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“In its humor, irony, and truth, it is a work to welcome and cherish.” —The New York Times
Widely considered one of the great dramatic creations of the modem stage, Mother Courage and Her Children is Bertolt Brecht’s most passionate and profound statement against war. Set in the seventeenth century, the play follows Anna Fierling (“Mother Courage”), an itinerant trader, as she pulls her wagon of wares and her children through the blood and carnage of Europe’s religious wars. Battered by hardships, brutality, and the degradation and death of her children, she ultimately finds herself alone with the one thing in which she truly believes—her ramshackle wagon with its tattered flag and freight of boots and brandy. Fitting herself in its harness, the old woman manages, with the last of her strength, to drag it onward to the next battle. In the enduring figure of Mother Courage, Bertolt Brecht has created one of the most extraordinary characters in literature.
“One of the greatest plays of our time.” —Richard Gilman, Commonwealth
“Mother Courage is a black corrosive comedy that almost alone among twentieth-century plays approaches the purgative power of a major tragedy.” —Time
“In its humor, irony, and truth, it is a work to welcome and cherish.” —The New York Times
Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1898. One of the most influential dramatists of our time, he is best known for his classic plays The Threepenny Opera, Galileo, and Mother Courage and Her Children, as well as many others. He died in Berlin in 1956.