Lecture On Threepenny Opera
Lecture On Threepenny Opera
Lecture On Threepenny Opera
Brechts collaborators
Elisabeth Hauptmann: typed his manuscripts; helped him to write his plays
before 1933. Translated Gays The Beggars Opera for Brecht.
Margarete Steffin: worked with Brecht on the mss of most of his finest
works.
Helene Weigel: Brechts second wife; the original Mother Courage; ran the
Berliner Ensemble after Brechts death.
Kurt Weill: a composer who worked with Brecht from 1927-33; wrote the
music for The Threepenny Opera.
Caspar Neher: celebrated stage designer. Produced the set for The
Threepenny Opera.
he is unalterable
eyes on the finish
growth
linear development
man as a fixed point
thought determines being
feeling
EPIC THEATRE
Narrative
turns the spectator into an observer
arouses his capacity for action (the
world as it is becoming)
forces the audience to take decisions
communicates insights/presents a
picture of the world
spectator is made to face something
argument
brought to the point of recognition
the spectator stands outside, studies
the human being is the object of the
inquiry
he is alterable and able to alter
eyes on the course
montage
In curves
man as a process
social being determines thought
reason
(Brecht on Theatre,
37)
DRAMATIC THEATRE
plot
implicates the spectator in a stage
situation
wears down his capacity for action (the
world as it is)
provides the audience with sensations
communicates experiences to the
spectators
the spectator is involved in something
suggestion
instinctive feelings are preserved
the spectator is in the thick of it, shares
the experience
the human being is taken for granted
http://youtu.be/Ec0clERjQ5A?t=6s
Lockit the corrupt jailor of Gays play becomes Tiger Brown, Londons
police chief and one of Macs long-time associates.
Macheath the roguish highwayman becomes Mac the Knife, a vicious gang
leader and pimp. Like Gays Macheath Gays play, Mac cant resist the
allure of a brothel who is arrested, escapes, and is arrested again; unlike
Gays Macheath, who is relatively harmless, Mac the Knife is openly callous
and quite untroubled by the violence and murders perpetrated by his
gang.
Brecht retains Polly and Lucy (though Lucy now only pretends to be
carrying Macs child).
Brecht also retains, and revises, the ironized happy ending of Gays play,
where the Player intervenes to request that the Beggar spare Macheaths
life. In The Threepenny Opera, Brecht posits this change in classical terms
as a deus ex machina and also overtly politicizes it (Mac is pardoned
Bourgeois bandits
In his notes to the play, Brecht stresses the importance of representing the
respectability of the criminal world he depicts.
The bandit Macheath must be played as a bourgeois phenomenon. The
bourgoisies fascination with bandits rests on a misconception: that a bandit
is not a bourgeois. This misconception is the child of another misconception:
that a bourgeois is not a bandit. (Threepenny Opera, 82-3)
Macheath is the quintessential bourgeois man:
A businessman.
A creature of habit.
A man who claims cultural sophistication: A rosewood harpsichord along
with a renaissance sofa. Thats unforgiveable. (1.ii)
But who will prioritizes economy and utility: Get the legs sawn off that
harpsichord (1.ii).
Between ourselves its only a matter of time before I go over into banking
altogether. Its safer and more profitable. (2.iv)
The qualification peaceable normally attributed to the bourgeois by our
theatre is here achieved by Macheaths dislike, as a good businessman, of
shedding blood except where strictly necessary for the sake of business.
(Threepenny Opera, 83)
Happy Endings
The Threepenny Opera is concerned with bourgeois
conceptions not only as content, by representing them,
but also through the manner in which it does so. (81)
Brecht insisted that the finale the deus ex machina
that spares Macheath - ought to be play seriously. The
satire emerges because its played straight.
There is no avoiding the sudden appearance of the
Royal Mounted Messenger if the bourgeoisie are to see
their own world depicted. (87)
The happy ending is a bourgeois form. It offers the
fantasy of resolution but a fantasy that is robust
precisely because it recognizes itself as fantasy.
Photograph of the
1928 production.
At the close, Peachum states: In real life the fates [the poor] meet can only
be grim. Saviours on horseback are seldom met with in practice. (3.ix)
Injustice should be spared from persecution: | Soon it will freeze to death,
for it is cold.
What does this mean?