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NEW YORK -- It's a given that there's nothing Meryl Streep can't do in front of a camera or a live audience.
But every so often, a part comes along that truly accommodates, and challenges, her great and varied gifts: the unaffected intelligence and lack of vanity, the razor-sharp timing and playful wit, the profound empathy for all manner of human experience.
Such a plum is the title role of Mother Courage and Her Children, Bertolt Brecht's timeless study of the brutality and futility of war through the journey of one tragic, remarkable woman.
But the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Mother Courage (*** 1/2 out of four), at the Delacorte Theater through Sept. 3, promises more than a dream marriage of actress and character. This revival also features a new translation by Tony Kushner -- and who better than the author of Angels in America and Caroline, or Change to offer a fresh take on a play showing the resilience of an individual under the most trying circumstances?
Kushner's work has certainly suggested a debt to Brecht's pointedly political, consciousness-raising epic theater. So it's no surprise that this Courage doesn't avoid parallels between the Thirty Years' War that embroils 17th-century Europe and claims Courage's adult children -- even as it fuels her trade -- and more recent, religiously charged conflicts that have occupied our country in the Middle East.
At one point, Courage's companion, a roguish cook played by a wonderfully wily Kevin Kline, says of the Swedish monarch who invaded Poland, "It's a good thing the King's got God going for him. Or else people might suspect that he's just in it for what he can take out of it. But he's always had his principles, our King, and with his clear conscience he doesn't get depressed."
But however ironic or incriminating this Courage may seem in evoking current leaders or events, Kushner and director George C. Wolfe emphasize the more general and personal devastation of life during wartime -- even for survivors such as Brecht's proud, pragmatic heroine.
Streep's boldly unsentimental portrait reconciles all of Courage's complex and contradictory traits: her robust cunning and her paralyzing indecision, her earthy longing and her cynical detachment, her indomitability and her defeatism. Delivering The Song of the Great Capitulation -- one of a dozen tunes newly scored by Jeanine Tesori-- she evolves from a wry chanteuse to a thrilling, terrifying animal, clinging desperately to the scrap heap that life has left her.
Other fine performances include Jenifer Lewis' sassy prostitute and Alexandria Wailes' heartbreaking turn as Courage's mute daughter.
Of course, just the chance to see an enduringly great star in an enduringly great play is worth the wait on line for tickets. Which are still free, by the way.
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