Threepenny Opera_Wright State University_February 2007. Photo: Wright State University

On February 15-25, 2007, the Wright State Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures staged the Brecht/Hauptmann/Weill Threepenny Opera in the Robert and Elaine Stein Auditorium of the WSU Creative Arts Center. We were supported by a generous grant from the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, which I encourage all future producers of Weill’s work to explore (http://www.kwf.org/).  The grant enabled us to hire a first-rate on-stage combo of seven musicians, under the baton of WSU’s new Musical Director, New York veteran, Rick Church.  The music turned out to be quite exceptional, sung by 18 students in Wright State’s new Musical Theatre BFA program. I think Brecht would have appreciated our set: it was recycled from the strike of our production of Ragtime the previous season, which was twisted, draped with rags, and brought downstage, right in the audience’s lap; above the stage hung a large production screen for the numerous titles. 

As director, I chose the venerable but still stage-worthy translation by Marc Blitzstein of 1954.  I'd seen three New York productions - Richard Foreman's 1977 version (with Raul Julia) by Ralph Manheim and John Willett, John Dexter's 1989 production (with Sting) using Michael Feingold's translation, and Scott Elliott's 2006 version with Alan Cummings, using Wallace Shawn's new translation.  It’s curious that the New York Times called Shawn's

As director, I chose the venerable but still stage-worthy translation by Marc Blitzstein of 1954.  I'd seen three New York productions - Richard Foreman's 1977 version (with Raul Julia) by Ralph Manheim and John Willett, John Dexter's 1989 production (with Sting) using Michael Feingold's translation, and Scott Elliott's 2006 version with Alan Cummings, using Wallace Shawn's new translation.  It’s curious that the New York Times called Shawn's translation as "both more densely lyrical (with some cumbersome poetic tropes in the songs) and more explicitly obscene" but added that the Blitzstein version is "regarded by purists as a softened and sanitized interpretation."  I'd like to know who those purists are.  I found each of these productions losing much in translation. They strained too hard to make their points, forcing as many four-letter words into the text as possible. They tried too hard to be confrontational and abrasive, and the result was an impoverishment of the text.

But Blitzstein still works. Why? Because Blitzstein was a fabulous musician, and his lyrics convey the pulse of Brecht's poetry and the rhythm of Weill's eclectic score.  True, on the page some dialogue reads rather 1950-ish. But when spoken and sung, the play comes quite alive; moreover, it has teeth!  One could argue, line by line, which translation best renders Brecht’s words. But the proof of the pudding for any musical is: which text sings best?  For me, it remains the text by the writer/composer of perhaps the most Brechtian piece of American theatre, Cradle Will Rock.

I’d urge future directors of 3PO to give a listen to Blitzstein – but using your own cast! – and not the 1954 version at the Theatre de Lys, which is stylistically very much locked in the 1950’s.  I suspect that the kind-of jazzy, slurring of Scott Merrill’s Macheath may be what has driven away so many from Blitzstein.  Blitzstein’s excellent work can be reclaimed by a contemporary cast, keeping the sharpness of Brecht’s words while maintaining the dagger-like, and often contradictory pulse of Weill astonishing music.   Have your musical director listen to the fabulous 1930 recording by Telefunken with Lenya, Valetti, Ponto, and Trenk-Trebitsch, conducted by Mackeben, lay Blitzstein’s words on top, and you’ve got pure magic.

© Electronic Communications from the International Brecht Society: ECIBS 36.1 (Winter 2008)