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THEATER OF WAR Send This Review to a Friend
Although the anti-Iraq war implications are there, this is not a film about a contemporary war, but of a stage war within Bertolt Brecht’s classic play “Mother Courage and Her Children.” Director/editor John Walter received permission to film rehearsals for the play, which was presented by the Public Theater and which starred Meryl Streep in the title role. It offers a rare opportunity to see Streep preparing for a show and her process of mastering a role.
As a matter of fact those are the scenes that hold the greatest interest in the film, which also includes a number of interviews and other clips. Kevin Kline, Tony Kushner and George C. Wolfe are among those participating, and there are also comments from Barbara Brecht-Schall, daughter of the late playwright.
One can also find clips of Brecht appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy hysteria of the late 1940s and 50s. Brecht, taking puffs on his cigar, doesn’t get into First Amendment rights in the clips shown, but denies that he was a Communist. He left the country soon afterward.
Unfortunately the film is burdened by lengthy narrative comments that, while an effort to inform, give those parts of the film the air of a school lecture. The narration slows the film and detracts from the more interesting interview comments. The scenes with Streep and other vintage clips, including some with Brecht, are quite fascinating and illuminating. as well as entertaining.
One learns much about the art of Brecht. One also gleans form the play itself the horrors of war and in that sense the film can be seen as related to real theaters of war, past and present. After all, “Mother Courage and Her Children” is a work that by dramatizing the human cost of war constitutes a cry for peace. A White Buffalo Entertainment/Theater of War L.L.C. release.
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