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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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