It’s hard to articulate how I felt about this show, but I’ll do my best. For starters, it’s important to know that seeing a show at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has been a dream of mine for quite a while now. I remember my dad talking about when he saw a show there, and I’ve been enchanted with it ever since. The atmosphere at The Globe is so unique and different from anything I have seen before, and now I have bragging rights to say I’ve seen Mother Courage and Her Children at the very theatre Shakespeare acted and staged his plays in!
Brecht is known for the use of alienation or distancing in his plays, attempting to prevent the audience from becoming emotionally immersed in the story. I strongly believe that if one wasn’t aware of this technique, they couldn’t have guessed it based on the performance I saw of Mother Courage at The Globe. The Globe is such a unique space, and I believe that it’s almost impossible to create such a distance from the characters while being so immersed in the performance. I absolutely loved how this show involved the audience. I believe that aspect of the show made it feel as though I was a part of the story, as if these people weren’t acting at all, but simply living, and I just happened to be fortunate enough to watch them. Because of this, I didn’t notice any of the classic Brecht techniques that would make the audience feel less attached or distanced from the characters; I thought the exact opposite.
I don’t think one could assume that just because our emotional immersion wasn’t interrupted, that the message of the play is less significant or that we can’t take anything away from it. I believe that theatre doesn’t have to distance us from emotion for viewers to think critically about ideas. Mother Courage proved that, so maybe Brecht isn’t all that smart after all.
-Emmy
Theatre in London U of A 