“Mother Courage and Her Children” opens Berea College Theatre Laboratory season with performances Oct. 13-21
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10/5/06
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| The Berea College Theatre Laboratory opens its 2006-2007 season with Bertolt Brecht’s classic Mother Courage and Her Children. Opening Friday, Oct. 13 in the McGaw Theatre, the play, written while Brecht was in exile at the dawn of World War II, tells the story of Mother Courage who leads her wagon and three children through the 30 Years War, making a living from the conflict.Berea’s production includes an ensemble cast of twenty students, and features the scenic and lighting designs of Shan Ayers and the costume designs of Mary Ann Shupe. As part of the performance an improvisation troupe of five students will be providing contemporary commentary between selected scenes. The troupe will be trained by recent Second City alumni Clay Goodpasture and Mackenzie Condon. Goodpasture, who graduated from Berea in 2003, was featured in Theatre Laboratory productions of Metamorphoses and Spinning Into Butter and directed The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
Performances of Mother Courage and Her Children are 8 p.m. October 13, 14 and 18-21 in the McGaw Theatre of the Jelkyl Drama Center. Brecht states in his Couragemodall when the play was premiered in Germany in 1949 that Mother Courage was meant to show, “That in wartime the big profits are not made by little people. That war, which is a continuation of business by other means, makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors. That no sacrifice is too great for the struggles against war.” Therefore, in essence the play is a comment on capitalism as much as it is about war. “For me, personally,” states director Deborah Martin, “The play wrestles with the question about the value of human life, and if that sacrifice it too great.” Mother Courage was performed this summer at the Public Theatre under the direction of George C. Wolfe and starred Meryl Streep in the title role. The New York Magazine commented on the performance, “There’s something exciting about a work of political theater that leaves you not just with intellectual stimulation but a mildly transcendent experience. Mother Courage, a serious indictment of war and social injustice,… gets enough things right to be genuinely provocative.” Tickets for “Mother Courage” range in price from $5 to $10 and can be purchased by calling the Box Office at (859) 985 3300. Berea College students are admitted free of charge. Note: This play contains adult language and situations and is not recommended for children. |
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| CONTACT: Deborah Martin, director Berea CollegeTheatre Laboratory (859)985-3419 |
