Your visceral response to “The Threepenny Opera” might well depend on your previous exposure to Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 breakout slap to the face of German theater.
The less you know, maybe the better.
If you’re new to all this – that is to say, if you expect from the title that you’ll be seeing an actual opera; or if you only think of “Mack the Knife” as a hit single for Bobby Darin, you might find OpenStage & Company’s lush and ambitious new staging to be a comfortable introduction to a deeply cynical, difficult and potentially alienating theatrical form.
But any seasoned Brechtophile will bristle at the very notion of a comfortable “3PO.” Brecht’s gritty cabaret minstrel show was a jolt for its time. It celebrated the dregs of society against a jazzy Kurt Weill score once smashingly described as “brilliantly fractured and dissonant” – as a compliment.
“3PO” is tough terrain, but its importance in theater history is undeniable. It’s impossible to imagine a “Cabaret,” “Chicago” or “Urinetown” without it. Staging it is a valuable educational experience for director Denise Burson Freestone’s venerable and constantly surprising company. It’s wonderful that a community-based troupe would even take on such a challenge – one inherently built not to please. This is a gutsy topper to a varied season that has included “Saint Joan,” “Splitting Infinity” and “Enchanted April.”
But if you’re a purist, chances are something here will gnaw at you: Did they pick the best translation? Does the cast nail the irony, the biting tone, the boiling sarcasm Brecht intended? Are they comfortable enough in their Brechtian skins to bring his wretches and rapscallions to delicious life, or are they too self-conscious in their physical movements to maintain a confident tempo?
More important: How can you perform a Brechtian cabaret, one dependent on its interplay between musicians and actors, to recorded tracks?
Most important: Are we absolutely sure they get the joke here?
That joke is inherent in the title. This is an opera (one that’s not really an opera at all) “by and for beggars.” And operas don’t cost three cents – get it? Three pennies won’t get you gorgeous voices – it’ll get you raw and gritty voices.
Freestone’s production is worth considerably more than three cents, and that is both compliment and complaint. R. Thomas Ward’s sleek, ambiguous set, dominated by looming window frames, is just plain cool. Rebecca Spafford’s costumes are museum quality, the voices lovely and pristine.
But again, we’re talking beggars, whores and thieves here. This is meant to be a base and naughty experience with voices as ugly as the tale. Now, how often does a production get negative marks for voices too gorgeous? But what’s a director to do? Freestone is collaborating with Colorado State University Opera. Shrilling them up would be like tossing burlap on Angelina Jolie.
The ensemble, led by a suave if too well-bred Travis Risner as brutal lothario Macheath, are to be commended.
The tale they tell, based on John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera,” set by Freestone in what would have been, for Brecht, contemporary 1928 London. Macheath is a gangster who falls for Polly Peachum (Drew Barrymore doppelganger Katherine Yeager), daughter of a Fagin-type who employs all of the city’s beggars.
The two wed, sort of, but their bliss is shortlived when Polly catches Mac-
heath with prostitute Jenny Diver (an intriguing Gina Razón). Polly’s pop threatens to disrupt the queen’s coronation unless Mack is hanged – but it’s a double betrayal by his beloved whore that seemingly seals his fate.
Brecht, however, mocks the conceit of the surprise happy ending – not by having an unhappy one, but by going overboard the other way. The intent is to expose hypocrites in the theater, in the Bible, in the church, in government – even in the audience. Who is the bigger criminal, Brecht asks, the robber or the robbee?
This production just needs to get dirtier, less polite, more confident. It needs greater clarity of storytelling. Minimal attention is paid, for example, to true Brechtian presentational techniques. And the tempo is far too slow.
But whether novice or purist, the point will escape no one: People lie, cheat and steal, even from those they love, because they have forgotten what it means to be human. In Brecht’s world, there’s little hope that things will ever change.
———————————–
“The Threepenny Opera”
MUSICAL | OpenStage & Company, 417 W. Magnolia St., Fort Collins | Written by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Michael Feingold, music by Kurt Weill | Directed by Denise Burson Freestone | Starring Travis Risner, Katherine Yeager and Gina Razón | THROUGH JUNE 23 | 8 p.m.
Fridays-Saturdays, plus 2 p.m. June 10 and 17, and 7:30 p.m. June 21 | 2 hours, 45 minutes | $13-$20 | 970-484-5237 or openstage.com
—————————————-
3more
“THE SOUND OF MUSIC” Lavish Boulder’s Dinner Theatre production Wednesdays-Sundays through Sept. 1 at 5501 Arapahoe Ave. (303-449-6000, theatreinboulder.com).
“EVERY SECRET THING” In 1954, the FBI asks a junior high civics teacher to report on his colleagues. A Modern Muse commission by local playwright Judy GeBauer playing Fridays and Saturdays through June 30 at the Bug Theatre, 3654 Navajo St. (303-780-7836, modernmusetheatre.com).
“SYLVIA” Midlife crisis comedy about a man (Jonathan Farwell) who loves his wife (Deb Persoff) and his dog (Deb Note-Farwell). Times vary through July 14 at Bas Bleu, 401 Pine St., Fort Collins (970-498-8949 or basbleu.org).
–John Moore
THIS WEEK’S “RUNNING LINES” PODCAST: TED LANGE
You know him as Isaac on “The Love Boat.” The playwright and director of Shadow Theatre’s “Soul Surviver” talks with Denver Post theater critic John Moore.
