America's Use Of Violence In Mother Courage And Her Children

Mother Courage and Her Children is a play about war, but it is also a play about survival, greed, capitalism, and family. As Mother Courage scuffles to protect her children from war, she incessantly puts her entire family at risk for the sake of her business. She rants against the cruelty of war and the deaths that it causes, but enthusiastically provides for both sides of the army – existing off the violence and imploring the war will not end. This play calls into question the ways each of us benefit from war and capitalism and how our self-interest sparks the fire for the unrelenting use of violence worldwide.

One of the many contests of bringing this play to a contemporaneous American audience is formulation this play to have a personal

We are so embedded in our current society, in our current capitalism, in our current love of selves, that we often left our soldiers die much like Mother Courage let her children die. During the World Wars, millions died, and very few questioned the insanity out of fear for themselves and their families, out of willful ignorance, out of desire to stay out of the fray, or because they were swayed by political rhetoric to support the violence. There was almost an air of “ignorance is bliss,” and inaction took its due course. Mother Courage too is motivated by self-interest when she bargains down the price of her son’s life or refuses to give shirts to aggrieved soldiers. She fears financial ruin will destroy her family, yet it is she who ends up destroying it. She sings “The Song of the Great Capitulation” in Scene Four, telling a young soldier to give up his fight and accept injustice as fate. Americans often express a similar acceptance of fate, and when opportunities come to fight against injustice, many will have enough shrewdness to change their Facebook status, but will not walk out of class or skip work to march for their cause. The proposed living room scene in my staging is meant to accentuate this loss of spirit. At times, the actors may get caught up in the action of the play or something they are reading and exclaim that it is not right, or that someone ought to do

The cart will slowly transform throughout the scenes to look scruffier, as in many previous productions. The television remote in the living room will regulate the rotation of the stage. In my staging, this curtain will be what distinguishes the living from the dead. When Courage’s children die, they will be taken behind the curtain. This will be visible through shadows of their silhouettes being carried across the stage and put down. The bodies will be put down on top of piles of shoes and clothing. The shoes and clothing will represent those who have been killed in wars across centuries. After Kattrin dies and when Mother Courage arrives, she will pull back the curtain and go to her daughter. After the lullaby, she will dig through the shoes and clothes and put the nice ones in her cart before drawing the curtain and “[getting] back in