AAS (8) - Brecht & "Mother Courage"

Our first step to creating this scene was to read through the script. Charlie announced the cast-list and we then read-through the script slowly, stopping whenever anyone was confused. The cast list is as follows:

• Recruiter = James (JBC)
• Sergeant = Oliver K (OK)
• Mother Courage = Hope (HF)
• The Elder Son = Rob (RA)
• The Younger Son = Ollie M (OM)
• Eilif = Katya (KS)
• Swiss Cheese = Lewis (LF)
• Kattrin = Lorna (LC)

When reading through the script, we worked out the character's intentions and what was actually going on in the scene. In this scene, Mother Courage drives down a country road on her cart with her three children: Eilif, Swiss Cheese and Kattrin. She is stopped by the Sergeant and the Recruiter. By the end of the scene, Mother Courage has been distracted by the Sergeant, whilst the Recruiter has taken Eilif away. We worked out that Eilif and the Elder Son were the same people, and Swiss Cheese and the Younger Son were the same. As well as allocating characters, Charlie also split up some of the stage directions and allocated them to certain people to read, as this was a Brechtian technique for stage directions to be spoken. Mother Courage also has a song within this scene, but as we did not know the tune, nor are any of us composers, we decided that this would be spoken. So that this didn't turn into one long, rhyming monologue, Charlie split up the lines and gave them to different people.

After reading through the script a couple of times, Charlie briefly spoke us through what he had planned for the scene, and we began blocking. The Brechtian techniques that we have included are as follows:

1. Reading stage directions aloud
2. Placards (e.g. "Eilif Nojocki", "Swiss Cheese" and "Kattrin Haupt" are haled up by said characters when they are introduced to the Sergeant and Recruiter by Mother Courage)
3. Representational props (instead of having a real cart, we are using a table turned on its side with a placard attached)
4. Minimal costume (e.g. Rob will take off a jacket to turn from Older Son to a soldier)
5. Simplistic lighting (we are not using any additional lighting, apart from the normal lights in the room)

In today's lesson we completed all of the blocking and polished the scene. For my character, I don't say anything as she is mute and also described as "dumb". Therefore, I have to really use my facial expressions and body language.