GenQ

You approach the entrance. Fairly normal. Hand your ticket to a cute usher. He waves you through: “Enjoy your night.” The usual manner. You walk in. A standard theatre. House lights are up. You’re feeling rather comfortable at this point in time. Everything is where it should be in a run of the mill theatre. Everything, that is, except for the curtains. A tingle comes over you. Where are the curtains to hide the stage while the audience takes their seats? Why is it that you can see the back wall? Props? Even the lighting? You blink. This isn’t quite right. The stage is splashed in junk. A table here, a ladder there. Articles of clothing, paper strewn all over. As you sit down, you figure… all part of the show. It’s still normal. Yes, microphones and instruments are taking up a corner of the stage but you knew this was going to be an opera of sorts. You idly chat. As you do. Seeing the back wall makes you nervous. Like this theatre has nothing to hide. Like it is ashamed of nothing.

Gradually the audience hushes, as a drunken female form staggers to the centre of the stage. The lights haven’t gone down and you wonder what could be going on. This isn’t the usual opening to a show. No music, no prologue. No grand build up to exciting entrances of characters on stage. Nothing. This long legged beauty has now casually grabbed the microphone, as if it’s Thursday night down at the local Japanese Karaoke club. What follows is a mix of confused feelings as you hear an intoxicating ballad interspersed with the choppy sounds of musicians and backstage crew scrambling to their posts. Finally as you think it’s all settled down and you can enjoy the women’s dulcet tones, threatening men approach. Now her song is decorated with a few ‘Fuck off’s as she attempts hold these newcomers off and sing at the same time. The Ballad of Mack the Knife finishes with her being violently dragged off to a darker corner of the stage...

As the lights dim on her beating, you realise... you feel dirty. And that’s exactly how this show wants you to feel.

This long legged beauty has now casually grabbed the microphone, as if it’s Thursday night down at the local Japanese Karaoke club.

Set in a poor London suburb, echoing the damp underbelly style of Dickens’ Oliver, Threepenny Opera tells the wicked story of Mack the Knife, his enemies that yearn to bring him down and his lovers that eventually do. Derived from John Gay’s 1728 ‘Beggars Opera’, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill collaborate to create Threepenny Opera 200 years later and theirs is an interesting combination to say the least. Weill from a sordid musical background coming together with Brecht, infamous for his epic plays, makes for a clash of worlds and yet still maintains a balance neither creator can take responsibility for. Brecht’s signature is marathon scenes of talking heads and as you begin to drift off, a song will break out and Weill’s influence kicks in.

The sheer grittiness of the atmosphere on stage blends effortlessly with the blunt language (in song and verse) as well as the acting which simply leaps off the stage and lodges in your throat. Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Peter Elliott steal the show with the former’s vocal skills and the latter’s naturalistic tendency towards other actors with brilliant comic timing.

...the finale approaches out of nowhere like a steaming locomotive and you glance down to realise; you’re still on the tracks...

All throughout poppy brass instruments underscore the violent sides of love, mercy and charity. Highlights of the show include Jenny and Mack’s pimp ballad, surrounded by whores and Macheath’s overly active gang members. Another is Polly and Lucy’s electrifying cat fight scene worthy of Jerry Springer, whilst performing the staccato and high pitched ‘Jealousy Duet’. And just as you think this show has pulled out all the stops it’s going to, the finale approaches out of nowhere like a steaming locomotive and you glance down to realise; you’re still on the tracks.

By the end of the night, you’ll feel as if a dirty smelly beggar has whacked you in the face with a stale loaf of bread. And you would’ve liked it.

Tags: Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Michael Hurst