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According to Playbill, Christopher Walken will play the critical role of Cook in the Aug. 8-Sept. 3 Central Park staging of Brecht’s classic Mother Courage, starring Meryl Streep in the title role. Walken and Streep appeared together in the Public Theater’s 2001 revival of Chekhov’s The Seagull, which also played the Delacorte Theatre. Tony Kushner (Angels in America, Caroline, or Change) has penned a new adaptation of the war drama. Kushner’s Caroline, or Change collaborator Jeanine Tesori has created original music. George C. Wolfe will direct. The cynical Cook is one of the mercenary Mother Courage’s few constant companions as she and her children trudge through the bloody and pointless (in Brecht’s depiction) Thirty Years War. Streep caused a sensation in 2001 when she returned to the New York stage after a long absence to appear in a Mike Nichols rendition of Chekhov’s The Seagull in Central Park. Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman and Philip Seymour Hoffman also starred in that staging.
