Michelle Terry triumphs as Brecht’s wartime entrepreneur

Shakespeare’s Globe

Running alongside A Midsummer Night’s Dream this summer, Shakespeare’s Globe is programming their first play by Bertolt Brecht. Many critics loved the emotional impact of Artistic Director Michelle Terry’s performance as Mother Courage and Anna Jordan’s gritty adaptation of the story of a woman trader who adapts to the horrors of war, but a minority felt Elle While‘s production wasn’t true to the author’s ‘epic theatre’ genre, intended to keep the audience at a distance. There were mixed opinions about the set and the singing, but the reviewers praised Vinnie Heaven, and Rawaed Asde and Rachelle Diedericks as the Children.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar contemplated the decision to veer away from Brecht’s intention: ‘This production … seems to break the first rule of Brecht’s epic theatre, which requires emotional distance. It conjures Brecht’s upside down world, in which war denotes order and profit, while underlining all the losses that Mother Courage faces in spite of her relentless entrepreneurialism and attempts at profiteering – selling anything from burgers to ammunition and sex. But it is human, moving and funny. The distance closes and the production becomes devastating in its most savage moments, when Mother Courage loses her children, one by one. Translator Anna Jordan justifies these moments by interpreting Brecht’s rule of verfremdungseffekt as making the drama “strange” rather than distanced. And in director Elle While’s powerful production, the emotional drama is tightly controlled, flaring up momentarily.’

Fiona Mountford for the Telegraph noted: ‘the Globe’s first ever foray into the German playwright’s work has two glorious weapons in its (pacifist) arsenal. The first is Anna Jordan’s astute and nimble adaptation and the second is artistic director Michelle Terry triumphing in the towering central role.’

‘At the heart of it all is Terry,’ agreed WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton, ‘coarse, funny, shocking. She commands the space as she wheels and deals, sharp-eyed in search of a quick buck, a profit. She claims she is doing it all to survive, but Terry is good at communicating how alive it makes her feel’.

Holly O’Mahony at The Stage described Michelle Terry: ‘(her) superpower is her rare ability to slip into any part and seem born to play it – and this really is a winning turn. Utterly charming and manically chipper’.

Tom Wicker for Time Out said: ‘Terry is astonishingly good as Mother Courage. She’s bawdy, broken and ferocious, with a physicality always halfway between entreaty and attack.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis praised other members of the cast: ‘There’s nice work too from Vinnie Heaven and Rawaed Asde as Courage’s sons, and a deeply moving performance from Rachelle Diedericks as her mute daughter Kattrin. But the show belongs to Terry. Her Courage is a flame-ringleted force, attractive in her crude energy, repellent in her lack of morals, fascinating in the unforgiving brusqueness of her motherly love. It’s a hardcore performance in a hardcore show that won’t be to everyone’s taste.’

Theo Bosanquet for LondonTheatre described the set: ‘Designer takis [sic] has taken the theme of dystopia and run with it, covering one pillar with oil drums and scaffolding, while the costumes are all filthy denims, torn vests and blood-caked overcoats.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Arts Desk’s Rachel Halliburton noted ‘Elle While’s uncompromising production is like a Mad Max cabaret at the end of time, a post-apocalyptic vision of a world corrupted by violence and greed. The impact is heightened by a punchy, expletive-stacked translation from Anna Jordan that vividly demonstrates the corrosive impact of conflict on language.’ Her middling rating seemed surprising given the amount of praise she lavished but: ‘Trivial though it may sound to observe, if only the singing had been uniformly strong, this production would have been astonishing.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

The Times’ Clive Davis agreed about the music: ‘The Globe’s house style, all jaunty, ragged street melodies, one part jazz, one part folk, is beginning to sound threadbare.’ He made clear he doesn’t like the play, calling it: ‘drama that presses home the same grim message at length.’ He thought:broadway  ‘the lumbering version of Mother Courage and Her Children … is not going to do much to dispel Brecht’s reputation for being didactic.’ As if that wasn’t enough: ‘It doesn’t help that this production, designed by takis, lacks visual flair.’

Unlike The Guardian’s critic, Gary Naylor at BroadwayWorld was not so forgiving of the liberties taken with Brecht’s work. He didn’t think this genre of theatre worked in the Globe space: ‘The distance, strangeness and alienation that lies at the heart of Epic Theatre just can’t be established. It is impossible to avoid theatre’s history, theatre’s wonder and, most of all, theatre’s connection to its public at The Globe, built explicitly to place such thoughts at the heart of its work.’ In any case, he wasn’t keen on the production : ‘For all its ambition and Terry’s remarkable energy in portraying a remarkably energetic woman, the vision of this production never resolves into a clear picture, too sharp at some times, too fuzzy at others’.

Critics’ average rating 3.5 ⭑

Mother Courage and Her Children runs at Shakespeare’s Globe until 27 June 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre www.shakespearesglobe.com

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