High expectations can be a bitch. Having seen that a beloved play of mine, Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, was to be produced in the ADC, I was increasingly excited the further down I read on the CamDram entry. Nikki Moss directing, whose previous directing/writing gig, Dandelion Heart, had me in paroxysms of joy! The extraordinary Megan Roberts as Mother Courage! Max Upton, Ed Eustace, James Bloor, Kat Griffiths! It was like being a child reading the edition of a comic where all your favourite superheroes team up to fight the really, really big baddie. Well, this particular team of Cambridge talent had teamed up to fight a really big baddie of a play indeed. And on the first night, it looked like it was getting the better of them.

Bertolt Brecht is known for so-called “epic theatre”. This refers to a range of theatrical conventions he pioneered, including the “alienation technique” to tell a story in a dialectical or, crudely, agit-prop fashion. In this case however, it also just meant “epic” as in bloody big. This was a show with an 18-strong cast, 10-strong band, entire tents erected on stage, buildings wheeled on stage left, and a massive, omnipresent cart constructed of metal girders and towed around stage by performers-cum-oxen. This was a show in which you actually get to see the fabled back wall of the scene dock, so great is the space on stage required. The play is a truly epic three hours, even with voluminous cuts. I salute Moss’s ambition. But the scale proved too much. When it came to it the play was not ready by opening night. We were watching a show that hadn’t had a proper tech nor any kind of dress rehearsal. The cast were exhausted from being in the ADC for 48 hours trying to put the show together. I hate props at the best of times, but when they weigh half a ton, carry lots of other props and can get snagged on bits of set, they can be utterly psychopathic. The first night had a dozen nagging jolts when the fiddly bits got in the way.

Despite my expectations, however, I refuse to dig the knife in. What I could see very clearly was a great show suffering from chronic awkwardness. I still enjoyed myself hugely, and was never bored despite the runtime. Roberts’ performance at the centre of the show was raw and cruel and endearing and funny, with the sort of gypsy, piratical, morally ambivalent toughness that Courage should have as she toils on through the timeless “Thirty Years War”. The performances were universally commendable, in fact, with James Bloor showing excellent physical control for his young, naïve Swiss Cheese, Mick Campbell turning in a downtrodden, shufflingly amicable chaplain, and Max Upton providing a strangely witty, soft spoken Cook. The finest work came from the silent Kat Griffiths as Kattrin, Courage’s mute daughter, in a performance of beautiful eloquence – she is the emotional heart of the play, her pained cries and sullen visage skilfully returning humanity to the play’s bleak canvas.

Moss doesn’t go full-Brecht on us – no scene title-cards or audience interaction. The point of the play is apparent enough anyway – in war, moral values are utterly lost and all humanity that touches it is degraded. I didn’t feel the full force of the play as I have done before; but I could only put this down to the general lack of flow and zip caused by the exhaustion and set issues. Run this show efficiently and you’d have a really excellent rendition of a very difficult text. It is for this reason I am giving the show 4 stars – I review the play I saw the dress rehearsal of. I simply couldn’t bring myself to dislike something of such ambition with so much quality work in it. I mean to show more mercy than the play’s characters – that at least, I think, Brecht has succeeded in teaching me.