Dialectics
Dialectics are the opposition of forces in society and they demonstrate the political significance of contradictions that helps society change. Dialectics in Mother Courage and Her Children are the contradictions in the issues, themes and characters and how this operates and relates in the play. These contradictions mean that the characters' society, and hence our society, is capable of change. Dialectics also have the capacity to negate the spectators' concepts of the world, which can be taken for granted as they watch the play. To be a spectator of a Brechtian play is to be forced to take decisions, and to act upon them (Hatton & Lovesy, 2009).
Dialectics and characterisation
Ask the students to take any character from the play and find a way to signal that their character's behaviour is a product of that character's social and cultural experience. When doing this activity it would be good to remind the students that a Marxist, and hence Brechtian thought, is that people are not born with these behaviours, but learn them through their place in society.
An extension to this activity is to ask the students to meet and greet other characters in the play, observing all social mannerisms and mores of the time, then to replay these meetings with modern day social mores. The improvisations could be set:
On a hill with a war raging below
In an army campsite
In a house or barn
On a mountain top overlooking the devastation of a city.
The discussion afterwards could revolve around the contradictory ways we greet and socialise with each other depending on time, place and status and this marks one of Brecht's ideological concepts.
When exploring the characters in the play the students should be aware that there are one and three dimensional characters. One dimensional character's do not generally have dialectical natures such as the Young or Older Soldier, but are created to criticise social and political aspects of the play. Three dimensional characters such as Mother Courage, The Chaplin and Kattrin were created by Brecht with emotion, passion and a contradictory nature, and are capable of change even if they do not.
Activity
During rehearsals you could:
Explore the dialectical nature of a character in a warm-up. For example, if the whole class were to become Mother Courage they could physically and emotionally explore how she is loving and cruel, caring and selfish.
Explore how war is portrayed as the great provider for Mother Courage, then war as the greater destroyer of her.
Explore roles such as the Peasants and Soldiers who are defined as groups of people who are identified by their 'working role' in society. They are symbolic of their class structure. Students could experiment with different Asiatic walks* for these characters such as:
Flat walk -the entire foot lands on the ground with little movement in the hips
Roll walk -the ball of the foot onto the heel and the hips roll slightly (Crawford, Hurst, Lugering, 1976, p.256),
and contrast this to militaristic or ballet type walks.
(*The Asiatic theatre influence in Mother Courage and Her Children is not as obvious as in other plays such as The Caucasian Chalk Circle, but Brecht still explored Asiatic acting techniques such as how characters emphasise the body through control and discipline).
Voice, language and dialectics
A very important feature of Mother Courage an her Children is the language. All dialogue, including stage directions, was written by Brecht with an ideological and dialectical purpose and you need to continually analyse this in rehearsals. Please note - the actor's choices are not always apparent in the initial reading and it is very important to continually stop the rehearsals to ask why 'this' is being said, and to experiment with how it might be said.
For example, the you could examine one of Mother Courage's songs, analysing its meaning while experimenting with tone, pitch and pace and then compare their results to the song of The Voice in Scene 10. You could also explore The Chaplin's dialogue in an overtly theatrical manner and then suddenly switch to a realistic delivery, or The Cook's dialogue said in a rustic accent compared to a city accent. While experimenting with voice and character it is good to remind the students that Brecht did not totally reject Stanislavski techniques; what he did not believe in was Stanislavski's Aristotelian (hence ruling class) approach to acting.
Crawford, J. Hurst, C. Lugering, M. (1976). Acting in Person and Style (5th ed.). USA: Brown & Benchmark Publishers.
Hatton, C. Lovesy, S. (2009). Young at Art- Classroom Playbuilding in Practice. Oxon: Routledge.