Mother Courage and Her Children Resources

This is the website of the IBS, where you can find further information about Brecht and his plays.

Just about everything you ever wanted to know about BB.

Check this film out, if you want to see Mother Courage played by the awesome German actress and second wife of Brecht, Helene Weigel.You can find the info below at IMDb.

A New York Times review of the Public Theater's 2006 production of Mother Courage, starring Meryl Streep in the title role. The play was performed in New York City's Central Park.

Here's an article on Mother Courage by the playwright Tony Kushner, who has also translated the play into English. It appeared in The Guardian in 2009.

A few clips of Meryl Streep performing as Mother Courage.

Check out this video about a production of Mother Courage at the Royal National Theater in London. You can see some fun photos and hear someone reading Brecht's theoretical texts. If this particular video doesn't tickle your fancy, you can easily find a lot more videos about this production on YouTube.

Watch this to hear German actress (and Brecht's second wife) Helene Weigel talk about epic theater. You can also see some footage of her performing as Mother Courage (unknown year).

In 1947/48, during his time in the US, Brecht was interviewed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, on the suspicion that he was a Communist.

Listen to this recording of Brecht singing a song from another one of his plays, The Threepenney Opera.

Here you can listen to the German actress, Judith Keller, sing The Song of The Grand Capitulation in the original German.

A few clips of Meryl Streep singing in the title role of Mother Courage.

Check out the links on this page to hear German poet Durs Grünbein reading Brecht (in German).

Mother Courage is sometimes compared to the image of Dulle Griet in Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel's painting of the same name. (See the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Mother Courage, xxix.) The painting depicts a figure from Flemish folklore, also known as "Mad Meg," who leads an army to pillage Hell.

Looking good, Bert.

Here's Bert with his wife, German actress Helene Weigel, at the theater company they founded in 1949 in East Berlin.

Here's a shot from Brecht's staging of Mother Courage in 1949 at the Berliner Ensemble. You can see some supertitle action here ("Polen" = Poland).

A photo from the first production of Mother Courage, in 1941 in Zurich, Switzerland. Yes, that's during World War II. The actress Therese Giehse is in the title role.

The classic image of a classic Mother Courage.

Helene Weigel is particularly famous for the "silent scream" she performed while playing the role of Mother Courage. The scream happens when Mother Courage hears the shots from Swiss Cheese's execution. We see her scream, but its silence blocks us from accessing her pain.

Check out this statue of BB outside the Berliner Ensemble in Berlin, Germany.