Good morning, all! When the alarm rang at 6:37, I was dreaming that an office typrewiter was eating my notes, and this formidable secretary was rewriting me. I also had a strange dream involving my father, my brother Tom, and a very cute yellow and gray kitten. In another hour, both wil be even more vague.
DR FJL, the THREEPENNY OPERA script published in the collected works of Brecht and basis for all contemporary translations is not the 1928 Berlin script set by Weill. Between 1929 and Brecht's death. he revised the libretto twice and rewrote lyrics, all without Weill's input or knowledge. The original production was a comedy, and it was mostly Elizabeth Hauptmann's translation of John Gay's THE BEGGAR's OPERA, with ammendments to the text and lyrcis - two of which were plagiarized adaptations of Francois Villon - by the mighty Brecht.
A friend of mine worked on the Theatre de Lys BERLIN TO BROADWAY and said that Lenya was always bitching when things varied from her memory of what occurred in the Berlin productions she remembered; then they adjusted staging to please her. I can't imagine she was any easier on THREEPENNY in 1952-1954. While I'm a great fan of Blitzstein's adaptation and I think any foreign work needs to be rethought to keep the language up-to-date, I still think no translation sings as well as Blitzstein. The man gets kicked about in the press on any new THREEPENNY translation, as if to say "he was so wrong and we're so right." Wrong. He may have been cautious in 1952, but he provided the right text to make Weill and the piece a success. And his lyrics, with one exception, make their points with more humor than the original German. I think his "Useless Song" is not very good and should have had one more rewrite, and some of the "Army Song" could be better. "Mack the Knife" is a wonderful lyric, and it sets the whole tone of the Blitzstein: raffish, a bit sleazy, funny, and sinister.
Once I heard that Lucy in this new production was a drag role and Alan Cumming the Macheath, I decided this production was not for me: this THREEPENNY has more to do with psychosexual fantasies on the director's part than an examination of the original text. Brecht's notes - which no one's talking about in this production - make it clear the piece is one more Brechtian indictment of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, not clubbing bisexuals and a desire to be outrageous. They're only talking about Brecht's "grittiness," whatever the hell that is.
Off the soapbox! Gotta run to meet a friend for breakfast.
