This highly anticipated and respectfully Brechtian production falls short of the hype.

Belvoir Theatre, Sydney
June 10, 2015

A famous, iconic work by one of the 20th century’s most hallowed geniuses; an award-winning, dynamic and insightful director; a sharply cast ensemble led by one of the great doyennes of Australian Theatre: it’s little wonder that Belvoir’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, has been the theatre’s most hotly anticipated, and commercially successful venture of 2015. But despite the heaped-on expectation, this production often falls short of the hype.

Traversing a war-ravaged Europe, as political ideologies, religious allegiances, and national borders shift turbulently all around, Mother Courage, with her three children, scratch out a living through their canteen-cum-bric-a-brac shop on a cart. In another universe she would be a devoted mother, but in this world at war she has become a resourceful, opportunistic wheeler-dealer. Mother Courage is both repulsed by, and yet dependent on the destruction and bloodshed around her in order to keep her business flush and support her family. She rationalises her exploitative mindset with moral platitudes, and as her values are eroded by years in the abyss of war,...