Mother courage

PERFORMANCE
Mother Courage is a large-scale, contemporary music theatre adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s classic. The performance follows Mother Courage as she travels through an endless war with her three children. Trade is their only strategy for survival: everything of value is exchanged — from food and boots to weapons. Despite her strength and resilience, she loses her children one by one. Coltof’s adaptation expands Brecht’s critique of systems by incorporating texts from poets from war zones such as Gaza and Ukraine. Courage herself is not a profiteer or a personification of capitalism; she is not the one in control. Instead, she embodies the endless nature of war, while children and the vulnerable become its victims. This creates a new narrative frame: not a trader pursuing profit, but a human being trapped in a system that outlives her.

SCENOGRAPHY
The set design has a raw, industrial aesthetic that refers to the war industry and the capitalist system, without ever revealing who is actually in control. In this performance, Courage is not a profiteer or a symbol of capitalism, but a human being caught in a system that exceeds her. This idea is reinforced through a fragmented stage space in which microphones, ticker tape, information screens, and hanging speakers are visibly part of the scenography. These elements are sometimes “hijacked” for propaganda or direct, unfiltered messages, making the epic principle of theatrical transparency tangible. At the same time, this enhances the performative atmosphere and at moments creates a concert-like intensity. The market cart — Mother Courage’s iconic attribute — has been transformed into an iron cage-like structure: a hybrid of a trading vehicle and a hiding place / prison space. It is both symbolic and functional.