Mother Courage and Her Children

Mother Courage and Her Children was adapted anew especially for the production.

In 2010 Samovarteateret celebrated its 20 year anniversary and Stellaris Dance Theatre its 30 year anniversary. Samovarteateret and Stellaris Dance Theatre both make productions reflecting current times. The companies both are concerned with and find inspiration in political currents, locally, nationally and internationally.

Bertolt Brecht wrote the script for Mother Courage and Her Children in 1939, drawing parallels to the turn of events in Europe just before the outbreak of World War II. The action in Mother Courage and Her Children takes place during the European Thirty Years’ War of 1618–1648. The war sprang out from a religious conflict and ended as one of the bloodiest and longest wars in European history. The expansive destruction led to enormous human migration, illness and epidemics. Europe became borderless. Civilians from the warring countries fled across borders, hoping for safety in other countries. Mother Courage follows the war around Europe with her three children and her food tent, selling goods to the warring parties to make money. During the play she loses all her children to the war. Brecht underlines that war has nothing to do with religion, but that it is a capitalist system made to serve the few people on top – not the warlords, but the business men.

Samovarteateret and Stellaris Dance Theatre finds that the issues of Mother Courage are, unfortunately, as much of current interest now as when it was written. The companies imagine that Brecht could have written the same play if he had lived today, but with the war in the Middle East, for instance, as a backdrop for the actions of war. With this background Samovarteateret and Stellaris Dance Theatre consider Mother Courage and Her Children of burning interest, and a very important play, connected to the political, warring unease existing in our international contemporary time.

Mother Courage and Her Children was performed inside the former culture centre Malmklang in Kirkenes. Malmklang was totally damaged in a fire in February 2005. After the fire all interior material was removed, so that the house is now a shell of concrete. Hence the venue made a special frame around the production, reflecting the atmosphere and moods of a war-ridden area.

Mother Courage and Her Children opened in Kirkenes and was performed during the festival Barents Spektakel 2010, plus touring and visiting festivals in Norway and Russia.

SOURCES:

The National Library of Norway, performance program digitised by The National Library of Norway, transferred to Sceneweb 21.10.2015

Samovarteateret, 11.1.11, http://samovar.no/