Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera,” directed by Drew Scott Harris, opened on Wednesday, Feb. 25 for a two-week run in the Main Stage theater at Wagner College.
From Wednesday through Saturday, Feb. 25-28 and March 4-7, the curtain will go up at 8 p.m., with matinees playing at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28 and Saturday and Sunday, March 7-8. Ticket prices are:
Wednesday and Thursday evenings, general admission $23, seniors & students $22, children $16
Friday and Saturday evenings, $27, $25, $18
Matinees $26, $24, $17
Student rush is available one hour before showtime at the box office. For tickets, call the box office at 718-390-3259 or e-mail boxoffice@wagner.edu.
In addition, playwright Rebecca Joy Fletcher will present a free “lecture in song” on Sunday, March 8 at 12:30 p.m. before the final matinee performance of “The Threepenny Opera.” Fletcher’s lecture, “Rebels & Visionaries: Jewish Cabaret Artists Between the Wars,” will be given in Spiro Hall, Room 4.
For everything you wanted to know about “The Threepenny Opera” — and more — visit the Web site maintained by the Kurt Weill Foundation at www.threepennyopera.org.
Thursday March 5, 2009
REVIEW:
‘THE THREEPENNY OPERA’ AT
STATEN ISLAND’S WAGNER COLLEGE
by LISA ANN WILLIAMSON
STATEN ISLAND, NY -- There is just no getting away from the darkness that is “Threepenny Opera” but along the way there’s enough humor to make the journey worth taking.
This is not one of those shows that leaves you skipping from the theater in merriment. Rather, you take pause and reflect.
Wagner College’s production of “Threepenny Opera” honors the Bertolt Brecht libretto with music by Kurt Weill, loaded with political commentary that suggests society has not progressed much in the last 80 years.
In this Brechtian society where the caste system of beggars (who should not be seen, especially during large public parties like a coronation) looks down upon the ordinary folks that are “only fit to be begged from” while others have found a way to profit from poverty.
Mack the Knife is a notorious criminal with a weakness for the ladies. He has connections in the police department that keep him safe from capture. That is, until he marries Polly, the daughter of Mr. Peachum, organizer of beggars. The Peachums set out to have Mack arrested and put to death. Mack could evade capture were it not for his weakness.
Director Drew Scott Harris led the cast through a very ambitious production of this 20th century work, making statements about society that are crucially relevant today. Harris’ production sits solidly in the 1980s and gives costume designer, Alan Michael Smith and makeup and hair designer, Nicole Libby great leeway in creating funky and colorful duds and ‘dos. Scenic designer Phillip Hickok provides loads of levels for action. Harris helps that action flow from the stage to the house and back effortlessly.
Murderers and thieves carry laptops and play Mario Brothers videos in their spare time.
The show is filled with a multitude of emjoyable moments. Even before the show begins, House Manager (Michael Hickie) chides audience members for not turning off cell phones and advises them to do so.
Show standouts include Brianna Horne, as Jenny, who delivers some of the shows most compelling and interesting moments. When she’s on stage, somehow the lights seems brighter because of her presence. Horne has a voice with a range of colors that adds monumentally to the eeriness of songs like “Pirate Jenny” and enhances the “Tango Ballad.”
The on-stage chemistry between Jenny and MacHeath, aka Mack the Knife (Matt Ban) is unmistakable.
Mr. J.J. Peachum (Brett Figel), who organizes and profits directly from the beggars, is at his best when engaging the audience to either read aloud or highlight a point he’s made.
Tiger Brown (Michael Pesoli) is hilarious as the police commissioner who harbors love in his heart for Mack since the two served in the army together. The duet between Polly Peachum (Laraine Watson) and Lucy Brown (Danielle Roth) is engaging and passionate.
After the show, even as the audience feels a bit of the haze of London’s Soho district, the trip is well worth it.
Thursday February 26, 2009
STATEN ISLAND'S ACCLAIMED THEATER TROUPE
TACKLES 'THE THREEPENNY OPERA'
by Lisa Ann Williamson
For the uninitiated, the latest Wagner College production is not the usual fare of musical theater. The main characters are thieves, beggars, whores and murderers. There’s no fluff factor, no transporting of the audience to a happy place.
“The Threepenny Opera” is real and raw and funny.
“It’s a typical musical comedy of the 1950s — but all the sugar has been taken out. It plays more like ‘The Sopranos’ than ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’” said Drew Scott Harris, who’s directing the show for the “No. 2 Theatre Program” in America according to The Princeton Review.
The piece — part satire/part Marxist critique of capitalism/part visionary musical theater — was written by German poet Bertolt Brecht with music by Kurt Weill. It was first staged in 1928 in Weimar Germany. Through the love story of Polly Peachum and “Mack the Knife” Macheath, the play satirizes the bourgeoisie of the Weimar Republic, revealing a society at the height of decadence and on the verge of chaos.
“Threepenny Opera” opened on Broadway in 1933, but closed after just 12 performances. It wasn’t until its 1954 off-Broadway opening at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel Theatre) in Greenwich Village, with a new English script adapted by Marc Blitzstein, that the show really made a hit in the New York theater.
The Theatre de Lys production won three 1956 Tonys and helped make stars of Bea Arthur, Jerry Orbach, Ed Asner, Estelle Parsons and Jerry Stiller. One of the first successful attempts to inject jazz into theater, “Threepenny” is also the musical that gave us the hit song, “Mack the Knife,” recorded by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sting and a slew of others.
“It’s didactic and has a moral, like in ancient Greece,” said Harris, a Broadway director who has a three-decade history directing shows at Wagner. “This is heavy, message-oriented stuff where every criminal is a member of the bourgeoisie.”
The show is also full of the Brecht brand of humor that borders on wacky with a lot of gunplay. Audiences will also “be talked to” as the fourth wall is continuously broken. Some songs are chilling and dark.
Brecht redefined musical theater with works like “Mother Courage” and “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” among others, Harris said.
“The theater is not about illusion, it’s about fixing reality,” he added. “Theater has to take on a therapeutic role. Our theater is recuperative.”
This is Wagner College’s first staging of “The Threepenny Opera.” In the 1973-74 season, the nationally acclaimed company staged John Gay’s 1728 musical “The Beggar’s Opera,” the play Brecht used as his primary inspiration for “Threepenny.” “The Beggar’s Opera,” very popular in its day, satirized Italian opera with its use of familiar tunes and ordinary people as characters.
