Music, Theatre Departments Present ‘The Threepenny Opera’
The infamous antihero “Mack the Knife” is on the prowl again.
The Alma College Music Department presents a revival production of the
1954 American box office smash, “The Threepenny Opera,” at 8 p.m.
Monday, May 21 through Wednesday, May 23 in the Remick Heritage Center
Fixed-Form Theatre.
Director Jonathon Musser and musical director Murray Gross will
highlight the collective talents of students from Alma College’s music
and theatre departments in the three-night production.
Tickets are $10 for adults and free for Alma College faculty, staff and
students and youth 18 and under. Call (989) 463-7304 for ticket
information. The play contains adult language and sexual situations.
“The Threepenny Opera” is set within the slimy underbelly of the Soho
district in London, 1837, amidst a population of dire poverty, violent
crime and political corruption. The story lampoons social conditions at
the time of Queen Victoria’s coronation, centering around “Macheath
Messer,” A.K.A. “Mack the Knife,” a dashing young bandit with a fierce
passion for bourgeois power and an unending hunger for the taste of
women.
Macheath, a fierce womanizer posing as the “last gentleman left in
London,” sets out to marry young Polly Peachum, the under-aged daughter
of Mr. Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, despite the fact that Macheath
already claims two wives.
Mr. Peachum, the uncrowned king of London’s beggars, catches word of
Polly’s marriage and vows to destroy Macheath for stealing his most
precious piece of property. Mrs. Peachum joins the fight, and after
forcing alliances with London’s beggars and prostitutes, begins the
chase to have Macheath arrested and sent to the gallows. By the end of
the play, enemies and allies alike crowd the dirty London streets,
awaiting the public death of the infamous Mack the Knife.
“’The Threepenny Opera’ was Bertolt Brecht’s first and greatest
commercial success, and to this day remains one of his best loved and
most performed plays,” said Musser. “With Kurt Weill’s music, which was
one of the earliest and most successful attempts to introduce jazz into
the theatre, the play became a popular hit throughout the entire world.”
Funding for the campus production is provided in part by The Loraine
and Melinese Reuter Foundation, through the Comerica Charitable
Services Group.
Posted: Tue, May 15th, 2007 at 8:10AM
