Madre coraje

“War is a continuation of business by other means, only that in war, big profits are not made by little people. War makes the human virtues fatal even to their possessors.”

Bertolt Brecht

The Arriaga Theatre renews its commitment to its own productions and local talent. The Basque director María Goiricelaya, one of the most promising and vigorous youths in the local theatre scene, has adapted the play of Bertolt Brecht’s classic for this new production which she herself directs, with performances in Basque and Spanish.

Was is business. It has always been. Anna Fierling knows this. So she wanders with her two boys and her girl across the barbarian world around her. Serving both parties and yet neither of them, they are the protagonists of an epic tale whose main theme is the cruelty of human survival. Materialism prevails over tragedy; war makes us insensitive and we seem to be unable to learn our lessons, always making the same mistakes.

In today’s world, we are fed our daily dose of brutality by the media, and we are immune to it. This Mother Courage is far from Sweden, Germany or Poland. She is set in a timeless theatre of war that needs no definition: its references are sadly updated every day.

A new production by the Arriaga Theatre