Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (47 page)

That is why we are demanding naturalness today – because we want to change the nature of our human relations.

No doubt the sight of the cyclorama behind a completely empty stage (in the prologue and in the seventh and last scenes) creates the illusion of a flat landscape with the sky above it. There is no objection to this, because there must be some stirring of poetry in the soul of the spectator if such an illusion is to come about. Thanks to the ease with which it is created, the actors are able to suggest by their manner of playing, at the beginning that a wide horizon lies open to the business
enterprise of the little family of provisioners, then at the end that the exhausted seeker after fortune is faced by boundless devastation. And we can always hope that this substantial impression of the play will combine with a formal one: that when the spectator sees the empty stage, soon to be inhabited, he will be able to share in the initial void from which everything arises. On this tabula rasa, he knows, the actors have been working for weeks, testing first one detail, then another, coming to know the incidents of the chronicle by portraying them, and portraying them by judging them. And now the play is starting and Mother Courage’s cart comes rolling on to the stage.

If in big matters such a thing as a beautiful approximation is possible, in matters of detail it is not. A realistic portrayal requires carefully worked-out detail in costumes and props, for here the imagination of the audience can add nothing. All implements connected with working and eating must have been most lovingly made. And the costumes, of course, cannot be as for a folklore festival; they must show signs of individuality and social class. They have been worn for a longer or shorter time, are made of cheaper or more expensive material, are well or not so well taken care of, etc.

The costumes for this production of
Mother Courage
were by [Kurt] Palm.

What is a performance of
Mother Courage and Her Children
primarily meant to show?

That in wartime the big profits are not made by little people. That war, which is a continuation of business by other means, makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors. That no sacrifice is too great for the struggle against war.

By way of a prologue, Mother Courage and her little family were shown on their way to the war zone. Mother Courage sang her business song from scene 1 (so that in scene 1 her answer ‘In business’ is followed immediately by the sergeant’s question: ‘Halt! Who are you lot with?’). After the overture, to spare the performer the exertion of singing against the rumbling of the revolve, the first stanza was played on a record, the house being darkened. Then the prologue began.

The linen half-curtain, on which in the following the titles of the scenes are projected, opens and Mother Courage’s cart is rolled forward against the movement of the revolve.

The cart is a cross between a military vehicle and a general store. A sign affixed to the side of it says: ‘Second Finnish Regiment’ and another ‘Mother Courage, Groceries’. On the canvas Swedish pork sausages are displayed next to a flag with a price tag indicating ‘Four Florins’. The cart will undergo several changes in the course of the chronicle. There will be sometimes more, sometimes less merchandise hanging on it, the canvas will be dirtier or cleaner, the letters on the signs will be faded and then again freshly painted, depending on the state of business. Now, at the start, it is clean and richly covered with wares.

The cart is pulled by the two sons. They sing the second stanza of Mother Courage’s Business Song: ‘Captains, how can you make them face it – / March off to death without a brew?’ On the box sit dumb Kattrin, playing the Jew’s harp, and Mother Courage. Courage is sitting in lazy comfort, swaying with the cart and yawning. Everything, including her one backward glance, indicates that the cart has come a long way.

We had conceived of the song as a dramatic entrance, lusty and cocky – we had the last scene of the play in mind. But Weigel saw it as a realistic business song and suggested that it be used to picture the long journey to the war. Such are the ideas of great actors.

Once this was settled, it seemed to us that by showing the business woman’s long journey to the war zone we would be showing clearly enough that she was an active and voluntary participant in the war. But certain reviews and many discussions with persons who had seen the play showed that a good many people regarded Mother Courage merely as a representative of the ‘little people’ who ‘become involved in the war in spite of themselves’, who are ‘helpless victims of the war’, and so on. A deeply engrained habit leads the theatregoer to pick out the more emotional utterances of the characters and overlook everything else. Like descriptions of landscapes in novels, references to business are received with boredom. The ‘business atmosphere’ is simply the air one breathes and as such requires no special mention. And so, regardless of all our efforts to represent the war as an aggregate of business deals, the discussions showed time and time again that people regarded it as a timeless abstraction.

The two stanzas of the opening song plus the pause between them during which the cart rolls silently along, take up a certain amount of time, too much time it seemed to us at first in rehearsal. But when we cut the second stanza, the prologue seemed longer, and when we prolonged the pause between the stanzas, it seemed shorter.

[…]

1

The business woman Anna Fierling, known as Mother Courage, encounters the Swedish army

Recruiters are going about the country looking for cannon fodder. Mother Courage introduces her mixed family, acquired in various theatres of war, to a sergeant. The canteen woman defends her sons against the recruiters with a knife. She sees that her sons are listening to the recruiters and predicts that the sergeant will meet an early death. To make her children afraid of the war, she has them draw black crosses as well. Thanks to a small business deal, she nevertheless loses her brave son. And the sergeant leaves her with a prophecy:

‘Like the war to nourish you?

Have to feed it something too.’

Overall arrangement

Recruiters are going about the country looking for cannon fodder
. On the empty stage the sergeant and the recruiter are standing right front on the lookout, complaining in muffled voices of the difficulty of finding cannon fodder for their general. The city of which the sergeant speaks is assumed to be in the orchestra. Mother Courage’s cart appears and the recruiters’ mouths water at the sight of the young men. The sergeant cries ‘Halt!’ and the cart stops.

Mother Courage introduces her mixed family, acquired in various theatres of war, to a sergeant
. The professionals of commerce and of war meet, the war can start. At the sight of the military, the Fierlings may hesitate for a moment as though afraid: the soldiers of their own side are also enemies; the army gives, but it also takes. Mother
Courage’s ‘Morning, sergeant’ is spoken in the same curt, military monotone as his ‘Morning, all.’ Climbing down from her cart, she makes it clear that she regards showing her papers as a formality, superfluous among professionals (’All right, we’ll run through the whole routine’). She introduces her little family, acquired in various theatres of war, in a jocular tone: she puts on a bit of a ‘Mother Courage’ act.

