Mother Courage and Her Children
Olivier
Speaking in Tongues
Duke of York’s
Mother Courage, Brecht’s saga of conflict and suffering, is set during the Thirty Years’ War. The title character is a maternal archetype who ekes out a perilous existence selling provisions to the warring factions and chasing off the recruiting sergeants who want to lure her children into the army. Deborah Warner’s wrong-century production announces its intentions early. At curtain-up we know nothing of Courage except that she has ‘lost a son’. And here she comes, aboard her famous cart, wearing sunglasses, bawling into a microphone while cavorting to the sound of an on-stage rock band like the saddest groin-thrusting granny at Glastonbury. No room here for psychological coherence, pathos or grandeur. Just lots of energetic silliness.
Fiona Shaw, who is capable of suggesting virtually any emotional effect on stage, keeps her performance at sitcom level and plays Courage as a charming Irish loony.
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