The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 28

Arts a THE GUARDIAN Wednesday December 8 1993 Meat Loaf's UK tour opens in Glasgow To Hell! aocfl back THEATRE Mother Courage And Her Children Cottesloe Michael Billington BY A strange chance, the two great plays about the Thirty Years War are both in the repertory of our national companies. What is even odder is that Schiller's Wallenstein at The Pit gets a production of exemplary Brechtian clarity while Brecht's Mother Courage And Her Children at the Cottesloe directed by Anthony Clark for the National's Education Department is often unbearably moving. The paradox of Mother Courage is that it appeals simultaneously to head and heart. Brecht's point is that war teaches people nothing: Mother Courage, having lost her three children to a futile conflict, finally harnesses herself to her wagon to start up again in business. But while Brecht condemns her as "a battlefield vulture" in Hanif Kureishi's lively new version he also cannot prevent us warming to her dogged tenacity.

That is precisely why Brecht was a great dramatist: his humanist sympathy was constantly at war with his political orthodoxy. Coming at a time when former Yugoslavia is ravaged by a pitiless war, Clark's production is obviously timely; but it pushes the play almost too much towards poigant, personal tragedy. Ellie Haddington as Mother Courage has a strong, feisty, stage-enlivening presence. But in the famous scene when out of self-protec- Courage photograph. Henrietta butler hulk comes that quivering, semi-operatic sob of a voice, which remains resolutely interpretive and lyric-grounded despite the guitar violence around it.

The current hit, I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), is musically preposterous but emotionally affecting. Jim Steinman, Meat Loafs songwriter, has formed a repertoire which, bizarrely, reminds you of the classic age of Tin Pan Alley, lifting ornate metaphors out of daily jabber. Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are, apart from being the longest song title I know, is a stately epic from the new album which scrapes every strip of ham off Mr Loaf. But the rest of the catalogue is performed straight into the hearts of the greying, swaying crowd Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad. You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth, Heaven Can Wait, all drowned out by a singing audience that's clearly used Bat Out Of Hell as therapy tape for maturity.

Meat Loaf takes the adulatory roar with all the grace of a Rugby League prop-forward. A militantly unfashionable spectacle; but rock can be an old companion, as well as a catharsis. Sheffield tomorrow. Manchester on Friday and Birmingham on Sunday. Pat Kane EAT LOAF has a fine audience for his Glasgow concert.

Enter a proud legion of forty-somethings, squeezed mto rocK denims and old tour T-shirts, their children splitting off in embarrassment beyond the ticket gate Fifteen years ago, Meat Loafs Bat Out Of Hell album provided a melody-drenched antidote to punk rock for an entire generation of young marrieds. The hit sequel daringly titled Bat Out of Hell has evidently brought every one of them back, going by this sell-out, crowd. If popular music must do bombastic things with guitars and drums, then let it always be with the humour, melodrama and sincere excess displayed by Meat Loaf this evening. The show begins with some excellent corn a watery string quartet plays various familiar themes from the Loaf catalogue, until they're blasted off stage by some state-of-the-art feedback from a tradesman guitarist. The star stomps on stage, smaller than memory but still an affront to aerobic rock.

As usual with real stars, Meat Loaf works by paradox: out of the Texan Feisty. Haddington as Mother tion she denies recognition of her dead son, Swiss Cheese, she lets her face brim with tears and her legs momentarily buckle as she surveys the corpse: not only would this betray her instantly but it's against the spirit of the text which is about the human cost of survival. Likewise when she sticks with daughter Kat-trin pretending it's for the sake of the wagon, she misses the gruff common sense with which the character invariably masks emotion. If I am critical, it is only because Haddington is potentially a great Courage here prey to sentimental direction. In other respects, Clark gets the play right.

The periods merge easily so that 17th century costumes coexist with a Courage in headscarf, trousers and boots, and an onstage wireless set that announces the content of each scene. The eight actors also switch roles unfussily and give full weight to Sue Davies's lyrics and Mark Vibrans's music: Chris Mac-Donnell as a cigar-chomping general and Saira Todd as a shaven-headed whore later transformed into a balloon-hipped colonel's wife are particularly good. It's a robust production of Brecht's play rendered in vigorous contemporary argot "Shut your face, you Finnish fart" by Kurei-shi. I just feel that it over-emphasises empathy with the heroine at the expense of criticism of her petty-bourgeois capitalism. In rep at the Cottesloe (071-928-2252).

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