Under the Sign of The Mother

Abstract

A key lesson of the Wooster Group’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s learning play The Mother concerns the meaning of ownership in capitalism. Unlike other businesses that moved into SoHo during the wave of deindustrialization that began in the late 1960s, the group of actors that owns a former metal stamping factory at 33 Wooster Street shows that their relationship towards their means of production is not only economic, but also ethical. This is at the foundation of their distinct theatrical aesthetics.