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| Sunday, 19 March 2006 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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"Mother Courage and Her Children" : Healing wounded minds
by Ranga Chandrarathne One of the monumental works of world-renowned German playwright Bertolt Brecht's "Mother courage and Her children" which Brecht wrote, to counter the rise of Fascism and Nazism at the time, will go on board from March 31 to April 02 at the Lionel Wendt theatre. The play, which was adapted to Sinhala by veteran playwright Henry Jayasena, will be staged with a large number of cast from the Tsunami affected, and with veteran screen and stage actress Anoja Weerasinghe, playing the lead role as Anna Frieling. The play is directed by Sue Weston and produced by Anoja Weerasinghe's Abhina Academy of Performing Arts. It is intended to heal the traumatized minds of the Tsunami affected, and is sponsored by HSBC. The drama is woven around the story of a clever canteen woman Anna Frieling, nicknamed " Mother Courage", who intends to make a living from the war. In the course of her journey through shattered landscapes of war, she loses her three children, Swiss Cheese, Eilif and Kattrin. The play is set against the backdrop of thirty years of war from 1618-1648, and not in the modern time, but is universal in character, which could easily fit into any calamity and is therefore, the most suited play for the Tsunami affected. "The biggest business in the wars could not be made from the poor people," says Anna Frieling. The drama was first produced in Switzerland in 1939, and is considered as one of the best works of the playwright and one of the powerful anti-war dramas in history. The monumental work encompasses thirty years of war, which started from the outbreak of the Second World War and Brecht completed it in exile. The play is based on two works by Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen: his 1669 novel, Simplicissimus, and his 1670 play, Courage: An Adventuress. Most critics believe that it is a masterpiece of Brecht's concept of Epic Theatre. Concept In this concept, the spectators are expected to view the play with complete detachment, a technique called " alienation", reminding the viewers that they are watching a play and should not emotionally attach themselves with the characters in the play. The devices such as short, self-contained scenes that prevent cathartic climax, songs and card slogans that interrupt and explain forthcoming action, and detached acting are used to ward off audience identification. The playwright wanted the audience to view the play critically, objectively and to assess the war on an empirical level. However, Brecht thought that as the play was based on 'Thirty years of war', which occurred three centuries earlier, the audience would watch it objectively. Brecht re-wrote the play for 1949 East German production, with the intention of minimizing an emotional response from the audience, but since its debut decades ago, " Mother courage and Her children " still remains as the most potent and powerful anti-war drama. The play The play opens in Dalarna, a province of Sweden, in 1624 during the Thirty Year's War. The Swedish army is recruiting for a campaign in Poland. Mother Courage runs a canteen wagon that follows the army and sells the soldiers drink and items of clothing. A Recruiting Officer and a Sergeant are trying to find troops for the Swedish Army. They see Eilif, one of Mother Courage's sons, and try to recruit him. When Mother Courage prevents them, the Sergeant feigns interest in one of her belts. While she negotiates with him, the Recruiting Officer pulls Eilif away from her and signs him up for the army. Mother Courage follows the army into Poland, accompanied by her younger son Swiss Cheese and her mute daughter Kattrin. She enters the Commander's tent and tries to sell the cook a capon for dinner. The cook haggles with her over the price. Suddenly she overhears her son's voice talking with the Commander. Eilif is being honoured for having killed some peasants and stolen their cattle. She manages to sell her bird to the cook for a high sum, and then sees her son again. Eilif embraces her, but she boxes him and tells him that the next time he encounters peasants he should surrender when they surround him (instead of fighting and killing them all). Three years later Mother Courage is still with the regiment. The Catholic Army attacks and wins, forcing her to switch flags. Swiss Cheese, who has become the payroll master for the army, foolishly hides the moneybox in her wagon. The Chaplain of the Protestant regiment joins Mother Courage and pretends to be a Catholic. After several days he and Mother Courage leave to conduct business. Swiss Cheese decides that he should hide the moneybox somewhere else, but when he does so Catholic spies watch him carefully. They arrest him and bring him back to Mother Courage, who has returned to her wagon and discovered that Swiss Cheese has left. She realizes that his life is in danger and pretends not to know him. They take Swiss Cheese away to interrogate him. Yvette Pottier, a prostitute in the army, arrives with a Colonel in tow. Mother Courage gets Yvette to buy her wagon for a large sum of money. She then sends Yvette to the Catholics in the hope that she can bribe one of the soldiers to release Swiss Cheese. However, she bargains too long and Yvette returns to the wagon and tells her that Swiss Cheese is dead with eleven bullet holes in him. The soldiers bring his body to Mother Courage, who must again deny knowing the man. She then goes to complain to a sergeant about the way the troops ruined her goods and charged her a fine for nothing. While in the tent waiting to complain, a soldier arrives, who has been cheated out of his