Mother Courage and her Children

As I walked to the theatre today a young man walked up to me and said “Hi man, have you got a minute”.

Being in no rush to the theatre I was happy to stop and chat and responded “Sure”.

“Cool” he replied “By the way nice hair”.

“Thank you”.

He continued “Do you sniff?”

“No, no I do not”

“Ah ok” and he turned and walked away. As soon as the cheerful chappie was out of sight I whipped out my phone and googled ‘Do you sniff’… Ah so that is to do with snorting cocaine up my nose. Well you learn something new every day.

Being offered hard drugs was a pretty perfect introduction to the gritty reality of this production. Mother Courage was a play about the brutality of war and, whilst substance abuse didn’t come into it, pretty much every other crime and vice of war; theft, murder, assault, alcoholism, etc... came up throughout. A tragic and grim production there were few laughs, the songs were sung harshly, there were no angelic voices here, the tone was very much one of destruction and loss.

Josie Lawrence was an impassioned and driven Mother Courage and her encounters with the folk she meets on her decades of travel, together with her relationships with her family and friends, are not without interest. But the play is just a bit too long, a bit too rambling, audience members struggle to keep focus on the lengthy piece, my mind certainly wandered at times. Editing was needed. A few of the songs were very good, there was a very sweet one by the minister with a ukulele. But most of the tunes were hard to follow, and just did not draw you into the music and lyrics (although it was nice to be given biscuits by the cast during one of the songs).

So, grim and brutal this play is quite the ordeal. It is an ambitious production with excellent elements, but sadly they fail to materialise into a satisfactory whole.