NASHVILLE, Tenn. – "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."

The great German dramatist Bertholt Brecht was not talking about People's Branch Theatre when he made that statement. But with its transcendent production of Brecht's MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, Nashville's top experimental theater troupe once again encourages change by leading where others should follow. How? By challenging local theater practitioners and patrons to consign artistic conventionalism to the historic dustbin.

Director Jeffrey Frace has taken Brecht's 1941 "business play" with a wartime setting and adhered to the author's "epic theater" style. His cadre of actors have responded to present this masterwork with the freshness and contemporary relevance it deserves.

MOTHER COURAGE is ostensibly set during the Thirty Years' War that ravaged Europe in the 1600s, but Frace's staging (complete with some costumes and props that recall more recent conflicts) allows us to focus on what's being presented without getting stuck on any period of history. Mother Courage (Brenda Sparks) is a traveling saleswoman making good profits off wartime customers with the aid of her three children. There's the headstrong Eilif (Brandon Boyd), who would just as soon join the fighting; "Swiss Cheese" (Josh Childs), who's mentally slow but good-natured and loyal; and Kattrin (Denice Hicks), a mute whose gentle spirit will be sorely tested by the horrors that lie before her and her family.

The chief element of Brecht's epic theater is "Verfremdungseffekt." It involves distancing theatergoers from the action of the play through speech, gesture, costumes, setting or other devices. Brecht didn't want audiences emotionally caught up in a play, believing they wouldn't be moved to social action if they merely gave themselves over to feelings created by the story. If his work is done properly, one never forgets while watching that this is a play in a theater. Suspension of disbelief is not part of the contract between actors and audience.

This highly theatrical style demands actors who have the range and talent to handle it. Frace has those actors in this show, starting with Sparks in the title role. She understands the irony of a character who is shrewd but learns nothing from her wartime experiences while focused resolutely on her survival. Dressed like Mama Cass, but with an edge to her personality more reminiscent of Mama Rose, Sparks' performance is commanding.

Hicks brings an ethereal beauty to the personality of her Kattrin that's worth watching.  Boyd and Childs also acquit themselves well as Courage's wayward sons. Fellow veteran performers Matthew Carlton and Brian Webb Russell lend their sure-handed skills as the Cook and Chaplin who look to Mother Courage for more than bread and conversation.

There's also some new blood on PBT's stage that demonstrate their ample talents, including Tia Shearer's entertaining turn as the prostitute Yvette. The rest of the ensemble - Matthew Bassett, Natalie Johnsonius, Eric Pasto-Crosby, Rodrikus Springfield and Claire Syler - are no less gifted or engaging.

Frace, who also directed PBT's excellent adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 earlier this season, manages this large cast and Brecht's smorgasbord of a script well. He's produced a kind of "ordered chaos" which presents MOTHER COURAGE with all the brutality, and theatricality, that Brecht intended.

Don Griffiths deserves praise for the detail of his war-ravaged set design, which is complemented by the eclectic costume design of June Kingsbury. Chip Weinstein's light design truthfully evokes the starkness of this production's playscape.

MOTHER COURAGE is the must-see production of this theater season. People's Branch Theatre has made it so with a profoundly crafted presentation of Brecht's masterwork. With its innovation and artistry, PBT continues to bridge the gap between what Nashville theater has been and what it should be.