MUTTER COURAGE UND IHRE KINDER

In the organizer's words:

Play by Bertolt Brecht

Description of the play

Cast

Music by Paul Dessau

A STRONG WOMAN The whole of Europe is devastated; the Thirty Years' War plunged the continent into chaos years ago. But one woman refuses to let it spoil her little bit of happiness: The sutler Anna Fierling, known as Mother Courage, is a businesswoman. She works internationally as a traveling saleswoman. Her business is war. Peaceful times mean ruin. She follows the troops across Europe in her wagon to sell her wares on the edge of the battlefield. All the while, she worries about her three children, whose fathers have long since disappeared and whom she wants to get through the war in one piece - if the next deal wasn't already beckoning. But every business decision, no matter how clever, that is supposed to ensure the survival of the small family turns out to be a great misfortune in retrospect. Mother Courage loses her virtue, her humanity and ultimately her children too.

THEATER AGAINST WAR Bertolt Brecht wrote his Mother Courage in exile in Sweden, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In it, he used the historical Thirty Years' War not only to find powerful images for the ugly side of the imminent devastation of Europe. He also demonstrated that wars are waged ostensibly "for the fear of God and for all that is good and beautiful", but that ultimately it is the profits in the coffers and not on the battlefield that count.

A PLAY FOR ITS TIME AND BEYOND The world premiere of Mother Courage took place at the Schauspielhaus Zurich shortly before the German invasion of Russia in April 1941. The German premiere was staged at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in January 1949. Brecht himself directed the play. One critic wrote: "When the chariot of courage rolled onto the stage, the play explained the immense devastation caused by Hitler's war. The ragged clothes on stage resembled the ragged clothes in the auditorium. Those who had come had come from ruins and went back to ruins."