A Play On War

I saw "A Play On War" this weekend. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, but once I figured out what was going on I enjoyed it. I've been thinking a lot more lately about the script's intention vs. that of the director/actors, and this play really made me wonder about that (probably because I knew some background of the writing process). Like Hugo, I kind of wish I knew the original play "Mother Courage", because it took me about fifteen minutes to understand what was happening at all. The costumes, set, and acting were so bizarre (intentionally), that I think it inhibited the audience from getting a grip on the play; I wish it had started out a little calmer, just so the audience could get a basic understanding of the setting, and then gone all-out. There were a lot of great lines and characters: I particularly liked the prostitute and Mother. The director was clearly going for an extreme presentation, and sometimes it worked and other times it didn't, particularly in the actors' deliverance of their lines. I often found that the charicature-ish acting didn't hit the right note: a lot of the time it felt like the actors were confused about the direction, and ended up just going for laughs (which I don't think was the intention of the director in telling them to present their lines that way).
I really liked the witty banter (like in the bargaining scene), the repetition of the sound of music (especially when it was played on the TV, which was very haunting), the fight scene, the flirtation (between "the one with the cashbox" and both the prostitute and "the one who doesn't speak" who I'm hoping wasn't his biological sister), when the soldiers had synchronized lines, and many other things. A lot of the play was just really clever, whether it was the dialogue or the way things were portrayed, like when the soldier dropped shoes off the balcony to signify a massacre.
My favorite part was definitely when "the one who doesn't speak" narrated some reenactments of previous scenes: it was a good way of showing how she was always the observer, and had a strong voice that just wouldn't come out.