Based on John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera by Bertolt Brecht (text) and Kurt Weill (music) in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann. Directed
by Barrie Kosky. Musical Director Adam Benzwi. Stage design Rebecca Ringst. Costumes
Dinah Ehm. Lighting Ulrich Eh. Sound design Holger Schwank. Dramaturgy Sibylle
Baschung.Berliner Ensemble. Her Majesty’s Theatre Adelaide Festival March 6-10 2024
Reviewed by PeterWilkins
The review below was written after seeing the opening night on Thursday March 7th. The production was beset with technical glitches, such as the hydraulic system not working, some problems with miking and surtitles only being run in the stalls so that many in the \Dress and Upper Circles were unable to read them easily. I returned the following Saturday to find the hydraulic system working perfectly, surtitles installed on every level and the production working brilliantly, Not only that, but the performers were more relaxed and although on the Opening Night, the cast continued to give outstanding performances, the corrections to the technical faults resulted in a million dollar Threepenny Opera worth its weight in gold,
On the opening night of The Threepenny Opera at the Adelaide
Festival, Artistic Director Ruth Mackenzie CBE appeared on stage to announce
that the hydraulic system was not working and the Berliner Ensemble company had
been working all day to restage Bertolt Brecht, Elisabeth Hauptman and Kurt
Weill’s musical satire on capitalism, corruption and morality.
This did nothing to detract from
the brilliant performances, the superb, gutsy orchestration and the genius of
director Barrie Kosky. The theatrical currency of Kosky’s production is pure
gold. Even without the hydraulics to raise and lower the platforms that
comprise the set, the actors worked the silver spangled curtain that hung from
the flys. In the Brechtian tradition this is actor’s theatre, raw, gritty,
muscular and inventive. Although almost a century after it was first staged by
Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble, Kosky has breathed new life into a revival that
appears fresh-minted, stripped of any artifice and refreshingly original and
relevant. The production retains the setting in London’s Soho but Rebecca
Ringst’s multi level set design strips away the naturalistic setting of
Peachum’s school for beggars or gangster Macheath’s warehouse hideaway or Tiger
Brown’s prison cell. The band members become Macheath’s underworld gang members.
Actors appear and disappear at times through the glittering silver curtain. A
chain around Macheath’s leg is enough to suggest a prison cell.
Contrary to a commonly held
opinion that Brecht’s work is overly didactic, Brecht himself would claim that
his main aim was to entertain. Kosky is the master of theatrical surprise and
comical business, drawing on physical theatre, vaudeville and clowning to feed
his fertile imagination. At the outset Moon over Soho ( Dennis Jankowiak)
appears as a face high up through the silver curtain to slowly and enticingly
sing The Ballad of Mack the Knife. Owner of the School for Beggars, Jonathan
Jeremiah Peachum (Tilo Nest) gives a clownish performance of the five states of
misery to touch the onlooker’s heart and purse. Tiger Brown (Kathrin Wehlisch)
feeds a blindfolded Macheath (Gabriel Schneider) his final meal of asparagus.
It is an hilarious moment of pure commedia as he shuffles the trolley with the Silent
movie detachment of a Buster Keaton.
Nowhere is Brecht’s Alienation
Effect that invites an audience to judge rather than be passive spectators more
evident than in the representational performances of the characters. Nowhere is
Brecht’s Marxist commentary on capitalism and oppression more apparent than in
the closing first half company rendition of What
Keeps Mankind Alive or Peachum’s Song of the Insufficiency of Human
Struggling in the second half. To see the Berliner Ensemble under Kosky’s
direction is to witness Brecht’s Epic Theatre in all its fierce satirical
attack on the establishment. That Macheath should be saved from hanging by the
arrival of the King’s official at the moment of proscribed execution is
evidence enough of society’s corruptive influence. Bribery and corruption are
the agents of treachery in the pact between Jenny (Julia Berger) and Celia Peachum (Constanze
Becker) to entrap Macheath,
a victim
of his sexual obsession.
