And Her Children ★★★★★

And Her Children, a “reimagining” of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children playing at the Soho Playhouse, works even if you’re not familiar with the original. But if you are, this superb production lands harder, reverberating on multiple levels at once. Rosie Glen-Lambert and Hailey McAfee’s adaptation for the modern era is bracingly unsettling; it understands Brecht’s moral machinery and repurposes it with frightening precision.

In this almost-solo show (violinist Julia Hoffmann memorably bookends the piece), McAfee plays Anna Fierling, a spokesperson for the NRA who knows how to sell herself and her worldview. Dressed in a powder-blue pantsuit, gold cross necklace, and heels, she cuts a formidable figure: corporate, patriotic (an American flag stands tall in the background), and untouchable. Anna knows from the get-go that many attending the town hall she’s leading—the audience—will be disappointed in her or find her selfish, but her confidence is (mostly) unshakeable. Early on, before she reveals her profession, she casually asks, “There is no ethical employment under capitalism, right?” It lands as both a provocation and a tell: a neat philosophical dodge that preemptively absolves everything that follows.

Anna’s titular children—twins Eli and Kat and their younger brother Sawyer—function much like Brecht’s original offspring: collateral damage in a system that rewards survival over morality. As she recounts various familial events—the script brilliantly handles its reveals—what’s hauntingly clear is that Anna loves her children and is in most ways a good mother, albeit an imperfect one, fiercely committed to a proud pragmatism. When Anna explains her approach to parenting, the logic is chillingly clear. “I wanted him to learn that honesty is not always the best policy,” she says. “That being sincere won’t necessarily yield the thing you want. That sometimes telling the truth gets you hurt.” In this world, ethical compromise isn’t a failure; it’s a lesson passed down.

Tightly directed by Glen-Lambert, And Her Children blazes through its 85 minutes. McAfee is utterly believable, even when Anna says things that make your skin crawl. Her remarkable performance never winks at the audience or softens the blow. She has no need to be liked, but she insists that you understand her position, or at least hear it.

In Brecht’s world, war is profitable because people learn to live with it. And Her Children suggests something even bleaker: that in contemporary America, violence endures because we can no longer agree on what it means or whether anyone can really be held to blame. Anna believes that violence is an implicit part of life and that her professional role is no better or worse than anyone else’s, leaving the audience to reckon with complicity in a world that rewards moral compromise.