It was written in collaboration with Hanns Eisler, Slatan Dudow and Günther Weisenborn in 1930–31 in prose dialogue with unrhymed irregular free verse and ten initial songs in its score, with three more added later.
Neher also designed the sets for this production and Helene Weigel recreated the lead role, with Ernst Kahler playing Pavel and Busch as Lapkin.
[2] In the play, Brecht utilizes narrative, irony, the juxtaposition of self-proclaimed "truths" to reveal their flaws, the concretizing of complex ideas into dramatic events, an understanding and simple presentation of human behaviour, and a comedic optimism that things can be changed and that reason and common sense will overcome fear and superstition.
The title character, the mother Pelagea Vlassova, journeys through the play's fourteen scenes, the death of her son, and her own impending illness, fighting illiteracy while constantly filled with good humor and wily activism.
The play has garnered continued recognition[citation needed] for its forensic, witty and, some would say, humanist critique of capitalism seen through the experiences of those obliged, as Brecht saw it, to live beneath that system's crushing weight.