Sorry for dissing, Mother!

I think the fact that we saw Mother Courage and Her Children being performed at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater helped me, as an audience member, become more immersed and engaged in the performance and its characters. After watching Mother Courage and Her Children, I honestly would have never known that Bertolt Brecht had tactics to try to disengage the audience. I felt like I was so included and incorporated into the story and these characters’ lives that I was right next to these real people watching these real-life events happening. I think I would be completely immersed in the world of Mother Courage if we were watching this show in a normal proscenium theater, but it made the watching experience so much more intimate that we were standing right next to the stage, making eye contact with the actors. Smelling them, hearing their footsteps, seeing the sweat on their faces makes me feel like I, myself, am a character with them. I think that was half the reason I loved this show so much, because I felt like I was in the story, living the lives these characters were living. The impact this show had on me was lasting and lingered with me for the rest of the trip, because we were at The Globe, and because we were so engulfed into the story. I understand that one of Brecht’s tactics is to disengage the audience from feeling they are a part of the play, but I believe that is what made this show so one of a kind. It, of course, would still be an amazing show even if we would have seen it from miles away, but I believe the opposite tactic of what he was going for (making up feel like we were living the character’s lives) is what made the show stand out to me so much.