The Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance presents a performance of Bertolt Brecht’s 1939 play Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Kevin Gardner, April 29 to May 2. Performances will be held in Silver Cultural Arts Center on Main Street.
Mother Courage is set in Europe during the 30 Years War (1618 to 1648), a struggle for power between Catholics and Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire. The story focuses on the life of a resourceful woman (played by Plymouth State Professor of Theatre Beth Cox), who follows the battling armies across Europe, making a living by peddling supplies ranging from boots to brandy to the soldiers. Throughout the course of the play, her three beloved children all meet violent deaths, which she could have prevented had she not been distracted by her business at crucial moments.
“This play explores the brutality, hypocrisy, and destruction of the human spirit by greed and capitalism,” states director Kevin Gardner. “Brecht was a communist and rarely missed a chance to criticize what he saw as the debilitating effects of the West’s primary economic system. In Mother Courage and Her Children, he indicts that system in scorching terms, showing, amongst other things, how it employs war as a permanent profit making enterprise, and how it corrupts the deepest and most sacred human bond, the one between mothers and their children.”
Mother Courage and Her Children will be presented April 29 through May 1 at 8 p.m.; May 1 at 2 p.m.; and May 2 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and youth and $5 for PSU students.
For information, contact the Box Office at (603) 535-ARTS.
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