"MOTHER Courage and Her Children," the new Shakespeare in the Park show with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, has opened at the Delacorte in Central Park, and theatergoers may need courage to sit through it. Tuesday night’s first preview of the weighty 1941 Bertolt Brecht play clocked in at a mind-numbing 3 1/2 hours, and nearly 100 people had left the 1,892-seat house by the end, one audience member told us. "Meryl is brilliant, but the play itself is boring, tortuous – it needs judicious cutting," our spy said. "A number of people left after 20 minutes. Many didn’t return after intermission and then, three hours in, during a long song by Kevin Kline, they were pouring out. Many were older, so they might want to retitle it ‘Flight of the Elderly.’ " Public Theater flack Arlene Kriv at first insisted to Page Six that not a single person had walked out of the play, which has a new translation by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner and is directed by George Wolfe. She later conceded there may have been a few defections, but said the play will not be cut: "The show is what it is – a long show."
Page Six (story) and AP (photo)
