Play photos by Enrico SpadaBy Jeremy D. Goodwin When tackling the works of its namesake playwright, Shakespeare & Company puts the text of a play at the forefront but otherwise makes no obeisance to inherited notions about how a given play is "supposed" to be staged. So as some of the troupe's leading artists get down and dirty in the rehearsal studio with the challenging work of Bertolt Brecht, it's no great surprise to learn they're freely following their own impulses to put an original spin on things. After a barnburner of a The Tempest last season — for which grande dame Olympia Dukakis creatively embodied the lead character not as Prospero, but the feminized Prospera — artistic director Tony Simotes has brought Dukakis back to the fold for an examination of Brecht's moody, anti-war anthem Mother Courage and Her Children. It's the fifth time Dukakis has tackled the challenging title character.
"I did it all on energy. I was like a bull in a china shop," Dukakis, seen in photos by Jeremy D. Goodwin to the left and above, says of her first time playing the role, at Boston's Charles Playhouse in the late 1960's. "I came on at the top of the show and sang the opening number an octave higher than I've ever sung it. I was like this," she adds, shaking her hands back and forth at a rapid tempo. “The first time you do something like Mother Courage, there's a lot you have to prove, and then there's the unfamiliarity of it. As you do things over and over, those things drop away and that’s a relief and a release. When I first did it, I didn't trust vulnerability at all. Now I’m trusting that much more." The Academy Award winner is seated casually in Rehearsal Studio 3 at S&Co.'s Bernstein Center for the Performing Arts, often leaning forward intently, raising her voice to emphasize a point. She comes off as generally affable and charming — particularly for a great stage-and-screen artist quite used to a room quieting itself when she has something to say. She nabbed an Oscar (for supporting actress), as well as a Golden Globe, for her 1987 role in Moonstruck, but Dukakis has been a fixture in the theater firmament since her Broadway debut in 1961. For this intimate press conference, she's seated alongside Simotes, the director of this production, and John Douglas Thompson, one of the company's biggest homegrown stars. (Familiar to Lenox audiences from his lead roles in Othello, Richard III, and last summer's Satchmo at the Waldorf, this time around Thompson woos Dukakis' character as the Cook.) Later, costume designer Arthur Oliver joins them, as does Olympia's brother Apollo, who brought a reserved dignity to last year's Tempest and plays the Chaplain in Mother Courage. S&Co.'s aesthetic places a priority on engaging audiences in a "relationship" with the actors, whether through direct address or by using the entire theater — including aisles, balcony, and anywhere else within earshot — as a playing space. Comparing this Mother Courage to her last, at Williamstown Theatre Festival twenty years ago, Dukakis says the current approach leads to more moments of humor in a piece that can be played as severe or even dour. "[Director] Gerry Freedman was much more of a traditionalist. Tony is something of an iconoclast," Dukakis says, prompting laughter. "You know what's the most fun? The audiences expect interaction. They expect it and they look forward to it and enjoy it. And the actors here are good at it… I've never done it the way we're doing it here. It's a lot of fun — the play just jumps right off the stage."
“Fun" is not an adjective typically applied to this work, which takes deadly satirical aim at wartime profiteering in the context of the Thirty Years’ War, the 17th century conflict that embroiled central Europe. Brecht wrote the play during the mid-20th century apex of fascism; Simotes says the political messaging comes off best with a period-appropriate staging. “People have taken it and put it in burqas and different time periods to try to make a point. But I think the play makes a strong point by being in the frame of that Thirty Years’ War. It allows us to be somewhat separate from it to really see it." Dukakis, seen with Thompson in a photo by Enrico Spada above, says the contemporary resonance of the play is obvious. “We happen to be the most religious western country. We’re concerned with it, controlled by it, inspired by it," she says. “We're in religious wars right now. That's what's happening. How long are these wars going to go on? When are they going to end? I'm hoping it resonates for the audience. I don’t think you have to underline it in red." All the collaborators present marvel at what they call a very open, exploratory approach in the rehearsal room. Dukakis says she came to the play looking for an intense experience. “The engagement of it is what I wanted. It's a play that really shakes you to do — certainly this part." Mother Courage is a play of ideas and argument, with different characters offering careful explications of their worldviews. The mission, these actors say, is to preserve Brecht’s intent while still fleshing out their character’s vulnerabilities and offering something that audiences can relate to.
"With many plays it can be very different things. It's how deep you dig into the material," Thompson observes of his approach as an actor. “I’ve done a lot of research and read books where it says, this is what this play is all about. As an actor you can accept that, and maybe live in some sort of frame of mediocrity, or you can say this is a guideline and I'm going to try to break the rules and push the envelope in one direction or another." This is the first year in recent memory that the marquee production of the season at S&Co. is a non-Shakespeare play; Simotes says the idea came from Dukakis (seen with Apollo in a Kevin Sprague photo from The Tempest above) who told him she thought she had one more Mother Courage in her. “How do you say no to that? Someone says, 'Would you like to possibly get to the top of Mt Everest?'" Simotes muses, “you go: 'Hell yeah.'" “It’s a very steep mountain," Thompson chimes in. “But it’s a rewarding one." Enlivened by the discussion and fully in the flow, Dukakis caps the exchange. “What else are you going to do with your life?" What else, indeed. Mother Courage and her Children at Shakespeare & CompanyJuly 26 - August 25, 2013 Tina Packer Playhouse 70 Kemble Street Lenox, MA 01240 Tickets: (413) 637-3353
