“Stop all the troops: here’s Mother Courage!” (Mother Courage and Her Children)

Ahahahaha, yeah, I’m kind of late with this…

I liked this play more than I thought I would. It was a fairly easy read, and allowed me to see where many modern plays are coming from in their thinking and presentation. The songs were interesting.  I liked The Song of the Three Great Men the best, because it blatantly had a message, to the point of being humorous (even more blatant than the others, I thought), that being Virtuous will done get you killed.

I also enjoyed the character of Mother Courage, even though her morals were a bit skewed sometimes. I was brought up on the idea of survivalism.  Not stepping on as many people as possible to make more (unneeded) money, though… but doing whatever you can, eating whatever’s edible, wearing whatever’s not ripped to shreds, and, every once in awhile screwing people over who might not entirely deserve it, just so that you and the people you love don’t have to go entirely without.  That’s why, even though it was a bit shitty of Mother Courage to bargain for Swiss Cheese’s life, I could understand where she was coming from.  Her wagon was her sole source of income, and she had KaTtrin (and herself, for Kattrin’s sake) to think about.

Oh, so here’s a super short clip I found of a production of Mother Courage and Her Children:

It looks to be set in the Wild/Old West. I think this is an interesting take.  The wagon certainly lends itself to it.  And you could think of the Protestants as Cowboys and the Catholics as Indians.  I can imagine Elif signing up to be a cowpoke and then slaughtering whole families of Indians…

~Jessie

“Tiny little shoot. Tiny little white shoot. All hairy and fragile.” (Buried Child)

My initial reaction to this play was one of disgust. Which isn’t to say I didn’t like it as a play,  but after reading Buried Child, I felt naseous and ansty and itchy…  which, frankly is odd, because I eat up this crazy twisted shit all the time. I’m not really sure what set off my disgust… Incest baby? Mummified, unburied incest baby? Finger rape? I think it was a combination.

The rabbits my mom raises are almost all born of mother/son coupling.  As long as you don’t mate brother/sister, you won’t get any weird genetic crap.  With rabbits, sons humping away at their mothers is A-okay!

BUT THESE ARE HUMANS.  OH GOD. Don’t give me any of that “Maybe it’s metaphorical incest” crap. If you need convincing that it’s an incest baby, head over to Christine’s Journal, where she collected a disturbing amount of quotes.

There’s a sick part of me that is slightly curious to know who initiated. Was it Halie, who had not been touched by her husband for several years? Or was it Tilden, who I’m guessing didn’t have much interaction with the ladies? I’m more likely to guess Halie, because frankly she seems like the type to come on to forbidden people.  A man of the cloth, her own son, you know, stuff like that. Then again, she does say of Tilden:  “He never listens to me Dodge. He’s never listened to me in the past.”  Maybe Tilden didn’t listen when she told him “No.” And then you get Incest Baby.

All in all, I didn’t particularly like any of the characters in this play.  I hated them as people, but as characters I found them all pretty fascinating. Especially when you get into the symbolism and the parallels with Arthur Miller plays.  It gave me the distance I needed to appreciate the play.

~Jessie

P.S. Video for you! There was nothing good on Youtube for Buried Child, just a bunch of “previews” and no actual performances. So instead, I’ve found a video of the death scene of the terrifying creepy baby… thing… from the David Lynch movie Eraserhead.  Be warned, this movie is probably the most effed up of David Lynch’s movies, and not for the faint of heart.  The sounds that the “baby” makes alone is enough to give you nightmares.  (For less effed up Lynch-ian shit, I recommend Elephant Man.)

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

“A father is a father!” (All My Sons)

Sooooo… I actually don’t have much to say about All My Sons that I haven’t already talked about in class.

I enjoyed the play way more than I thought I would. I was expecting another mild disappointment a la Joe Turner. Hooray for pleasant surprises!

This was an explosive drama.  There was boatloads of anger and sadness, etc. and all of it was readily expressed by the characters, either with shouting, threats of phyisical violence, or actual physical violence. There was little that was subdued about All My Sons.

I liked the way that the tension built.  It was interesting that, whenever it felt like, okay, here’s the climax… one of the neighbors seemed to come in and “ruin it.”  It resulted in a bunch of mini climaxes in the 2nd half of the second act, and the third act.  Kind of like a roller coaster ride.

I couldn’t  condemn Joe completely.  His methods, yes.  But his intentions, no.  He was trying to do his best by Chris in terms of money and business.  Or, y’know, at least what he thought was best, since Chris honestly didn’t care about all that stuff.

So, I was curious… did anyone think that after Joe’s suicide, Chris and Ann still get married? That they take Kate’s advice, and “live”?  I’d like to think so…

~Jessie

P.S. I looked on Youtube for a good clip.  I found “All My Sons Final,” I thought it was going to be the part where they read Larry’s letter and Joe shoots himself.  As it turned out… well, you’ll see: