical accompaniment and to represent everything from a parsonage to a funeral cortege. Her military uniforms from different eras symbolize the timelessness of war. John Munro’s effective lighting adds emotional depth to many beautifully conceived scenes.

Paul Dessau’s original music is not particularly stirring, except for a dynamite rendition of Surabaya Johnny, a bitter ode to unfaithful love sung by Jani Lauzon, who plays the prostitute Yvette.

The most heartbreaking performance belongs to Waneta Storms as the mute Kattrin. Her silent preening as a woman desired for the first time after donning Yvette’s red hat and shoes sticks in the mind. As the army chaplain, Richard Donat delivers many of Brecht’s best lines about the inevitability of war, while Geordie Johnson appeals as the knock-about Cook.

Although his blunt lessons are not as shattering as they were when Mother Courage debuted in 1941, Brecht has proved prescient with a message that has, sadly, never become irrelevant.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca