All the Best Things about Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of)by Randi / December 17, 2021It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Flying Over Sunset, playing at my fave Vivian Beaumont Theatre in NYC’s Lincoln Center until January 16.
Last week I had the privilege of seeing the completely original new Broadway musical Flying Over Sunset, which just this week announced a premature closing. The early end to its run is not surprising, but it’s still a bummer. Even though this show could have used a few more swipes of the red pen, I am very grateful that it made it to Broadway and that I got to see it, since it’s rare that a musical with a brand new score that isn’t based on any known entity makes it this far, and that is worth celebrating.
Of course, we could be celebrating more and for longer if it had an out-of-town tryout to work out its shortcomings (like answering the main question of ‘why though’), but what’s an out-of-town tryout to the big names involved in this! A new score from Tommy Kitt and Michael Korie?? Motherforking James Lapine writing the book and directing?! Who was going to clear their throat at that meeting to say ‘um…it needs a little more work’? NO ONE. When this show was first announced, I was all in like Luke on his first date with Lorelai. (His not realizing at that point how much of a shit-show her parents and Christopher (*ptoi ptoi*) would cause in his life = my not realizing before seeing FOS that other people’s trips are hard for an audience to enjoy.) The names of the lead characters the story would focus on — Cary Grant, Aldous Huxley, and Clare Boothe Luce — were almost as amazing as the names of the actors portraying them — Tony Yazbeck, Harry Hadden-Paton (HHP), and Carmen Cusack. I MEAN! Modern Broadway royalty. For my recent trip home for the holidays, I think I secured my tickets to this (LincTix for the everlasting win!) before my flight. FFS, Tony Yazbeck as Cary Grant is some galaxy brain thinking casting right there. WHEW I WAS IN. Oh…what’s that??? The story is a fictitious account of those three real people taking LSD together…??? It sounds amazing.
And while it could have been, and while parts are great, the dramatic question is lacking. Stuff is happening, but without a reason or intention driving it forward. Another problem is, as fun and amazing and original and crazy as that concept sounds, it’s hard to make someone else’s acid trip compelling. If any medium can do it, it’s the Broadway musical, and parts of this show soared. The opening number, which has the cast shuffling gracefully around the gigantic stage keeping the changing rhythm with their coordinated footfalls, created a classic sense of theatrical magic that filled my heart with joy and my eyes with tears. It was gorgeous, this most compelling and most promising opening I’ve seen in years.
From there, Act I stayed somewhat steadily at an enjoyable level as it focused on introducing the three characters one at a time, letting us learn who they are, what their story is, and why they’re taking LSD. It has the strongest musical numbers, with some beauties from Kitt and Korie. And all three of the lead performances are glorious to watch, as these three actors always are. HHP’s pharmacy-set scene of his first trip is a load of fun, as he imagines Botticelli masterpieces coming to life in a goofy-yet-semi-highbrow form of a trip. HHP is wonderful back on the Beaumont stage (petition for him to star in everything Lincoln Center does) as Aldous Huxley, nailing the desired portrayal of him as brainy but buoyant. Then, the show’s highlight apart from the opening number is Yazbeck’s intro scene, when his Cary Grant asks his wife’s psychiatrist to give him what he’s been giving her. (It’s not a promise to comply with HIPAA, that’s for sure.) His first use of LSD in the doctor’s office takes him back to his childhood in a tap-dancing extravaganza with Atticus Ware as his younger self (when his name was still Archibald Leach (fun fact: I just watched ‘His Girl Friday’ and Cary Grant’s character makes a reference to a guy named Archie Leach)) as he once performed for money on the English streets. Anytime Tony taps it’s a treat, and this is his moment to shine in this show. It should have happened more often, because HOT DAMN. The emotionally charged tapping and whirling of these two dancers is spellbinding, a true telling of story through movement. Yazbeck should be acknowledged as the Cary Grant of our time, not just on stage, because, again, HOT DAMN, just as Robbie Fairchild should be internationally recognized as the Gene Kelly of our time.
In Carmen’s solo scene, she gets a beautiful song to sing, as well as a LSD-induced orgasm to perform onstage, so that’s something you don’t see every day. Cusack is such a gorgeous MT performer that you sometimes look past the fact that Clare Boothe Luce kind of seems like a shitty republican who would still be a republican today. Her drug-induced visions of her deceased mother and daughter are heartbreaking emotional moments that cut clear across the theatre.
But, other parts, too many parts, do not soar, despite the characters’ getting so high they were like ‘oh she’s meeting Jesus? cool’ ‘oh I’m a giant rocket ship penis? cool’. The second act lagged, when somehow the magic that should have occurred when you brought the three of them together to experience their new fave drug was replaced by nonsense, head-scratching, and a disappointment at what could have been. In the early scenes, it was suggested that they were each facing an important moment in their lives, feeling that no one was listening, unsure of their footing at the next stage, dealing with frustration or stagnancy and needing an outlet. Despite their guide friend (Robert Sella) pointing out point blank “oh you all seem to be at a crossroads” in a kind of cringe-y blatant way, the story itself never capitalized on that tie binding them, when doing so could have been the grounding element the story needed. It needed something to defend the why of this story, to elevate it into a sum greater than the separate generally pleasant parts.
Without that dramatic element, the second act feels untethered, as song by song gets further away from a central feeling of importance en route to stoned nonsense. The song that has Tony’s Cary imagining dancing with his recent costar Sophia Loren is insanely unnecessary and something I can’t believe wasn’t cut. Same for Cary’s song about imagining himself as a giant penis rocketship in his delirious state. My reaction was very Mark-Evan-Jackson-as-Shaun-the-demon saying “You guys are seeing this, right?! I’m not crazy!” Nothing really comes of the three characters coming together for their trip (except the men almost drowning, which almost gave me a panic attack because oh my god you NEED SOMEONE SOBER WITH YOU IF YOU GO SWIMMING WHILE SUPER FUCKING HIGH JFC), which adds more questions of why to the story. I hate to say it but James Lapine, legend that he is, needed a collaborator to ensure that this story was in top shape before it got to Broadway. I’m still so glad it was made, but it could have and should have been stronger.
INFORMATION
Flying Over Sunset closes on January 16.
To attend a Broadway show, you must show proof of full vaccination. On the way inside, there are staff members checking your vaccination documentation. (I had the NHS barcodes in my virtual wallet as well as a PDF printout — both worked at different shows.) At all the shows I attended, the vax checking was swift, not causing a delay to entry. You must wear a mask at all times. The staff actually cares that you wear a mask, and properly. All bars are closed because Broadway staff realizes that if you are drinking, your mask would necessarily be off, and we don’t want that. THANK YOU BROADWAY.
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The Doctor on the West End: Has a Show Ever Made Me So Angry? Let’s Find Out!
It’s Theatre Thursday! This is a rant y’all! The Doctor closes at the Duke of York’s Theatre this Sunday. BYEEEEE.
The Doctor was more frustrating than waiting all night in A&E to get four minutes of face time, because at least at the hospital you know the NHS is doing their best with limited resources and you can blame Tories for that, but who can we blame here? Society? The writer? Tories? Tories it is.
This show was an exercise in trying to remain calm, and seated. I think I’m extra frustrated because it so could have been something powerful…or at least said something coherent and not just spit chaos at a stage. There are lots of issues I’m going to point out with this play about a doctor who follows hospital policy and then gets cancelled by the whole world for it, but there are two main ones I’ll focus all thoughts around.
Number 1: What the fuck.
The plot of The Doctor focuses on Juliet Stevenson’s character (I’m gonna call her Juliet) who is a cold but brilliant doctor. So maybe her bedside manner sucks, but she is always going to make the right call medically, which, I don’t know about you, but is what I want from a doctor. She knows her shit, and some dialogue in the first few minutes makes clear she’s a better doctor than her esteemed colleagues. When a teenage girl is dying on Juliet’s shift, a priest appears and insists on going into her hospital room to give her the last rites. The Doctor says, well, first of all I don’t know who you actually are, stranger off the street; b) I haven’t heard from her parents to give this permission/instruction which I would follow if they said so; and also the girl is very out of it but peaceful and I think it’s best for her to die peacefully and not panicking if she finds out she is dying. (And lo, she was right, because we find out later that some dick-faced intern asks the girl if she wants the last rites while the priest is making his ruckus, and so the girl does panic and does die panicking. you f-ed it, you piece of shit intern.)
So, back to my main issue: what the fuck.
I don’t understand why this isn’t a two minute discussion. She followed hospital policy and chose NOT TO ALLOW A STRANGER INTO A DYING MINOR’S ROOM. A stranger off the street who just shows up and says he is a priest, says that the parents called him and asked him to come – but the parents didn’t call the hospital to tell them to let him in. Is that just a cool thing to do in this country? I know you don’t have as many regulations on things like this as the USA does but really? I can just walk into a dying child’s hospital room even if the staff is like, hey now wait? that’s fine? So you’re saying she SHOULD have let a stranger into a child’s room to upset her when she was dying, without hearing from any guardian and even though her decision was supported by hospital policy.
Given the sense I just made at you, I thought maybe this play was going to be about how society has forgotten what common sense is, and the hubbub caused by this event would be shown for the insane circus that it was. Like, we were supposed to be this angry with how irrational all of this is, that was the intention. I assumed that the conflict would be portrayed as the whole world against Juliet when it was clear that Juliet was right, a case of someone being ‘cancelled’ unfairly (even though that sentiment is overblown since people simply don’t understand what words or consequences are but I digress). However, it seemed the opposite, and people approve of her facing professional consequences for her character unrelated to her job. People that are actually allowed to dress themselves in the morning (slash write the ‘real’ reviews for the Guardian et al) apparently think she was wrong – which okay, you might have made the opposite decision since both were allowed. You might have thought she should have let the stranger into the dying child’s hospital room with no proof that he was who he says he was. But was she wrong enough to get fired? To be publicly shamed, to be threatened, to be the subject of this shitstorm, to have bricks thrown through her window, to be yelled at by irrelevant activists on TV? no no no, bless your heart. But it seems the vast majority of people think this was all warranted.
Another wtf: where on earth were the hospital’s lawyers at all these subsequent board meetings? I worked in medical law for a few years and this is a big old piece of unrealistic nonsense that at no point in the first five seconds of the debacle did the lawyers show up and say “so, she followed hospital policy…that’s all there is to it. That’ll be 3000 pounds please.” It’s kind of laughable that this wasn’t a legal drama, as it would have been in real life. I know you love your chat shows but solving a regulatory question on one is some soft-ass shit.
Speaking of those irrelevant people on the TV panel: if we were supposed to be angry and frustrated as we see these various irrelevant voices losing the plot, then great, that worked. But it honestly seemed like we were supposed to care? what various academics and scholars and action group workers thought about this situation where a doctor followed hospital policy? Are you out of your gottam mind? How is any of this at all relevant or worth considering? How did it become about her character unrelated to being a doctor and — this is the problem– how was that not presented or interpreted as unreasonable?
The worst thing about that panel show, besides everything, was that one of those irrelevant people had the gall to make her apologize for the harm her ancestors have done to other people. I mean. She’s Jewish, by the way, if there were ever doubt about the antisemitism in London theatre that I go on and on about. Again, if the audience was supposed to grasp that this was all awful and insane to be doing to her, then I’m down, but the way it was presented and definitely received was more like ‘yeah this is good she needs to apologize for the way her ancestors have…been persecuted for thousands of years.’ I am so angry that the show put forward these tropes about Jews not to show that they are tropes or subvert them, but to present them as valid. The antisemitism in this show could have been framed to show why she faced unreasonable consequences, but instead it felt like it was a reason supporting the backlash that we were supposed to accept. Is that a problem with the direction, or the writing? Or, did they just want Jewishness to be part of the alleged villainy?
For the people who disagree: how is this not simply a case of “this doctor, who is a good doctor and did not do anything wrong medically or in terms of her hospital’s rules and regs, is not a very warm person and people really don’t like her and even though she didn’t do anything ‘wrong’, she made an unfeeling but permissible call on something completely unrelated to being an actual doctor, which I don’t like, but understand”? You can think that and accept that, but to then force all these insane consequences as a result of not liking a largely sensible choice she made is, well, absolutely insane.
I’m so frustrated because yes, it was about how this simple question, of whether or not the doctor made an appropriate call, became a question of whether or not she was a good person. But instead of saying ‘yeah and isn’t that irrelevant to what’s happening, that that’s what the societal conversation morphed into? isn’t that awful?’ the play seems to be saying that it’s VALID! It is NOT! And it wasn’t framing it as a ‘isn’t this complicated’ question either! It is NOT supposed to be complicated.
Another wtf as a palate cleanser from the bigger issues: the time with her teenager friend didn’t pay off. We learned a little more about her but nothing to explain why we listened to her talk for 15 minutes about having sex in high school. Was this a test.
Issue number 2: The play presents abortion pills as dangerous.
The part that has really stuck with me and made my blood boil is that this show vilifies abortion pills in an ignorant, dangerous way. FYI abortion pills are very safe, and effective the majority of the time. They are able to be ordered online in many countries because this has been proved, as long as you take them as directed. The teenage girl in question died after ordering and taking them in secret — the play repeats this in a way that presents the pills as the killer, full stop, no context. Abortion pills killed her. But if you listen closely, you learn she was way farther along (I think I remember she was 4 months pregnant?) than you can be to take the pills. THAT is why she had a fatal reaction. You can only take the pills if you are under 10 weeks along. With reproductive rights under attack it’s easy to see audiences largely accept from this story that abortion pills are dangerous, and thus susceptible to Tory swaying that they should be outlawed, or less easily available. If there was any line where a character clearly explained that they are usually safe and shouldn’t be vilified, it was drowned out in the onslaught of clear but false messaging that they are dangerous and fatal. This is absolute bullshit, and so much of the dialogue around the pills reminded me of Republican propaganda. I truly cannot believe that anyone who cares about reproductive freedom could sit there and accept what was being fed to mostly older white audiences, the demographic that loves to vote these rights away.
OH I ALMOST FORGOT MY BIGGEST ISSUE: People were all ‘she made such a meanie decision to not let the priest in BECAUSE SHE’S JEWISHHHHH! that’s why! she hates Catholics!!’ (And the play doesn’t really do anything to contradict that unbelievably offensive bs). And aside from all the other good reasons for her decision, she says she didn’t know if the girl was really a devout Catholic, since she wasn’t lucid and her parents weren’t around. The villagers with pitchforks argue “but she had a cross necklace!”, and Juliet says “well a lot of young people wear them it’s trendy” — TRUE. What my biggest issue is: at no point does anyone say the very valid argument that, it’s well within reason for the doctor to have questioned whether the girl was a devout Catholic SINCE SHE HAD HAD AN ABORTION! THAT’S LIKE THEIR ONLY RULE!!!!! jfc.
“Mother Courage And Her Children” in London: War is Terrible, Theatre is Fantastic
It’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Today we are talking about “Mother Courage and Her Children”, currently at London’s Southwark Playhouse until Saturday (eek go now).
It’s pretty rough out there, with war-mongering racists and Nazis and sexists running things (into the ground). So there’s no better help for dealing with all of these real-life horrors than sitting through a three-hour play about how terrible war is for everyone. No I’m not being sarcastic. Southwark Playhouse’s production of “Mother Courage and Her Children”, the anti-war epic play from Bertolt Brecht, is a small, simple, yet powerful one about how even those who think they might profit or benefit somehow from war will suffer. There are two things you can count on, really: War is terrible for everyone, and the Southwark Playhouse will always put on quality productions. Even though my attention span usually maxes out after about 15 minutes (usually when I have to pee), I thought this was a stellar show. Sure I was a ball of sorrow for the rest of that day but who isn’t nowadays!
Written in 1939 amid Nazi takeovers, “Mother Courage” stood as a testament against fascism, a prime example of art as resistance. Brecht, a startlingly prolific playwright if ever there was one (you think I write a lot), actually wrote nine (9) (NEIN) plays against fascism and Nazism, but “Mother Courage” stands out from the lot and is considered by many to be the greatest anti-war play of all time. OF ALL TIME! That’s pretty impressive for something the guy wrote in just about a month! Lightning speed, but I guess when you have something crucial to say it comes pouring out. Now I don’t know if I can say whether it’s the best of all time but is powerful and haunting and funny at times and most of all a strong reminder that war is not in fact a science (#pippin) but is bad for everyone, on every side. So let’s all continue to cross our fingers that we don’t get involved in another one eh?
True to form, Brecht didn’t set the play during Nazi rule but during the Thirty Years War in the 1600s, involving all the Eurozone. He tells the story of Mother Courage, the name everyone in Sweden knows a middle-aged woman named Anna by, who sells goods out of a rickety wagon with the help of her three children, all from different fathers. We have the honest but dumb (“they said you were pretty but dumb….no I’m sorry that’s ‘pretty dumb’”) Swiss Cheese, in a name that I’m SURE could have been translated better from the German but okay, it doesn’t completely take you out of the serious moments to hear people wailing about a guy named Swiss Cheese or anything; the arrogant and aggressive Eilif, who you know what I’m actually gonna describe as braggodocious; and the mute Kattrin, who obviously has trouble communicating but who often (and crucially) manages to find a way. Mother Courage isn’t a particularly good person. She likes when there’s a war going on, because she can make a decent business selling supplies and food and whatever else to soldiers. Her mind for business seems to take precedence over anything else, including her morality and her common sense.
This production boasts a translation from the original German (real name: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder LOVES IT) by Tony Kushner, the writer of “Angels in America” Mother Courage is portrayed by Josie Lawrence, who I only knew from the British version of ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway” back in the day. She is a genius improviser, and it turns out a pretty genius actress too. (Who knew? Oh everyone in Britain. Her bio in the programme is the longest one I’ve ever seen.) Josie deftly makes Courage a bit likable at times while also being hard to root for since she loves war and everything, and puts making money ahead of everything else, even her children.
