REVIEW: “MOTHER COURAGE”

German poet and playwright Bertold Brecht began writing his play “Mother Courage” on the eve of World War II. He conceived it as a warning to the authorities, which was to sound from the scenes of big cities: “Whoever wants to have breakfast with the devil should stock up on a long spoon.” The playwright finished the play in the autumn of 1939, when the war had already been unleashed, and bitterly admitted defeat: “Writers cannot write as fast as the governments unleash wars: after all, to compose, you have to think …“Mother Courage” is late”. How wrong he was!

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After 80 years, directors around the world continue to refer to Brecht’s play as the loudest warning about the unacceptability of wars and their dire consequences. The theatrical scenes are focused not so much on millions of human lives that were cut off by spurts of fire and mines, but rather on how the war cripples the human soul. The same theme is referred in the opening night of the performance based on Brecht’s play “Mother Courage” by the theaters “Diydor” and “Ilkhom”.
The joint project, in which the leading actors of the theater studio “Diydor” are involved, sounds in Uzbek language and is accompanied by subtitles in Russian. Director Boris Gafurov made a daring decision and abandoned the original musical accompaniment. Brecht’s songs, considered to be the key to understanding both the characters and the play itself, were put to music by German composer Paul Dessau in 1946. It was played in many performances, but not in Ilkhom – Sanjar Nafikov created for the opening night a new musical canvas with the same objective, but with a modern sound. Actors of the theater-studio “Diydor” brilliantly coped with very difficult roles. The owner of the van Anna Firling, she is Mother Courage (the beautiful Yulduz Rajabova) – an unscrupulous and self-serving woman who lives in war. She eats at the expense of war, gets richer, and at the same time considers herself and her children “outside of politics”.
She resorts to false prophecy in order to intimidate her sons with an imminent death and hide from service, but the ironic fate decides to play along with the woman street trader and fulfills the destined. Anna loses the fearless Eilif (Mirkamol Karabaev), the simpleton Schweizerkas (Umid Khojaev), the selfless Katrina (Setora Teshaboeva), who hates war with all her heart. But, even having lost all the dearest that was in her life, Mother Courage is not able to learn a lesson from the tragedy. She continues to live with war since she knows nothing more; the world scares her, as it leaves her by herself with terrible losses and a bunch of unnecessary trash in the old van.
Self-consistent and convincing images were created by Akbarhodzha Rasulov, who played a rascal priest; Zhurabek Arziev – his cook, a wise man with a wormhole; the desperate and preserving grains of humanity Ivette Potier was revived by Iroda Kasymova. Ulmas Uraev, Umar Dzhumaev and Sardor Saidov, who played the cowardly sergeant-major, prudent recruiter and bloody commander, won a round of loud applause.
During the three-hour performance, which kept the tension all the time, the audience with loud applause on their feet thanked the actors, musicians, director and all those involved in its production.
Make sure you see it too – the next show will take place on the stage of the Ilkhom Theater on October 27.
Victoria Abdurahimova.