Even
romantic love becomes a battlefield for power and control between Lucy,
performed with feisty determination by Laura Balzar, and Polly Peachum (Cynthis
Micas) as she traverses experience from
naïve innocence to corporate management and control of Mackie’s gang. Their Jealousy Duet is a riotous contest of
viperish wile, where phantom pregnancy is the bartering chip.
Kosky’s production is a
triumphant display of ensemble acting. There is the sharp outline of
Expressionism in every actor’s gesture and tone. The singing is at times
powerfully strident or seductively lyrical. Colour or the lack of it becomes a
symbol in Dinah Ehm’s costuming. In the absence of the plotted lighting as a
result I expect of the technical hitch, the use of follow spots gives a
pronounced starkness to the performance. To watch the Berliner Ensemble’s actors
play out Brecht’s political, social and economic intent is to see the
embodiment of Brecht’s evocation to judge and change. The performances are
riveting and mesmerising in their distinctive characterization. The orchestra
under Adam Benzwi’s baton is magnificent from the bold sound of the brass to
the more lilting melodies of the clarinet and the piccolo. All the elements of
the production fuse into a theatrical masterpiece in the tradition of Brecht’s
Berliner Ensemble.
Only the projection of the surtitles
on the side from where I was seated in the Dress Circle were occasionally
unclear depending on the lighting on the stage. I am very familiar with the
work, but for those with no knowledge of the language this could have caused
frustration. Perhaps the songs could have been sung in English to make Brecht’s
polemic clearer to those who may have had difficulty reading the surtitles.
As the Moon over Soho,a face
through the silver glittering curtain, Jankowiak in a closing reprise of Weill’s Ballad of Mack The Knife shines a light
on The Threepenny Opera’s message that those who are in the light are
seen while those who are not fade into the darkness. The Berliner Ensemble
production brings light into the darkness and the call for change into the light.
Kosky’s Threepenny Opera is a rare
theatrical experience as relevant today as when John Gay wrote The Beggar’s Opera and Brecht and
Hauptman and Weill wrote Die Dreigroschen
Oper. It is a highlight of this year’s Adelaide Festival that those
fortunate enough to see are unlikely ever to forget.
CREDITS
Assistant director
Leonie Rebentisch. Assistant musical director Levi Hammer, Daniel Busch.
Assistant stage designer Annett Hunger, Janina Kuhlmann. Assistant costume
designer Svenja Niehaus. Prompter Christine Schoenfeld. Stage managerFrank
Sellentin. Light stage manager Rainer Manja. Stage technician Gregor Schultz.
Sound Ralf Gaebler, Jonas Emanuel Hagen. Acoustic design Ralf Bauer-Diefenbach.
Light operator Markus Koessler. Props Timothy Hopfner, Anke Tekath. Makeup Lena
Hille. Friederike Reichel,Lili Zawierucha.Wardrobe Britta Klein, Marija
Obradovic, Alexander Zapp
CAST: Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum: Tilo Nest; Celia Peachum: Constanze
Becker; Polly Peachum: Cynthis Micas; Macheath (Mackie Messer Gabriel
Schneider; Brown Kathrin Wehlisch; Lucy: Laura Balzer; Jenny: Julia Berger;
Filch: Gabriel Schneider; Smith: Nicky Wuchinger; Macheath’s men and
prostitutes:
Dennis
Jankowiak, Teresa Scherhag, Julie Wolff, Nicky Wuchinger,the Moon over
Soho: Dennis Jankowiak and its double
Heidrun Schug.
ORCHESTRA: Conductor, piano, harmonium Adam
Benzwi, Alto saxophone, clarinet, flute, piccolo James Scannell. Soprano
saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone Doris Decker. Trumpet Nathan
Plante, Trombone, double bass Otwin Zipp. Drums Sebastian Trimolt. Guitar,
banjo Ralf Templin.
