Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 10:01:13 -0800 From: Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> Subject: Re: David Lynch
Brecht tried to make Mother Courage into a villain. The audiences loved her, so he had his wife take up the role, and they treated her to more affection.
--
I seem to remember her as a more ambiguous character. And Eric Bentley, the great Brecht interpreter that taught the course in it that I taught, pointed out that she could be seen as a symbol of capitalism, presumably a force which, in the historical period portrayed, had not exhausted its progressive potential. There's nothing sentimental about his portrayal, but then sentimentality wasn't Brecht's thing at all, ever.
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema