'Mother Courage and Her Children' review — Michelle Terry leads a topical version of Brecht's great anti-war play

Read our review of Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Elle While, now in performances at Shakespeare's Globe to 27 June.

Summary

• Brecht's Mother Courage is staged at Shakespeare's Globe
• Elle While's topical production uses Anna Jordan's translation
• Michelle Terry is superb as the titular matriarch
• A strong ensemble features Ferdy Roberts and Max Runham

This is a loud, brash, grimy Mother Courage from the Globe, a venue that seems a natural home for Brecht but has surprisingly never staged him before. And it features a superb performance from artistic director Michelle Terry as the eponymous matriarch, who rasps and yells like a cockney stall-holder, dropping aitches and f-bombs as she drags her cart around the wooden O.

Anna Jordan's version was first seen at the Royal Exchange in 2019, in a production that was set in the future. Here, director Elle While shifts things to the present time, in a production that nods heavily to the Ukraine war (there's even mention of a drone) and feels apt for an age of grinding global conflict and seemingly endemic febrility. Terry's Courage is a hollowed-out survivor, a woman whose circumstances dictate she must be.

"You're hard," the Chef (Nicolas Tennant) tells her towards the end, by which time she's travelled thousands of kilometres, switched sides, lost sons, and seen her mute daughter Kattrin (Rachelle Diedericks) brutalised. He's right, she is, a woman who'll fake a deathly premonition to flog a bulletproof vest (that, of course, isn't), keep a brothel, sell a child. But amid the gunshots – and be warned, there are plenty of those – there is tenderness too. When beloved elder son Eilif (Vinnie Heaven) sings a song she taught him to his General (Simon Scardifield), she joins him in a soft and moving duet.

As with any Courage, music plays a central role, and James Maloney's folksy score is jaunty and jazz-infused, a counterpoint to the unfolding misery. Designer takis 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. The exception is Nadine Higgin's soul-singing glamour girl Yvette, whose bright red leather boots become a source of understandable fascination to poor Kattrin.

It's always a pleasure to see Filter's Ferdy Roberts at this address, and he lends the philosophising Minister a shambolic, self-pitying edge that contrasts nicely with Courage's resolutely unsentimental outlook. But this is a strong ensemble effort all round, including narrator Max Runham, who watches from the pit in true Brechtian fashion, and Rawaed Asde as Courage's naive younger son Swiss Cheese.

The drawback of the large walkway that runs through the pit, around which the cart loops on a track, is the restriction of audience numbers in this area, which somewhat diminishes the atmosphere. But then, despite plenty of black humour, this is hardly a play to induce a raucous, carnivalesque vibe (the traditional closing jig is wisely excised). A topical translation of one of the great anti-war dramas proves another smart programming choice from Terry's Globe, and continues its rich vein of form.

Mother Courage and Her Children is at Shakespeare's Globe to 27 June. Book Mother Courage and Her Children tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Mother Courage and Her Children (Photos by Marc Brenner)