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Airdate: Theatre of War

Meryl Streep acting in a Bertolt Brecht play on the telly? You better believe it.

streepMeryl Streep acting in a Bertolt Brecht play on the telly? You better believe it.

In 2006, with wars raging in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, New York’s Public Theatre set out to stage Tony Kushner’s (Angels in America) new translation of Bertolt Brecht’s anti-war epic Mother Courage and Her Children. The renowned piece explores the terrifying theme of Brecht’s masterpiece: Why does history repeat itself in an endless cycle of violence and warfare?

Meryl Streep took time out from making movies to take on the title role. She starred alongside Kevin Kline in this three-and-a-half-hour play, in which she sang several songs and was in nearly every scene under veteran director George C. Wolfe.

Theatre Of War was given extraordinary access to document the complete behind-the-scenes creative process from first read-throughs to dress rehearsals.

Cast: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Barbara Brecht-Schall, Jay Cantor, Oskar Eustis, Tony Kushner, Carl Weber, George C. Wolfe and Jeanine Tesori.

Certainly a change from the usual offerings!

This will air at 8:30pm Sunday November 8th on ABC2.

3 Responses

  1. I always wanted to see some of her performance as Mother Courage. I’ve worked on two productions of it and it’s a very difficult play to produce and espcially for actors and directors to dissect.

    She did get fairly good (though surprisingly not extraodinary) reviews for her time as Mother Courage.

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