Mother Courage Evaluation: Directors Intention

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Evaluation Of A Live Performance: Mother Courage Mother courage is a play that was written in 1939 by Bertolt Brecht which premiered in 1941. I went to watch it on October 2012 at the Berry theatre, Southampton played by the Blackeyed theatre company and directed by Tom Neill. The original play was set in the 17th century, but the production I saw was set in the future from 2020-2036 in Sweden. I first thing I noticed when I entered the theatre was that there were several costumes lying on stage, so this made me think that the actors would be changing costume on stage. This made it clear that Neill intended to stay true to Brecht’s style of theatre. I also noticed that on the projection screen that the date was 2020. I think Neill wanted to distance the audience from the characters by setting the production in the future. Overall I think that Neill wanted to use the costumes to highlight the multi-rolling of the charterers. For example Jacob Addley played both Swiss cheese and Cook and showed the different characters by the clothes he wore. For Swiss cheese he wore a waist coat and a small hat and for Cook he wore an apron and smoked a pipe. This meant that I had to pay attention to his costume to be clear what role he was playing and this made me watch more actively thus achieving the original Brechtian intention of having an alert audience, which is what I believe Neill was aiming for. I thought this was very effective, because it was what I would expect people to wear during wartime. Some of their costumes were also quiet ridiculous like the prostitute's costume which consisted of high heels and a baseball cap. I thought this was ridiculous, because it wasn’t what I would expect people to wear during wartime. I think Neill intentionally did this in order to remind us of the ridiculousness of war and the stupidity of anyone who believes they can benefit from it

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