{"id":21882,"date":"2016-11-11T00:54:28","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T08:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=21882"},"modified":"2016-11-11T10:25:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T18:25:35","slug":"threepenny-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/11\/11\/threepenny-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Threepenny in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Ariel Martz-Oberlander (Dolly), Damon Jang (Walt Dreary), Katie Purych (Polly Peachum), Kevin Armstrong (Macheath), zi paris (Bob the Saw) and Adam Olgui (Street Singer). (photo by Colin Beiers)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Threepenny Opera<\/em> \u201chas a grassroots design to it and deals with action and issues that are often seen in the streets and politics of major cities throughout the world,\u201d Theatre in the Raw artistic director Jay Hamburger told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cThe play for sure is original and it takes a lot of risks that, if given thought, speak profoundly to today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, violence, poverty, oppression and inequality are not things of the past. And Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill\u2019s 1928 musical \u2013 itself very closely adapted from The Beggar\u2019s Opera<\/em>, written 200 years earlier, by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch \u2013 remains both entertaining and thought-provoking. The Theatre in the Raw production of it Nov. 16-27 at the Russian Hall is to be highly anticipated.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheatre in the Raw has always strived to provide high-quality performance work,\u201d said Hamburger. \u201cThough the productions can seem minimalist, a theatrical experience is aimed for and often with a message. The Threepenny Opera<\/em> play, and the Beggar\u2019s Opera<\/em> that it was based on, inverted the notion of theatre experiences as gaudy, excessive and out of reach of the common person, and instead focused on the underbelly of society. Brecht\u2019s approach to theatre championed breaking down walls between audience and actor, turning the notion of passive viewer of entertainment on its head. These ideas are much in line with Theatre in the Raw\u2019s ambitions and desire to reach out to audiences in profound and innovative ways. Plus, providing a play of this scale with a relatively large cast and crew allows Theatre in the Raw to not only put on the show for the community \u2026 but also to have many talented artists perform their craft on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those artists are a few from the Jewish community. Stephen Aberle plays the central figure of Mr. Peachum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, owner and proprietor of the Beggar\u2019s Big Brother, an outfitting and licensing company for all the beggars in the city,\u201d Aberle explained. \u201cPeachum has a monopoly, strictly enforced: anyone caught begging in his territory without a licence gets beaten up; second offenders get \u2018the saw.\u2019 His \u2018clients\u2019 must pay for their licences with hefty initiation fees, and by turning over half (or more) of their take.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a crucial plot engine: his daughter Polly marries the hero\/antihero Macheath, leaving Peachum outraged. His obsessive struggle for revenge drives much of the action of the play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Set in London\u2019s Soho just before Queen Victoria\u2019s coronation, Peachum tries to have Macheath \u2013 also a brutal criminal, aka \u201cMack the Knife\u201d \u2013 arrested and hanged, but the police chief happens to be an old army buddy of Macheath\u2019s. Peachum, however, uses his influence and Macheath becomes a wanted man. Polly warns her lover, but, before fleeing, he stops in at the brothel he frequents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy character is Dolly, one of the whores who live with Jenny Diver in Wapping,\u201d said Ariel Martz-Oberlander. \u201cMacheath visits them every week and it\u2019s them he goes to see instead of escaping from the police when he gets a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam Olgui plays the Street Singer, who is, in a way, \u201cthe narrator of the story,\u201d said Olgui. \u201cAlthough he\u2019s an observer, he slips in at times to assume different roles to help move the plot along. The Street Singer himself is a smooth, playful, light-hearted being.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Brecht adapted Gay\u2019s work, changing the setting, for example, to Victorian England, and highwaymen into gangsters of a sort, Theatre in the Raw will also add its touch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are introducing elements modernizing the style of the characters, their wardrobes, etc., and are not doing the play using English accents,\u201d said Hamburger. \u201cThough the play technically still occurs in an alternate version of 19th-century Soho, we feel our stylistic choices help the piece reflect more universally about the 1920s Germany where it was written and possibly on our pressing modern situations as well. We\u2019ll admit we\u2019re putting a bit of Commercial Drive flavor into it, too, as the play involves a diverse group of characters that are both fun and standout.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the characters still speak to us.<\/p>\n

\"photo
Stephen Aberle is Mr. Peachum. (photo by Colin Beiers)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTo my mind, the character of Peachum remains bitingly, bitterly relevant today,\u201d said Aberle. \u201cHe is Brecht\u2019s critique of capitalism par excellence, a \u2018businessman\u2019 whose business, like so many winning enterprises, thrives on human misery. As he observes, \u2018The powerful of the earth can create poverty, but they can\u2019t bear to look at it.\u2019 He has learned to profit by this discovery, and has no scruples about doing so \u2013 by whatever means necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeachum is cynically fond of religious references. He loves to preach, usually (like his middle namesake) to gloomily pessimistic effect (\u2018the world is mean, and man uncouth!\u2019), and offers verses of scripture to persuade suckers to part with their money. This leaves me as an actor surmising that he may have had a religious education, perhaps even an earlier career as a clergyman, before stumbling into the vocation of extracting value from poverty instead of working to alleviate it. Some might find parallels with today\u2019s professional evangelists.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for her character, Martz-Oberlander said, \u201cDolly represents the way a woman can make a living taking advantage of a very misogynistic and cut-throat society in the play. She has no misconceptions about Macheath falling in love with her and is content to use her body to make a living. She is reasonable, if very na\u00efve. Dolly plays a small part in the story, but she stands the test of time by being a strong woman who makes her way in a system in many ways rigged against her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olgui spoke more generally. \u201cI think that the timelessness of Brecht\u2019s themes and his view of human nature are why his works are still relevant today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hamburger highlighted the play\u2019s \u201cwild sense of humor\u201d and its \u201crollercoaster\u201d of a story. He noted that both Brecht and Weill \u201cwere extremely interested in U.S. entertainment during the early part of the 20th century. Though the play didn\u2019t really make it in the U.S. until the 1950s, both creators looked to the U.S. for some form of success. Weill actually escaped Germany before the Holocaust, knowing he had to get out to save his life. Brecht, on the other hand, before and during the Second World War, fled to 10 different countries in order for him and his family to survive. The play speaks in an extremely original and relevant way to a lot of concerns that face us economically, socially, and the gap between the rich, the middle-class and the poor, and how certain people are often at a disadvantage and seeking ways to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not to mention it has some pretty catchy and enduring tunes: \u201cBallad of Mack the Knife\u201d and \u201cJenny the Pirate,\u201d to name but two.<\/p>\n

Tickets for The Threepenny Opera<\/em> are $25 and $20 (students) and available at the door or from theatreintheraw.ca\/tickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Ariel Martz-Oberlander (Dolly), Damon Jang (Walt Dreary), Katie Purych (Polly Peachum), Kevin Armstrong (Macheath), zi paris (Bob the Saw) and Adam Olgui (Street Singer). (photo by Colin Beiers) The Threepenny Opera \u201chas a grassroots design to it and deals with action and issues that are often seen in the streets and politics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[6525,6523,6526,6524],"class_list":["post-21882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-beggars-opera","tag-brecht","tag-threepenny-opera","tag-weill"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}