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