Mother Courage and Her Children

This was the most anticipated production in QTC’s 2013 season, giving the original epic play an Australian focus, with an all-indigenous cast.

A strong cast of twelve led by Ursula Yovich (as Anna Courage – a bravura performance), and David Page (the chaplain with a delightfully cavalier attitude to the scriptures), Michael Tuahine (the cook - described by Anna as ‘a farmer who planted his seeds all along  the warfront’), Roxanne McDonald (Yvette, a prostitute), George Bostock (especially memorable as Bossman and the Admiral) and David Dow (the ’heavy’ part in several scenes) carried the action. Praise to Wesley Enoch for his shrewd choice of cast and astute direction; and to John Rodgers for his compositions and musical direction.

At the core of the action is Mother Courage’s cart, cleverly created from an early model Ford ute, and a wide-open set with  lots of rusty corrugated iron (Designer, Christina Smith). In keeping with Brecht’s structure there are brief announcements encapsulating each scene, and twelve songs interpolated into the action to ‘alienate’ us so we remain detached from the characters but alert to the action.

As you’d expect, an epic such as this requires talented input from a technical army who deserve special commendation here.

What let the play down, however, was definition of the sides and their aims in this ‘war’. It was never made clear what the indigenous people were fighting for. The issue became even more clouded in Act 2 with references to the 17^thyear of the Thirty Years War. At that stage the adaptation seemed to have lost its way, avoiding the best opportunity to punctuate the disaster their imaginary dystopia could become. An admirable opportunity lost.

Jay McKee