ABSTRACT
Brecht’s The Mother (written in 1930-1 and based on the novel of the same name by Maxim Gorki, published in 1907), hitherto a comparatively little-known play in Britain, was performed a number of times in London and around England in the early 1970s. It is a play explicitly about a woman’s relationship to the Communist movement in Russia between 1905 and 1917. At the beginning of the play Vlassova is hostile to politics, dislikes violence and worries over her son Pavel: is he well? Is he getting enough to eat? —conventional maternal concerns. As the play progresses, she is drawn into her son’s struggles-learning to read, going on demonstrations, getting beaten up. By the end her entire life is taken up with campaigning out on the streets for peasants and workers to join in fighting against the Tsar and for Communism.