reward. He tells her that his sergeant kept the reward money and spent it on whores and alcohol. Mother Courage explains to him that unless his anger is "long", he might as well capitulate and realize that his spirit has already been broken, and that there is nothing he can do about it. She succeeds in convincing him to give up his anger, but realizes that her own complaint is just as worthless. She leaves without complaining. Mother Courage is in a small town where the war is being fought. Several peasants need bandages, but she refuses to give them any. The Chaplain, who is still with her, forcefully enters her wagon and rips up some good shirts for bandages. The Commander of the regiment eventually gets killed and the soldiers spend the day drinking instead of attending his funeral. The Chaplain tells Mother Courage that the war will not end and that she should add more supplies while they are still cheap. As a result, she sends Kattrin into the town to buy supplies. Kattrin returns with lots of goods, but with a nasty scar on her face where she was hurt on the way home. Mother Courage patches up her daughter, but tells the Chaplain that it is doubtful Kattrin will ever be able to marry now. Financially ruined Unfortunately for Mother Courage, peace does in fact arrive, meaning that she is financially ruined. She is, however, happy that she will get to see Eilif again. The cook from earlier in the play arrives and he gets into an argument with the Chaplain, where both men vie for Mother Courage's favour. The Cook suggests that Mother Courage should sell her goods before the prices drop too much, due to the peace. Yvette Pottier shows up again and she and Mother Courage go to sell the goods. Eilif is brought on stage in chains. He tells the Chaplain and the cook that he killed some peasants again in order to take their cattle, but since it was during peace time, he got arrested. He does not get to see his mother, and the Chaplain accompanies him to be executed. Mother Courage arrives back soon thereafter, with the news that the war has actually started again, but that they did not know it. The cook does not tell her that Eilif has been executed. The cook remains with the wagon for two years until he receives a letter that his mother has died and left him a small inn to take care of. He tries to get Mother Courage to accompany him, but since he refuses to take Kattrin along, she turns him down. While he is eating in a parsonage, she dumps his stuff on the ground and drives off with Kattrin. Two years later Mother Courage is near the town of Halle, in which she is buying goods for her wagon. Kattrin remains with the wagon near a farmhouse. Some soldiers arrive from the Catholic army and seize the peasants in the farmhouse along with Kattrin. They force one of the peasants to lead them silently into town. The remaining peasants go up on the roof and realize that the army is going to slaughter the townspeople. They kneel to pray, and Kattrin stays behind them and listens. During the prayer she suddenly goes and gets a drum out of the wagon and climbs up on the roof. She starts beating the drum and pulls the ladder up with her to prevent them from stopping her. Her noise brings back the soldiers. They first try to bribe her down by offering to protect her mother. Next, they threaten to shoot her. She refuses to stop beating the drum even when they get a gun and aim at her. Kattrin beats louder and harder until they shoot her down. However, the noise that she made successfully wakes up the town and allows it to defend its walls and to use its cannon. The next day Mother Courage pays the peasants to bury her daughter. She then says that she must get back into business. Hearing a regiment pass by, she harnesses herself to the front of the wagon and pulls the wagon off stage. The play is produced by Anoja Weerasingha's Abhina Academy of Performing Arts under the HSBC sponsored Tsunami rehabilitation programme "Trauma to Triumph". HSBC also sponsored Abhina to conduct a series of psychosocial drama workshops, which were held in diverse parts of the country, for those traumatized by disaster and conflict. From the large pool of talented participants, Anoja Weerasinghe had chosen 21 of the most promising actors and brought them to Colombo for further training. The HSBC sponsored the Sinhala adaptation of the play "Mother Courage and Her children" which will prominently display the talented actors drawn from the Tsunami affected. Mother Courage - Anoja Weerasinghe, Kattrin-Shamila Tilani, Eilif-Kamal Amila, Swiss Cheese-Kosala Sandaruwan, Cook-Nimal Jayasinghe, Chaplain- Sunimal Perera, Yvette Pottier - P.H.Prashanthi, Recruiting Officer /Soldier with female court / Young man - Sanjeewan Gunetileke, General/man with patch /Lieutenant - Anura Nanayakkara, Sergeant/Soldier - Poopalasingham Pradeepan, Sergeant / Soldier - V Murugadas, Soldier with canon/ Young Soldier /Singing Soldier - Geeth Ranatunga, Army clerk/Soldier - Dinesh Chathuranga , Young Peasant/ Story teller / soldier - L.A.Venuka, Peasant woman/ Singer - Madumali Videshika , Peasant woman / Soldier - K.V.M Harshika, Peasant man - Sarath de Silva and Yvette's Colonel - Jerome Anthony are playing the main roles in the play. Apart from being a healing tool and potent anti-war drama, the Sinhala adaptation of " Mother Courage and Her Children" will give the general public an opportunity to watch a masterpiece in Sri Lankan theatre. |
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"Mother Courage and Her Children" adapted to Sinhala by veteran
playwright Henry Jayasena, will be staged with a large number of cast from
the Tsunami affected, and with veteran screen and stage actress Anoja
Weerasinghe, playing the lead role as Anna Frieling, from March 31 to
April 02 at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. 
