Where's the Beef?

THEATER REVIEW: Arden Theatre Co.'s Threepenny Opera

by David Anthony Fox

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Published: Oct 13, 2010

What is it about the word "Brechtian" that makes me want to reach for a gun? It's not Bertolt Brecht, certainly, nor his collaborator, composer Kurt Weill.Their work together is brilliant, rooted in complex theory, and artistically and ideologically rigorous.No, my problem with the term is its regular misuse by followers and adaptors, who think "Brechtian" is merely a synonym for "edgy," "in-your-face" or "theatrical" (whatever that means).

Consider Threepenny Opera. It's a play with songs — but not a conventional musical — that is equal parts bourgeois comedy of manners and the darkest of parables. (When Polly Peachum, daughter of a parvenu family, marries the crook and murderer Macheath, her parents are up in arms — it's bad for business.) The famously strange "Mack the Knife" pretty much encapsulates the tone, and it's important to remember the work's cultural context — Threepenny premièred in Berlin in 1928.

At the Arden Theatre Co., Threepenny gets a very snazzy production that on its own is often enjoyable (though overlong).The design work — lighting especially — is sensational. There are many fine bits of stagecraft, and the piece has an impressive sense of cohesion.And filled as it is with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, it certainly is edgy.

But where's the beef? This translation by Jeremy Sams and Robert MacDonald is self-conscious and anachronistic, and has blunt force rather than slyness and poetry.(Brecht's original has all of it.) Much of the acting is under-characterized, especially the amiable, TV-ready Macheath.The singing is good, but only Mary Martello (Mrs. Peachum) makes it a genuine extension of character and really relishes the words.By contrast, big numbers for Polly and Jenny, superbly done on their own terms, feel too much like Broadway diva moments.Most problematically, this Threepenny is nearly devoid of danger and politics — surface grit without bite.

So it's a conundrum. Arden's Threepenny offers a lot of entertainment, and to judge from the very enthusiastic audience, will win many new fans.But they will get only a vague sense of the power of the original.(On opening night, director Terry Nolen came out just before the second act to announce that the Phillies had won, which struck me as the most Brechtian moment of the evening.)

Depth of Field
Body Mind and Hair
March of the Humannequins
Kaleidoscope
The Forest for the Trees
True Fiction
The Word
Light Drift
Many Entendres
HOMIESAPIENS/Atypical
The Big Sea