The cart and the children are on the left, the recruiters on the right. Mother Courage crosses over with her tin box full of papers. She has been summoned, but she is also sallying forth to scout and do business. She describes her children from the other side of the stage, as though better able to take them in from a distance. The recruiter makes forays behind her back, stalking the sons, tempting them. The pivotal point is in the lines: ‘I bet you could use a good pistol, or a belt buckle?’ and ‘I could use something else.’

The canteen woman defends her sons against the recruiters with a knife
. The sergeant leaves her standing there and goes over to the sons, followed by the recruiter. He thumps their chests, feels their calves. He goes back and stands before Mother Courage: ‘Why aren’t they in the army?’ The recruiter has stayed with the sons: ‘Let’s see if you’re a chicken.’ Mother Courage runs over, thrusts herself between the recruiter and her son: ‘He’s a chicken.’ The recruiter goes over to the sergeant (on the right) and complains: ‘He was crudely offensive’; Mother Courage snatches her Eilif away. The sergeant tries to reason, but Mother Courage pulls a knife and stands there in a rage, guarding her sons.

Mother Courage sees that her sons are listening to the recruiter and predicts that the sergeant will meet an early death
. Again she goes over to the sergeant (’Give me your helmet’). Her children follow her and look on, gaping. The recruiter makes a flank movement, comes up to Eilif from behind and speaks to him.

When after some hesitation the sergeant has drawn his black cross, the children, satisfied, go back to the cart, but the recruiter follows them. And when Mother Courage turns (’I’ve got to take advantage’), she sees the recruiter between her sons; he has his arms around their shoulders.

To
make her children afraid of the war, Mother Courage has them draw black crosses as well
. The rebellion in her own ranks is in full swing. She runs angrily behind her cart to paint black crosses for her children. When she returns to the cart’s shaft with the helmet, the recruiter, grinning, leaves the children to her and goes back (right) to the sergeant. When the sombre ceremony is over, Mother Courage
goes to the sergeant, returns his helmet, and with fluttering skirts climbs up on the seat of the cart. The sons have harnessed themselves, the cart starts moving. Mother Courage has mastered the situation.

Because of a small business deal, she nevertheless loses her brave son
. But the sergeant has only been half defeated; on the recruiter’s advice, he offers to make a purchase. Electrified, Mother Courage climbs down from the cart and the sergeant draws her off left behind the cart. While the deal is in progress, the recruiter takes the harness off Eilif and leads him away. Kattrin sees this, climbs down from the cart and tries in vain to call her mother’s attention to Eilif’s disappearance. But Mother Courage is deep in her bargaining. Only after she has snapped her moneybag shut does she notice his absence. For a moment she has to sit down on the cart shaft, still holding her buckles. Then she angrily flings them into the cart, and the family, with one less member, moves gloomily off.

And the sergeant leaves her with a prophecy
. Laughing, he predicts that if she wants to live off the war, she will also have to give the war its due.

[…]

The empty stage of the prologue was transformed into a specific locality by means of a few clumps of wintry grass marking the edge of a highway. Here the military men stand waiting, freezing in their armour.

The great disorder of war begins with order, disorganisation with organisation. The troublemakers have troubles of their own. We hear complaints to the effect that it takes intelligence to get a war started. The military are businessmen. The sergeant has a little book that he consults, the recruiter has a map to help him fight with geography. The fusion of war and business cannot be established too soon.

There will be some difficulty in persuading the actors playing the sergeant and the recruiter to stay together and in one place until Mother Courage’s cart appears. In our theatre, groups always show a strong tendency to break up, partly because each actor believes he can heighten audience interest by moving about and changing his position, and partly because he wants to be alone, so as to divert the attention of the audience from the group to himself. But there is no reason not to
leave the military men together; on the contrary, both the image and the argument would be impaired by a change of position.

Positions should be retained as long as there is no compelling reason for changing them – and a desire for variety is not a compelling reason. If one gives in to a desire for variety, the consequence is a devaluation of all movement on the stage; the spectator ceases to look for a specific meaning behind each movement, he stops taking movement seriously. But, especially at the crucial points in the action, the full impact of a change of position must not be weakened. Legitimate variety is obtained by ascertaining the crucial points and planning the arrangement around them. For example, the recruiters have been listening to Mother Courage; she has succeeded in diverting and entertaining them with her talk and so putting them in a good humour; so far there has been only one ominous circumstance: the sergeant has asked for her papers; but he has not examined them – his only purpose was to prolong their stay. She takes the next step (physically too: she goes up to the sergeant, takes hold of his belt buckle, and says: ‘I bet you could use a belt-buckle?’), she tries to sell them something, and that is when the recruiters spring into action. The sergeant says ominously: ‘I could use something else’ and along with the recruiter goes over to the sons at the cart’s shaft. The recruiters look the sons over as they would horses. The crucial point is accented when the sergeant goes back to Mother Courage, comes to a standstill before her, and asks: ‘Why are they dodging their military service?’ (The effect of such movements should not be weakened by having the actors speak during them.) If changes of position are needed to make certain developments clear to the audience, the movement must be utilised to express something significant for the action and for this particular moment; if nothing of the sort can be found, it is advisable to review the whole arrangement up to this point; it will probably be seen to be at fault, because the sole purpose of an arrangement is to express the action, and the action (it is to be hoped) involves a logical development of incidents, which the arrangement need only present.