When we meet Courage and the kiddies, they’re pulling the knickknack wagon into a camp where a few officers are trying to recruit more soldiers into the Swedish army. Interested in the children, the officers try to persuade them to sign up. Courage is like, hell no, get away from my kids, and hey I’m going to tell your fortune. She puts pieces of paper in a hat, some with black crosses on them, which foretell the officers’ deaths. The officer chooses a slip with the black cross, oh no he gon die. Well yeah it’s war. The kiddies want to play too because kids love games (they are young adults btw not toddlers like I’m making them sound) and Courage is like oh sure okay I know you’re all going to get blank ones because we are the rare few blessed during wartimes. Of course, all three children pull pieces of paper with black crosses, so we know from the start that they’re gon die too. You would think that Courage would get her kids as far away from the warzone as possible to try to save them from their fate, but she loves war and selling her goods so they stay in the thick of it. In fact, Eilif, the terrible, signs up to army (mother) right then and there, not really caring that he’s probably (definitely) going to die in it; he just really wants to start slaughtering people (true). Courage wails a little but then moves on with Swiss Cheese (can I call him something else) and Kattrin, pulling the wagon and selling their wares to the next camp of soldiers.
Between scenes, we’re to understand that years are passing. The next time we see the conceited Eilif, played by a kind of terrifyingly effective Jake Phillips Head (Screwdriver), he’s the toast of the battalion and the general’s new favorite because he killed a bunch of peasants and stole their cattle. Like…that’s not a good thing guys. War is despicable. Courage runs into him (Sweden so small?) and yells at him not for slaughtering civilians but for putting himself in danger. Good job teaching him how to not be evil. This is a good time to tell you that the play features several very strange songs to augment the action, songs actually featured in the original, which I couldn’t believe. They really do (sometimes) complement the rest of the drama, but they veered into kind of silly very often. And because of the, shall we say, interesting acoustics and sound setup caused by the rickety tarped-in room, they all had to kind of shout, so everyone’s singing voice became a shouty voice and it sounded super gravelly and all I could think was ‘alright I’m shouting. I’m shouting I’m shouting I’m shouting!” Still, the songs did work, mostly.
The next scene, a few years later, we meet Yvette, the camp prostitute (is everyone named Yvette in dramatic works a prostitute?) who is a welcome bit of fun into all this darkness. Played by a hilarious and fully committed Laura Checkley, she’s all floozy and bestockinged and Courage tells Kattrin ‘don’t fraternize with soldiers and end up like her!’ and Yvette sings a song about fraternizing (literally it’s called The Fraternization Song). Kattrin tries on her high heels in secret and prances about with scarves and stuff pretending to be a pros (‘my daughter was a pros”). When Courage sees her, she flips out and Kattrin breaks down, being somewhat developmentally delayed, and Courage tries to comfort her in a manner we see repeated throughout the show. Maybe if you didn’t upset her in the first place, Courage, but anyway, the relationship between the two is really quite well done and I loved how Josie would stroke Phoebe’s face in the same manner every time. The actress, Phoebe Vigor, was remarkably good considering she had no lines. I thought she was consistently effective. I might be biased because she looked like my friend from high school.
Meanwhile, Swiss Cheese…you know what, I’m gonna call him Gary, in honor of the UK vegans calling vegan cheese Gary. Gary is played by a strong Julian Moore-Cook. So Gary by now has gotten a job in the army not as a soldier but as a paymaster, something Courage could approve since he watches over all the money. And since he’s such an honest fool, he’ll never be guilty of stealing or cooking the books. Of course, his good intentions backfire, and when he is in possession of the cash box for the regiment, the Catholics invade. He hides the cash box so it doesn’t get stolen, but the Catholics capture him and torture him to give it up, which he won’t do. He’s a pretty good guy. Unfortunately, his mother isn’t the best, and when she has a chance to sell her wagon to pay off the captors to free her son, she doesn’t. This intense scene took the air out of the room a bit. Instead of selling the wagon, Courage has the idea to pawn it and then buy it back by using the money in the cashbox, which she assumes Gary will help her find. So she plans to offer the captors the full amount she got in the pawn, but then she learns that Gary threw the box in the river, thus denying her the opportunity to get the money back immediately. Even though her son’s life is on the line, she backtracks on the price and offers less than the full amount she has, leaving something for her to use to get her business back up. When she gets word that the captors rejected her offer, she finally jfc decides to offer all the money she has, but it’s too late. One down two to go. This was the worst part, because Gary was the nice one and this was the clearest instance of Courage’s backward priorities causing tragedy. Josie was scarily believable in this scene, hesitating before making her offers so you could sense her really weighing her choices, thinking for a second about what she wanted to save more, her son or her business, and making us wonder whether any common sense or clarity was getting through to her at all.
Oh so meanwhile, a chaplain from Eilif’s camp (David Shelley) has been traveling with Courage and the kids for a while and he continues with them for many years after, for reasons unknown. I mean he probably loves her but, like, why. Shelley is great in this role, and he comes off the best in the songs, I think. Those weird ass songs. They work but they’re so strange, a mix of folk songs and super emo ragers and Irish drinking songs. Anyway the chaplain proposes to Courage at one point but she turns him down because she likes really shitty men more, like this army cook she runs into every now and then who somehow makes a good impression on her even though he’s the embodiment of white male commenters on youtube.
A few years later, they get word that the war has ended. No one knew for a few days because news didn’t travel as quickly as it does now. Courage is pissed because she still has all this stock to sell and her business is more important that the lives that will be saved now. Unfortunately for Eilif, his is the rare life that peace will be the downfall of, because he did another peasant-killing spree for no good reason, and now that it was peacetime, this same exact action that made him the general’s favorite during wartime is now grounds for execution. Courage is out trying to sell her goods to townspeople before they find out it’s peacetime, so she didn’t know about her next son’s death. It’s unclear whether she ever finds out, actually. But there’s another twist: News travels so slow back in these times that not only did they not hear about peace for a few days, they didn’t immediately hear that the peace lasted like an hour and it actually IS war time still! Isn’t Courage so happy! She loves war! Kind of a shame that if they waited like thirty more minutes the army would have given Eilif a medal for his actions instead of killing him, but he was a shit person anyway soooo not too sad.
But as the years pass, supplies and food dwindle to nothingness, and Courage is left alone with Kattrin and the shitty cook, who had driven off the chaplain with his mean and immature youtubery. As they all traverse the countryside starving and broke, the cook finds out that he inherited an inn in Utrecht and asks Courage to go there with him and start a new life with actual shelter – but without Kattrin. She ugly. Or something, that’s the kind of thing he would say. Courage for some unknown reason really is into the cook, so it’s kind of surprising when she shows a heart and quotes Lifetime movies: “not without my daughter!” So then he leaves (every scene someone else departs and leaves Courage to pick up more of the slack), and Courage and Kattrin have to pull the pretty empty wagon alone.
Later, they’re staying with a peasant family one night and Courage goes into the town to do some trading. But the Catholics invade and force the peasants to show them into the city where they’re going to kill everyone. The peasants capitulate because they don’t want the soldiers to hurt them but like aren’t they going to kill everyone anyway?? Kattrin, showing unbelievable strength and maybe the only one with a moral compass, climbs on the roof and beats a drum in order to wake the townspeople and warn them of what’s coming. The soldiers shoot her but not before she succeeds in her pretty valiant mission. I thought Phoebe was so good in this scene, maybe because I was just so thirsty for one character in this show to show some selflessness and morality and when it finally happened I was quick to give all the credit to the actress, but still, she was so determined and emotional. Just great work, which was followed by more great work from Josie who mourned her last child, gave her to the peasants to bury, and then struggled to pull her wagon all alone. Did she learn at this point that war is terrible? It’s unclear, whether she gathers her strength to go back to business because it’s what she has to do and it’s all she knows, or because it’s all she can do with her life now. But it’s clear to the audience that no one wins in war and nothing good ever comes from it. Except good art, I guess.
INFORMATION
Mother Courage is playing at the Southwark Playhouse until Saturday, December 9. Tickets are stupid cheap for shows here considering how high the quality usually is. The house is rearranged so that it’s two sets of bleachers facing each other and the cast runs through the aisles a lot. Very small and intimate.
STAGEDOOR
Southwark doesn’t really have a stagedoor because the cast comes through the lobby and bar area and everyone just mingles. Fun!
True to form, Brecht didn’t set the play during Nazi rule but during the Thirty Years War in the 1600s, involving all the Eurozone. He tells the story of Mother Courage, the name everyone in Sweden knows a middle-aged woman named Anna by, who sells goods out of a rickety wagon with the help of her three children, all from different fathers. We have the honest but dumb (“they said you were pretty but dumb….no I’m sorry that’s ‘pretty dumb’”) Swiss Cheese, in a name that I’m SURE could have been translated better from the German but okay, it doesn’t completely take you out of the serious moments to hear people wailing about a guy named Swiss Cheese or anything; the arrogant and aggressive Eilif, who you know what I’m actually gonna describe as braggodocious; and the mute Kattrin, who obviously has trouble communicating but who often (and crucially) manages to find a way. Mother Courage isn’t a particularly good person. She likes when there’s a war going on, because she can make a decent business selling supplies and food and whatever else to soldiers. Her mind for business seems to take precedence over anything else, including her morality and her common sense.
