Three Penny Opera

[BudFrump23]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 5:48pm

Has anyone ever heard/seen this performed. I saw it this past summer at Williamstown Theater Festival with Betty Buckley in one of the roles. (I do not remember who she played, because I fell asleep during the show!) I thought it was dreadful. The music was so...deranged. It ended and began so ubruptly. I did not enjoy this score at all.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 6:14pm

The abruptness is signature Brecht. He was known for isolating his audience and not wanting them to become emtionally involved with the characters or story. In his plays he would use loud bells or gunshots that had nothing to do with the plot to distract the audience. The more you know about Brecht, the more you can understand the show. He was very politically motivated in his writings. I did the show and did not have much of an opinion of it before I performed it. It was a process and I ended becoming quite fond of it. It also depends on the translation. My personal favorite is the new Donmar version.

I had the same thing happen with Hello Again. I didn't care much for the CD, but when I did the show, I was blown away with its complexity. You can't possibly catch all the subtle repeated themes in one viewing.

If you don't like the Threepenny score, then it's probably best you avoid Cradle Will Rock as well. Blitzstein's score is quite similar and he did the first translation of Threepenny with Brecht and Weill.

[BillyLawlor]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 7:39pm

They performed this show at Laguardia High School in Manhattan, and I loved their performance! The music was fine, and the show all together had a nice story, and was funny- not to add the kids were amazingly talented. I agree- it did seem very abrupt at times.

[thirdrowcenter]

Posted: 12/11/03 at 10:13pm

I saw it years and years ago with Raul Julia and Ellen Greene. I remembered a line from the show and later had it placed on my pet's headstone "Love Will Endure Regardless of where we are."

[~*The Broadway Baby*~]

Posted: 12/12/03 at 11:34am

My performing company just put this on last year and it was a really big success.
The thing about this show is you have to listen to every word of it or your not going to understand it at all. And the abruptness about this show is what makes it its own. I played the prositute Jenny, and I thought the music was great. I haven't seen it performed anywhere else, but I remember listening to the Cd of it with Bea Arthur and I remember wanting to shoot myself. But because we did a few different versions of the numbers from it and put a few different twists to it, it was a really good show. Its one of my favourite ones Ive been in so far. But there are so many different versions of the songs from this musical so maybe you just saw one that wasn't that great? I don't know, but I really enjoyed being in this musical, and there wasn't any negative feedback from people so I guess its a matter of performance, what version it is and who is watching it.

~*Broadway Baby*~