THE THREEPENNY OPERA
In Threepenny, Brecht and Weill turned conventional assumptions about human behavior topsy-turvy, specifically poking fun at the sentimentality of popular musical theater. You want romance? Sure, we’ll give you romance: an elopement between a handsome man and a pretty girl. Except instead of a student prince, the man happens to be a murderer and gang leader–name of Macheath, aka Mack the Knife–and the girl’s the daughter of a pair of con artists. Marital responsibility? When Mack has to flee the police, it’s his bride Polly who takes over his criminal operation–and she runs it more efficiently and more brutally than he did. Law and order? Represented by none other than the chief of police himself, Tiger Brown–whose mutually beneficial friendship with Macheath goes back to their Army days, when they performed their patriotic duty (killing foreigners).
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And religion? Polly’s father, Mr. Peachum, turns directly to the Bible for inspiration–specifically, for inspirational proverbs he can use on gullible do-gooders to separate them from their money. Instead of direct-mail pitches or televangelism, Peachum’s scam is to organize beggars into a guild, costume them as cripples and blind men, send them out to panhandle from the middle classes, and skim a healthy hunk of the profits.
For once you must try not to shirk the facts.
Remember if you wish to stay alive.
The problem is that Hildebrand thinks Brechtian “alienation” means we shouldn’t believe the characters. Not so; we have to believe in their reality in order to understand them. We should not be suckered in by our emotional responses to them; but that’s something different.