This production boasts a translation from the original German (real name: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder LOVES IT) by Tony Kushner, the writer of “Angels in America” Mother Courage is portrayed by Josie Lawrence, who I only knew from the British version of ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway” back in the day. She is a genius improviser, and it turns out a pretty genius actress too. (Who knew? Oh everyone in Britain. Her bio in the programme is the longest one I’ve ever seen.) Josie deftly makes Courage a bit likable at times while also being hard to root for since she loves war and everything, and puts making money ahead of everything else, even her children.
When we meet Courage and the kiddies, they’re pulling the knickknack wagon into a camp where a few officers are trying to recruit more soldiers into the Swedish army. Interested in the children, the officers try to persuade them to sign up. Courage is like, hell no, get away from my kids, and hey I’m going to tell your fortune. She puts pieces of paper in a hat, some with black crosses on them, which foretell the officers’ deaths. The officer chooses a slip with the black cross, oh no he gon die. Well yeah it’s war. The kiddies want to play too because kids love games (they are young adults btw not toddlers like I’m making them sound) and Courage is like oh sure okay I know you’re all going to get blank ones because we are the rare few blessed during wartimes. Of course, all three children pull pieces of paper with black crosses, so we know from the start that they’re gon die too. You would think that Courage would get her kids as far away from the warzone as possible to try to save them from their fate, but she loves war and selling her goods so they stay in the thick of it. In fact, Eilif, the terrible, signs up to army (mother) right then and there, not really caring that he’s probably (definitely) going to die in it; he just really wants to start slaughtering people (true). Courage wails a little but then moves on with Swiss Cheese (can I call him something else) and Kattrin, pulling the wagon and selling their wares to the next camp of soldiers.
Between scenes, we’re to understand that years are passing. The next time we see the conceited Eilif, played by a kind of terrifyingly effective Jake Phillips Head (Screwdriver), he’s the toast of the battalion and the general’s new favorite because he killed a bunch of peasants and stole their cattle. Like…that’s not a good thing guys. War is despicable. Courage runs into him (Sweden so small?) and yells at him not for slaughtering civilians but for putting himself in danger. Good job teaching him how to not be evil. This is a good time to tell you that the play features several very strange songs to augment the action, songs actually featured in the original, which I couldn’t believe. They really do (sometimes) complement the rest of the drama, but they veered into kind of silly very often. And because of the, shall we say, interesting acoustics and sound setup caused by the rickety tarped-in room, they all had to kind of shout, so everyone’s singing voice became a shouty voice and it sounded super gravelly and all I could think was ‘alright I’m shouting. I’m shouting I’m shouting I’m shouting!” Still, the songs did work, mostly.
The next scene, a few years later, we meet Yvette, the camp prostitute (is everyone named Yvette in dramatic works a prostitute?) who is a welcome bit of fun into all this darkness. Played by a hilarious and fully committed Laura Checkley, she’s all floozy and bestockinged and Courage tells Kattrin ‘don’t fraternize with soldiers and end up like her!’ and Yvette sings a song about fraternizing (literally it’s called The Fraternization Song). Kattrin tries on her high heels in secret and prances about with scarves and stuff pretending to be a pros (‘my daughter was a pros”). When Courage sees her, she flips out and Kattrin breaks down, being somewhat developmentally delayed, and Courage tries to comfort her in a manner we see repeated throughout the show. Maybe if you didn’t upset her in the first place, Courage, but anyway, the relationship between the two is really quite well done and I loved how Josie would stroke Phoebe’s face in the same manner every time. The actress, Phoebe Vigor, was remarkably good considering she had no lines. I thought she was consistently effective. I might be biased because she looked like my friend from high school.
