MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN. To 27 September.

Dundee.

MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN
by Bertolt Brecht translated by John Willett.

Dundee Rep Theatre To 27 September 2008.
Runs 2hr 50min One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 September.

Bleak revival of a play about the sacrifices of survival.
Surely in a couple of decades there must have been one decent summer. Not going on the icy waste suggested by the floor of Naomi Wilkinson’s sparse set for Dundee’s Brecht revival. Mother Courage trundles her covered-wagon of goods around war-torn early 17th-century Europe, the 30 Years War already begun before the play opens and carrying on after it’s blown her family apart, leaving Courage alone to pull her mobile-shop after her.

She’s the small-trader unable to see beyond today’s profit or survival; when peace “breaks out” it’s bad for trade. Yet she isn’t - in her grizzled way, looking always to make a profit - without feelings. She wants to protect her family, who are taken by the war with cruel irony; one son’s executed for doing in peace what he was rewarded for doing in war.

Amid the bargaining, the play’s act of humanity comes from the only character who cannot speak – here, Gemma McElhinney invests Kattrin with sound but not verbal articulation. Several times her strangled cries ring out, unheeded, till the only attention she can draw is enemy fire.

It’s a blank, grey and neutral world which Courage accepts, as she does her nickname; the Courage she’s known for was a desperate attempt not to lose a sale in battle-time. Ann Louise Ross’s Courage shares her pursuit of material survival with the bankrupt spirituality of the time-serving Chaplain, Callum Cuthbertson showing his weary acceptance of things, and the material man in Robert Paterson’s Cook.

The one time Courage acts to keep a family member, by refusing escape from war without her, her consideration is rebutted when her daughter rejects her mother’s doctrine of self-preservation. In Gerry Mulgrew’s production, Kattrin dies hanging in the air, having saved a village from surprise attack.

Strongly played through the ranks by Dundee’s ensemble, including Irene MacDougall forceful in a number of roles and Keith Fleming a strong Eilif and sinister spy contrasted by Kevin Lennon as his slow-witted half-brother Swiss Cheese, the production catches the bleakness and the way people can unquestioningly accept the life thrown at them by those in power.

Mother Courage: Ann Louise Ross.
Cook: Robert Paterson.
Chaplain: Callum Cuthbertson.
Swiss Cheese/Ensign: Kevin Lennon.
Sergeant/Peasant Woman/Old Woman/Peasant Wife: Irene MacDougall.
Yvette: Emily Winter.
Recruiter/Young Soldier/Young Peasant: Alan Burgon.
Kattrin: Gemma McElhinney.
General/Colonel/Peasant: Crawford Logan.
Eilif/Man with Patch/Clerk: Keith Fleming.
1st Soldier/Armourer: Adam McNamara.
2nd Soldier: Pierce Reid.
3rd Soldier: Rhys Wadley.

Director: Gerry Mulgrew.
Designer: Naomi Wilkinson.
Lighting: Tina McHugh.
Music: John Harris.
Movement/Assistant director: Malcolm Shields.

2008-10-14 15:11:10