Rehearsing Mother Courage in Sri Lanka

Working on this play here in Sri Lanka is a living experience. The actors know what Brecht is writing about. They are living it, they have experienced most of what he has put into this great play about the futility of war. Already we have lost several of the cast to the events unfolding here: the peace process between the government and the LTTE grinds on slowly, and families worried about the safety of their children remove them from our rehearsals and send them to Canada or India. To safety. In attempting to get the words off the pages, to understand and bring to life the view that Brecht has of war and human behaviour under pressure, I ask the cast: What was is like after the tsunami? What is is like to live in a danger zone? They know. They can show me.

One scene, after Mother Courgae has attempted to bribe officials to save her son and lost, and then refuses to identify her dead son's body in order to save her own life, we see her sitting outside a tent waiting to complain about how the army has damaged her cart. I asked the actors in this scene: What happened days after the tsunami, when you were still sleeping in the open and had nothing? Already people were complaining, were stealing, were being greedy for the aid that was pouring into the country, they told me. One described his anger at how some of his fellow villagers behaved. The cast had no problems improvising this scene, or understanding how Mother Courage, a day after her son's execution, can complain, not mourne. Survival. This cast of tsunami and war affected have no sentimental ideas about how to survive. They know.

Sometimes when I am away from home and loved ones for long periods I question this choice. Then I look at what I am learning. There is an assumption that when we teach or direct we are passing on knowledge we already have, something we own in perfection. But it is not like that. For years now I have had the priviledge to learn through being with groups of students, participants or actors, and I learn through their learning and their willingness to share their lives and heart journeys with me. I can read about war. I have had my own experiences of being in danger zones. I have no idea whatever what it is like to be affetced by a wave rising without warning out of a benign ocean and destroying lives and homes utterly. My cast know both, intimately. Through them my experience of being a human being can grow. Please come and see these new actors, with the great actress Anoja Weerasinghe playing the lead role, perform 'Mother Courage and Her Children'. The first perfomances are scheduled for March 31st, April 1st and 2nd at The Lionel Wendt Theatre here in Colombo.

Most of the cast have nothing. They and their families still live in tents or temporary accommodation. Being here in Colombo with The Abhina Foundation is educating them and giving them hope. Their food, clothing, accommodation and other costs accumulating during the rehearsal period are met entirely by generous donors. If you can help in any way please send your donation to:

The Abhina Foundation UK
C/O 8 St Johns Court
Isleworth
Middlsex
TW7 6PA

You can also visit: www.abhina.org.