The Mother

After a year’s delay due to the global pandemic, The Mother premiered in June at Vienna’s prestigious Wiener Festwochen, the festival’s only theater piece from the United States. Brecht conceived of The Mother as a “learning play,” intended to both entertain with its clear, plainspoken language and musical numbers, and to incite social change. Brecht addressed the play mainly to working-class women. It tells the story of a poor, uneducated Russian mother’s journey to revolutionary action. The play premiered in Berlin in 1932 and was the last of Brecht’s plays to open in Germany before the Nazis seized power.

The Wooster Group’s modern American interpretation of The Mother evokes parallels between contemporary political unrest and the socialist revolutions that inspired Brecht’s play. In embracing Brecht’s ideas for his “learning plays,” the Wooster Group takes a direct approach to the source text and incorporates new music by composer Amir ElSaffar.