Berlin Festival Seeks to Unite Cultural Backgrounds
As part of the Uniting Backgrounds Festival, the Polish play ‘M(other) Courage’ uses a choir to convey an image of conflict in Europe
October 19th, 2016Marta Górnicka studied at the Warsaw Theatre Academy and graduated in Drama Directing, but her academic background is much more extensive; she attended the Frederic Chopin School of Music, the Warsaw University and the State Drama School in Krakow.
Between 2009 and 2014 she expanded on her interest in choir, which she has incorporated into her play ‘M(other) Courage’. “I wanted for the choir to be the hero”, Górnicka said. This vision is realized in the play, in which more than twenty actors sing and act on the stage for 45 minutes. Górnicka aimed to feature female voices and showcase choir as a theatrical medium.
‘M(other) Courage’ is a reinterpretation of Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece, but also draws on various other sources of inspiration, from nursery rhymes to newspaper clippings and the Bible.
Górnicka’s play draws on the idea of woman who benefit from war, which at the same time harms their children. The play explores the theme of the price of war today, and aims to give a voice to people who live amongst conflict in Europe.
In 2015, the play was performed for the first time at the State Theatre in Braunschweig, Germany, and was voted by Nachtkritik.de as one of the best performances of the year.
The play is part of the Uniting Backgrounds Festival, the theme of which is ‘theater on democracy’. The festival takes place between the 8th and the 23rd of October in Berlin at the Maxim Gorki Theater. The event gives artists the opportunity to meet and express their art, which deals with the political situation of their homelands.