Summary: THEATER OF WAR: MERYL STREEP IS AN UNFORGETTABLE MOTHER COURAGE in Tony Kushner’s adaptation of the Brecht masterpiece, presented by The Public Theater/NY Shakespeare Festival in Central Park during summer 2006. filmmaker John Walter’s earlier documentary, HOW TO DRAW A BUNNY, explored the psychological ramifications of the life and art of Ray Johnson. His new movie could easily have been a star vehicle for Streep and Kevin Kline. Instead he digs deeply into Brecht’s motives and politics, unearthing the playwright’s famed (and famously clever) testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (the day after which he quit the United States). THEATER OF WAR is about theater and war, capitalism and Marxism, the postwar anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s, and one literary genius’s ability to make art from them all. This podcast is the Q & A with filmmaker JOHN WALTER, recorded December 27, 2008, during his appearance at Film Forum.