Meanwhile, Swiss Cheese…you know what, I’m gonna call him Gary, in honor of the UK vegans calling vegan cheese Gary. Gary is played by a strong Julian Moore-Cook. So Gary by now has gotten a job in the army not as a soldier but as a paymaster, something Courage could approve since he watches over all the money. And since he’s such an honest fool, he’ll never be guilty of stealing or cooking the books. Of course, his good intentions backfire, and when he is in possession of the cash box for the regiment, the Catholics invade. He hides the cash box so it doesn’t get stolen, but the Catholics capture him and torture him to give it up, which he won’t do. He’s a pretty good guy. Unfortunately, his mother isn’t the best, and when she has a chance to sell her wagon to pay off the captors to free her son, she doesn’t. This intense scene took the air out of the room a bit. Instead of selling the wagon, Courage has the idea to pawn it and then buy it back by using the money in the cashbox, which she assumes Gary will help her find. So she plans to offer the captors the full amount she got in the pawn, but then she learns that Gary threw the box in the river, thus denying her the opportunity to get the money back immediately. Even though her son’s life is on the line, she backtracks on the price and offers less than the full amount she has, leaving something for her to use to get her business back up. When she gets word that the captors rejected her offer, she finally jfc decides to offer all the money she has, but it’s too late. One down two to go. This was the worst part, because Gary was the nice one and this was the clearest instance of Courage’s backward priorities causing tragedy. Josie was scarily believable in this scene, hesitating before making her offers so you could sense her really weighing her choices, thinking for a second about what she wanted to save more, her son or her business, and making us wonder whether any common sense or clarity was getting through to her at all.
Oh so meanwhile, a chaplain from Eilif’s camp (David Shelley) has been traveling with Courage and the kids for a while and he continues with them for many years after, for reasons unknown. I mean he probably loves her but, like, why. Shelley is great in this role, and he comes off the best in the songs, I think. Those weird ass songs. They work but they’re so strange, a mix of folk songs and super emo ragers and Irish drinking songs. Anyway the chaplain proposes to Courage at one point but she turns him down because she likes really shitty men more, like this army cook she runs into every now and then who somehow makes a good impression on her even though he’s the embodiment of white male commenters on youtube.
A few years later, they get word that the war has ended. No one knew for a few days because news didn’t travel as quickly as it does now. Courage is pissed because she still has all this stock to sell and her business is more important that the lives that will be saved now. Unfortunately for Eilif, his is the rare life that peace will be the downfall of, because he did another peasant-killing spree for no good reason, and now that it was peacetime, this same exact action that made him the general’s favorite during wartime is now grounds for execution. Courage is out trying to sell her goods to townspeople before they find out it’s peacetime, so she didn’t know about her next son’s death. It’s unclear whether she ever finds out, actually. But there’s another twist: News travels so slow back in these times that not only did they not hear about peace for a few days, they didn’t immediately hear that the peace lasted like an hour and it actually IS war time still! Isn’t Courage so happy! She loves war! Kind of a shame that if they waited like thirty more minutes the army would have given Eilif a medal for his actions instead of killing him, but he was a shit person anyway soooo not too sad.
But as the years pass, supplies and food dwindle to nothingness, and Courage is left alone with Kattrin and the shitty cook, who had driven off the chaplain with his mean and immature youtubery. As they all traverse the countryside starving and broke, the cook finds out that he inherited an inn in Utrecht and asks Courage to go there with him and start a new life with actual shelter – but without Kattrin. She ugly. Or something, that’s the kind of thing he would say. Courage for some unknown reason really is into the cook, so it’s kind of surprising when she shows a heart and quotes Lifetime movies: “not without my daughter!” So then he leaves (every scene someone else departs and leaves Courage to pick up more of the slack), and Courage and Kattrin have to pull the pretty empty wagon alone.
Later, they’re staying with a peasant family one night and Courage goes into the town to do some trading. But the Catholics invade and force the peasants to show them into the city where they’re going to kill everyone. The peasants capitulate because they don’t want the soldiers to hurt them but like aren’t they going to kill everyone anyway?? Kattrin, showing unbelievable strength and maybe the only one with a moral compass, climbs on the roof and beats a drum in order to wake the townspeople and warn them of what’s coming. The soldiers shoot her but not before she succeeds in her pretty valiant mission. I thought Phoebe was so good in this scene, maybe because I was just so thirsty for one character in this show to show some selflessness and morality and when it finally happened I was quick to give all the credit to the actress, but still, she was so determined and emotional. Just great work, which was followed by more great work from Josie who mourned her last child, gave her to the peasants to bury, and then struggled to pull her wagon all alone. Did she learn at this point that war is terrible? It’s unclear, whether she gathers her strength to go back to business because it’s what she has to do and it’s all she knows, or because it’s all she can do with her life now. But it’s clear to the audience that no one wins in war and nothing good ever comes from it. Except good art, I guess.
INFORMATION
Mother Courage is playing at the Southwark Playhouse until Saturday, December 9. Tickets are stupid cheap for shows here considering how high the quality usually is. The house is rearranged so that it’s two sets of bleachers facing each other and the cast runs through the aisles a lot. Very small and intimate.
STAGEDOOR
Southwark doesn’t really have a stagedoor because the cast comes through the lobby and bar area and everyone just mingles. Fun!
