Season 29, Day 9 - "Profiles in Courage"

It's Mother week, and today's quiz is inspired by Mother Courage and Her Children.

Mother Courage and Her Children

Mother Courage and Her Children is an anti-war play by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. Set in the 17th century during the Thirty Years’ War, it has been called one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, though it is rarely performed on American stages. The play is about a woman named Anna Fierling who is determined to eke out a living from the war by selling provisions to soldiers, earning the nickname “Mother Courage” from driving her cart through the middle of a raging battle. In the play, her three children (one of whom is named “Swiss Cheese”) are tragically killed one by one, in part due to her own actions. A target of Nazi persecution, Brecht left Germany just after Hitler took power in 1933. Mother Courage and her Children was written in response to the rise of Fascism/Nazism and the German invasion of Poland in 1939. The play is one of the most famous examples of “epic theatre,” an early to mid-20th century movement that aimed to induce social and political change. The title character of Mother Courage has been played by German actress Helene Weigel (Bertolt Brecht’s widow), Anne Bancroft, and Meryl Streep.