To the Editor:
Not only was the review of "Mother Courage" Nov. 8 a completely petty injustice to the production, it also evinced a clear lack of theatrical understanding. The review calls into question the fundamental role of a critic.
Rather than critiquing the performance, the reviewer simply disagreed with the underlying themes of the play. The reviewer seems to believe that all theatre should be happy and cheery and fun. Everyone should walk out afterward with wide grins adorning their faces as they contemplate their perfect and peaceful existences.
Theater taken too far in this direction might become antiseptic or worse yet, impotent, and finally no different from a television sitcom or a pop song love lyric. While I agree that there is a place and a need for "uplifting" and "inspiring" theater, it should not preclude other theatrical forms. The theater is a powerful medium precisely because it mirrors and represents the gamut of human emotion, from joy to depression.
By stressing the incongruity of the costumes, uniforms and weapons, the reviewer seems to have missed one of the central tenants of this production; simply, that no one war is any different from another, and that war, in any historical manifestation, is not acceptable. In this performance, war takes on an archetypal status, and any one war can stand as substitute for another, and all wars are universally condemned.
Throughout the play, viewers were confronted by scenes of a desolate, old world longing for oblivion and Armageddon, a world wanting to curl up and die. In stark contrast to this world was the figure of Mother Courage, played with a sensitive mixture of brutality and compassion by Mara Sabinson. The central character, she provides the play with a sense of urgency and life. Walking and riding amongst "a heap of broken images," her blind perseverance evokes both pathos and admiration. She is able to precariously balance a warm-nurturing heart against a hardened reptilian skin. But as her losses mount, she hardens herself further, and we can finally only see her as a prophet and a fool.
The production of "Mother Courage," from the acting to the set design to the direction, was an admirable and faithful portrayal of Brecht's vision of the futility and the wastes of war. While it required an active and aggressive intellect, for anyone who put in the energy the reward was an engaging and powerfully moving piece of theater.
