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Mother
Courage and Her Children
by
Bertolt Brecht, in a version by Hanif Kureishi, from a
literal translation by Sue Davies; lyrics by Sue Davies
An
RSC production
First performance at the
Barbican Theatre, London on 2nd November 1984.
Director: Howard Davies
Assistant Director: Paul Marcus
Designer: John Napier
Costume Designer: Lindy Hemming
Lighting: David Hersey
Music: George Fenton
Musical Director: Richard Brown
Sound: Frank Bradley
Company Voice Work: Cicely Berry and David Carey
Running time: approx. 190 mins
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Cast
(in
alphabetical order) |
Bruce Alexander.....Swiss
Cheese
Miles Anderson.....Eilif
Geoffrey Beevers.....The Recruiting Officer
John Cater.....The Old Colonel
Paul Clayton.....The Angry Soldier; Drunken Soldier; Member
of the Execution Squad; the Unseen Parson
Judi Dench.....Mother Courage
Lesley Duff.....Yvette
Paul Greenwood.....The Recruiting Sergeant; Drunken
Soldier; Son of Peasant Man and Woman
Tina Jones.....Claimant; the Farmer's Wife
Martin Milman.....Catholic Sergeant; the Lieutenant
Stephen Moore.....The Chaplain
John Nolan.....The Farmer; the Messenger of Peace
Joseph O'Conor.....The Swedish Commander
Eileen Page.....Peasant Woman
Trevor Peacock.....The Cook
Jeffrey Robert.....The Wiser Soldier; Peasant Man
Graham Sinclair.....Soldier with Cannon; a Guard; Member
of the Execution Squad; Soldier
Paul Spence.....Claimant; Sober Soldier; the Young Man;
Soldier
Tilda Swinton.....Claimant; the Young Man's Mother;
Peasant Girl
Zoë Wanamaker.....Kattrin
Alexander Wilson.....The Armourer; the Clerk; Soldier
Christopher Wright.....Man with the Patch; Sober Soldier;
the Lieutenant's Sergeant
Soldiers, guards, peasants: Tina Jones; John Nolan; Jeffrey
Robert; Graham Sinclair; Paul Spence; Tilda Swinton; Christopher
Wright. |
Production |
| Set between 1624
and 1636, at the height of the Thirty Years' War, the play
follows the fortunes of Mother Courage and her children - her
sons, Eilif and Swiss Cheese, and her mute daughter, Kattrin -
as the family scrape a living selling rations to soldiers.
When Eilif and Swiss Cheese are drafted into the army, soon
meeting tragic ends, Mother Courage and Kattrin must struggle on
alone as the war rages on. Seized by soldiers intending to
slaughter the inhabitants of a nearby town, Kattrin beats a drum
to alert the townspeople to the danger. For this, she is
shot by the army; but she has saved the town. |
Pictures |
| Click
thumbnail to enlarge (image will open in a new window): |
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Thanks to Chris at the Dame
Judi Dench Chronology for this picture and for information
about this production. |
Notes |
| As Kattrin is mute,
Zoë faced the challenge of performing without using a single
word. She has since jokingly cited the role as one of her
favourites because there were no lines to learn! In a recent
interview, she said, 'My
favorite role was a non-speaking role: Kattrin in Mother
Courage, which I did with Judi Dench at the Royal Shakespeare.
The reason why it was my favorite was I didn't have any lines to
learn and I died at the end and the audience was very sad!
[Laughs] I say that flippantly, I don't really have
favorite roles. When I am doing them, they are my favorite
because you put your heart and soul into them.' |
Interviewed
about Mother Courage and Her Children, Judi Dench recalled
the backstage joke she and Zoe had shared when they appeared
together in a previous production, in 1982: 'At the National
Theatre, when Judi Dench and Zoë Wanamaker were preparing to
make their entrances in The Importance
of Being Earnest, they would sometimes indulge in what
became a long-standing joke, urging each other on with the
thought "it could be worse - we could be pulling that wagon
in Mother Courage around!"' Little did they know then
that a couple of years later they would be doing just that... |
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