Theater of War

Review

John Walter’s documentary Theater of War alternates rehearsal footage of George C. Wolfe, Tony Kushner, and Meryl Streep's exhumation of Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children with (cleaned-up) stories of the life and times of old Bertolt. As a onetime dramaturg and Brechtian, I enjoyed the chin-wags and the glimpses of Streep in rehearsal�especially her quivering admission that she can’t bear the thought of anyone seeing her process. The movie throws in a cogent Marxist primer and reminders of all the collateral damage (economic and physical) generated by our war machine. All I missed was a hint that East Germany in the fifties didn’t bestow its bounties on all such lusty, provocative thinkers. — David Edelstein