Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah and One World Actors Centre present “Mother Courage” by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht. The play is produced by Hamad al-Jenaie and Laila al-Qadhi, adapted and Directed by Alison Shan Price.
‘Mother Courage and her Children’ was written in 1939 by Brecht in a direct attempt to counter the rise of Fascism in Germany at that time and is considered to be one of the world’s greatest anti-war plays.
The plot is set in the time of the 20 years old war between 1624 and 1636. Anna Fierling, who is called Mother Courage, and her children travel with the Sweden army during the war and they run a cafeteria. Anna got the nickname Mother Courage because she does not give up on the journey of following the army with her cafeteria and her children during the war. She has a daughter and two sons and all of them have different fathers and different characters. Her voiceless daughter Kattrin Haupt, her sons Schweizerkas “Swiss Cheese” and Eilif accompany their mother and the army. Over the course of the play, she loses all three of her children, Schweizerkas, Eilif, and Kattrin, to the very war from which she tried to profit.
