M O T H E R   C O U R A G E

Mother Courage and her Children 9th November - 27th November 2005 The Theater Boston Court Cast Mother Courage - Camille Saviola Eilif - Seamus Dever Swiss Cheese - Donn Swaby Kattrin - Jessica Goldapple Cook - Hugo Armstrong Commander in Chief, Old Colonel - William Knight Chaplain - Bernard K. Addison Yvette - J. Karen Thomas A Theater@Boston Court presentation of a play in two acts by Bertolt Brecht, translated by David Hare. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky. The Theatre @ Boston Court presents the incomparable Camille Saviola in the Los Angeles premiere of David Hare's translation of "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht, opening October 29, 8 p.m. on the Main Stage at Boston Court, 70 North Mentor. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky, The Theatre @ Boston Court co-artistic director, "Mother Courage" is the at-once hilarious and brilliantly vicious tale of the indomitable woman who haggles with war's vile logic. "Mother Courage" is choreographed by Kitty McNamee and contains original music by Randall Tico. "David Hare's translation, written in 1995, feels like he could have been writing about today. Brecht himself, writing on the cusp of the Second World War, chose instead to set his play during the cataclysm of 17th-century Europe's Thirty Years War," said Kubzansky. "But what is profound to me is just how screamingly relevant it remains this instant; an epic play written over half a century ago and yet brilliantly up to the minute about the mad circus of war and commerce." The play features Saviola, Bernard K. Addison, Hugo Armstrong, Seamus Dever, Jessica Goldapple, Donn Swaby and J. Karen Thomas in leading roles, supported by Andrew Amani, Rufino Cabang, Joshua Wolf Coleman, Adam Donshik, Patrick Flanagan, Matt Foyer, Nick Hoffa, Kristen-Lee Kelly, Derek King, William Knight, and Lexi Pearl. Saviola, a prominent stage, film and TV actress, most recently starred as Mama Morton in the Broadway revival of "Chicago" and co-starred with Chita Rivera in the Mark Taper Forum's widely acclaimed "The House of Bernarda Alba." She can also be seen in "E-Ring" on NBC. Addison's Broadway and regional credits include "Electra," "Othello," "Romeo and Juliet" directed by Sir Peter Hall, and several seasons with The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.; Armstrong returns to Boston Court (Dan in "Cold/Tender") after a major turn in "Apollo" at the Kirk Douglas and "Couples Counseling" at Redcat; Dever, a member of the Actor's Studio, was part of the Ovation-nominated ensemble in the acclaimed "Pera Palas" at Boston Court. Goldapple recently starred in "The Little Prince" at South Coast Rep and trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama; Swaby, an actor, producer, playwright and director, directed and produced Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love," wrote "The Lost and Found," and had a four-year recurring role on the NBC soap opera "Passions;" Thomas, singer, songwriter and actress, most recently played opposite Mandy Patinkin in the new CBS drama "Criminal Minds." Kubzansky has directed two world premieres for The Theatre @ Boston Court: Jean-Claude van Itallie's "Light" and Cody Henderson's "Cold/Tender." The award-winning director works nationwide in such venues as the Geffen Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Aurora Stage, The Boston Publick, London's Old Red Lion, and Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms. She received the 2004 LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatre. The Theatre @ Boston Court is the non-profit theatrical production company that programs for the Main Stage in the Boston Court Performing Arts Complex in Pasadena. "Mother Courage" is the last play in the award-winning company's second season. The third season lineup will be announced during the play's run. "Mother Courage" runs Thursdays to Sundays through November 27 (No performance on Thanksgiving, Nov. 24). Tickets are priced at $30 and senior and student discounts are also available. Tickets can be purchased online at www.bostoncourt.org or by calling (626) 683-6883. Boston Court is located at 70 North Mentor, one block north of Colorado at Boston Ct. Click on an image above to see a larger copy of Jessica in "Mother Courage and her Children" What do they say about it? Terry Morgan (Variety.com) "The awful power and prescience of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children" is that at no time since its first performance in 1941 has it been irrelevant: There are always conflicts, always victims, always someone simply trying to survive. The Theater@Boston Court's production of the play, featuring the L.A. premiere of a translation by David HareDavid Hare, is steeped in this awareness of the omnipresence of war. Director Jessica Kubzansky falters in an attempt to shoehorn an avant-garde visual style into the piece -- actors in military uniform dancing to discoesque music between scenes -- but she succeeds in getting sterling perfs from an excellent cast. Camille Saviola is superb as Mother Courage, a hard-nosed canteen-cart owner trying to keep herself and her three children alive during the Thirty Years War. Her interpretation of the role is more tough love than calculating profiteer, and her final scenes are heartbreaking in the simplicity and power of her acting. She also has a commanding singing voice, and her rendition of "The Song of the Great Capitulation" is appropriately fierce and rueful. Portraying her children, Seamus Dever is believably tough as Eilif, and Donn Swaby is convincingly guileless as Swiss Cheese, but it's Jessica Goldapple's tragic Kattrin that sticks in the memory. Bereft of as much as a single line, her performance is a triumph of feeling, as in a quietly effective scene where the naive Kattrin romanticizes a whore's story, preening and childishly glorying in the feeling of being pretty and wanted, if only for a moment. Hugo Armstrong demonstrates a gruff charm as the Cook, and he imbues his fine performance of "The Song of the Great Persons of This Earth" with a desperate anger. J. Karen Thomas and Bernard K. Addison are good as the prostitute Yvette and the Chaplain, respectively, but Hare's translation seems to have removed some of the subtlety from their characters. Audrey Fisher's costumes are densely layered, adding a sense of reality to the sometimes surreal production -- a tree with arms and legs dangling from its branches works hard at being symbolic at center-stage. John Zalewski's sound design uses the clever conceit of rattling coincoin noises to represent a range of things from commerce to death, but the recorded music for songs is played so loudly that the singers often can't be heard over it. Sets, Susan Gratch; costumes, Audrey Fisher; lighting, Jeremy Pivnick; sound, John Zalewski; production stage manager, Susan Lang. Opened, reviewed Oct. 29, 2005; runs through Nov. 27. Running time: 2 HOURS, 45 MIN." Have you seen this production and wish to write a review for this site? Please click here to email me your review. 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