Word: brechtian
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...EVER said staging a play by Bertolt Brecht would be anything but demanding. Perhaps it's the lure of this challenge that's led to so many Brechtian productions at Harvard lately. Some of these have been successful like Peter Sellars' elegant and effective "das Kleine Mahagonny." Director Ted Osius leads his players in a valiant effort to stage Mother Courage. Brecht's anti-war masterpiece Clearly, he works with a devoted cast. However, staging a play by Brecht is a bit like walking a tightrope--it requires that a cast be teetering at all times, almost off-balance...
Brecht's theory, which he called "Epic" theater, involves incorporating the audience into the production by leaving them somewhat detached and thus more capable of learning a lesson from the play. The Brechtian audience ideally should leave the theater saying not, "Wow, that was a moving play," but rather. "I have never thought about them that was before" Brecht armed to achieve this effect by alternating his audience through stage techniques like pantomime, signboards which reveal the plot prematurely and thus kill the suspense and often through peculiar Kurt Wcill songs steamy or jazzy cabaret numbers about the most serious...
WHILE IT IS CLEAR that director Osius knows his Bercht, it is also clear that he underestimates the intricacy of this particular Brechtian work. The HRDC's Mother Courage succeeds on the first levels it incorporates all of the Brechtian techniques of alienation and it leaves the audience feeling detached and thoughtful. However it does not succeed on that more tenuous level of which Brecht would probably disapprove--it is not haunting...
...designer Gino Lee have come up with one elegant set. A white screen framed by bronze--like the black canvas of an as-yet unpainted portrait of a war hero-provides the backdrop for the simple set, a battlefield-like void. This screen provides an ingenious mechanism for utilizing Brechtian techniques. Plot summaries are flashed on the screen before each scene slides projected onto the screen change the setting in the blink of an eye. The screen also enables Osius a clever conceit: he presents his play in the context of a Holly wood-style epic...
...while avoiding the usual pitfalls, this production falls instead into the Brechtian chasm. Were it any other play by Bertolt Brecht, this director and this cast could have produced something special. One can't fault them for choosing a hard nut to crack, and indeed, the play might shine with some more polishing. In any case, such a talented director and superb cast deserve a look...