Tower Players to bring Thirty Years’ War to Markel stage: Bertolt Brecht’s 20th-century German drama “Mother Courage and Her Children” opens Feb. 24

Home Culture Tower Players to bring Thirty Years’ War to Markel stage: Bertolt Brecht’s 20th-century German drama “Mother Courage and Her Children” opens Feb. 24
Tower Players to bring Thirty Years’ War to Markel stage: Bertolt Brecht’s 20th-century German drama “Mother Courage and Her Children” opens Feb. 24
Professor of Theatre James Brandon directs the Tower Players in a rehearsal for “Mother Courage and Her Children,” which opens Feb. 24. Jordyn Pair | Collegian
Professor of Theatre James Brandon directs the Tower Players in a rehearsal for “Mother Courage and Her Children,” which opens Feb. 24. Jordyn Pair | Collegian

Rehearsals are underway for “Mother Courage and Her Children,” by Bertolt Brecht. The Tower Players will perform the 20th-century German drama in Markel Auditorium from Feb. 24 to Feb. 28.

Senior theatre and English double major Catherine Coffey will play the lead role of Mother Courage for her senior theatre project. Her fellow cast members include sophomore Nikolai Dignoti as the Cook, junior Dani Morey as Yvette, senior Jason Klicker as the Chaplain, Austin Benson as Swiss Cheese, and sophomore Mark Naida as Eilif.

“I have been wanting to direct this play for a very long time — it’s one of my favorite plays by one of my favorite authors,” Professor of Theatre James Brandon said. “Brecht’s plays are typical in that they’re emotional, but they’re also rational. They are meant to get the audience to think and maybe even take action. I like to classify them as a sort of glorified advertisement for ideas.”

The play is set during the Thirty Years’ War and details the life of Mother Courage, a woman and camp follower who slowly loses her family to the war. The primary prop for the production, the moving canteen cart from which she sells goods to hapless soldiers, will rarely if at all leave the stage during the entire two to three hour production.

“‘Mother Courage’ is pretty widely considered to be the anti-war play,” Coffey said. “It’s basically about how in a war we all thrive off the war, but it depletes a lot of who we are as moral human beings. I’ve wanted to perform it since high school, when I first became fascinated by Brecht’s style.”

Coffey spends about 30 hours every week on the play. Half of that time is spent at nightly rehearsals. She dedicates the additional 15 hours to journaling about the rehearsal process and reading material on the Thirty Years’ War, old acting books, other Brecht plays, and anything about Helene Weigel, Brecht’s wife and what Coffey calls “definitive Mother Courage.”

“My goal is to best understand the circumstances of Courage’s day-to-day life and create a character in which everyone can see themselves,” Coffey said. “My biggest goal is not to blame Mother Courage or make her a villain, because she’s not. She’s a human being. A lot of people dislike her off the bat and it’s easy to do. She’s gruff and even greedy at times. But she’s a very caring mother and she’s smart. It’s the war that’s bad.”

In addition to her role as Mother Courage, Coffey will be writing 6-10 songs for the play. She said the original production featured music reminiscent of Weimar Berlin culture and jazz music. Coffey plans to incorporate Eastern European elements into the music, which she said should sound “very much” like her personal style.

“I think all of Brecht’s plays include music. It’s a big part of his style,” Coffey said. “He uses it to pull the audience out of the play and make sure that they remember they’re in a theater watching actors play parts. He didn’t want them to get too emotionally invested or have thoughtless, gut reaction. The goal was not to forget the outside world but to think about what the play is saying.”

Coffey is one of 23 students in the play ­— a notably large cast, according to Brandon.

Senior Faith Liu will be playing a mute named Kattrin, one of Mother Courage’s three children.

“She’s a difficult character to play in that she’s mute and self-conscious so she has to keep her mouth closed,” Liu said. “I spend a lot of time looking at lines I have to react to and then learning how to communicate who she is without talking. It’s a common misconception that acting is just about memorizing lines.”

Liu and Coffey both emphasized the play’s masterful portrayal of the human condition and the effects of war on the individual.

“It’s easy to go to class and discuss the human condition through literature, but it’s another thing entirely to be in a room with someone and experience it with them,” Coffey said. “We can talk for ages about a hypothetical situation in which a mother loses her child or in which a family loses its heart from war. But when you step in the theater, you are sharing what it means to be a human being with other human beings in real time. It’s absolutely invaluable.”