Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)

It probably really happened: in Poland in 1939, a desperate yet supportive exodus of children left alone, seeking a place of peace. Poles, Germans, Jews, no difference between them. Sisters as mothers, little thieves of deserted farms, boys as teachers; a first love affair with love. And with them also a dog they fed out of pity: together, as a single body subjected to the test of war. Brecht recounts an orphaned childhood, of parents, of wounds, of places, of paths to travel. A hungry show more childhood, on a journey to build a community founded on strong bonds, on affection, on solidarity. Childhood as the first and primary victim of every war. show less

I want to go with the one I love.
I do not want to calculate the cost.
I do not want to think about whether it's good.
I do not want to know whether he loves me.
I want to go with whom I love.

Brecht is brutal here, situating his play in China, dangling the Gods who swing between Divine Indifference and Hypocrisy and filling the ranks with all the avarice and sloth that floats from our unctuous species. Some (may) find exception with the titular heroine and her Manichean solution to the query show more -- How To Serve Man: spoiler, it isn't a cookbook. I thought the device employed by the character is brilliant, a heady response to the pop-up morality of Snapchat Elysium. One came imagine Brecht seething.

Sexually frank but lacking overt violence (with one exception) this play becomes a lumpen comedy of manners. Who's laughing? show less

Brecht tells us he needs to talk about important things but he's going to switch the time frame for a variety of reasons, thus Galileo. It's excellent. The battle of truth and authority where we all know truth is right and authority is wrong. Difficult only because we live in the age of Trump so the timelessness is front and center. It reads quickly and esily but it's wrapped between a very daunting Introduction and a heavy heavy author's appendix. We all know the Devil is Hitler and this is show more all going to end badly. show less

Brecht, Bertolt. The Threepenny Opera. 1928. Translated by Desmond I. Vesey and Eric Bentley. Foreword by Lotte Lenya. Grove Press, 1994.
Reviewers of The Threepenny Opera often mention its indictment of capitalism. Certainly, Brecht’s notes and “Tips” to actors suggest that is part of what he was after. He also says that he wanted to distance the audience from the action and characters to encourage it to respond intellectually to what it was seeing. Certainly, one could stage the play show more as an anti-capitalist rant, but the play offers so many levels of satire and parody, that to do so undersells. Its source, John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, was a satire of Italian opera. Threepenny was billed not as an opera or a musical but as a “play with music.” The hero, Macheath, is aware that he is a pop star, and comes out singing his own pop anthem, “Mack the Knife.” Jenny, originally played by composer Kurt Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya, appears as a character in “Mack the Knife” and is the heroine of her own fantasy in the play’s other pop hit, “Pirate Jenny,” a.k.a. “The Black Freighter.” Besides the aesthetic parody, gender roles get attention, just as they did in the Gay original. Characters seem aware that they are playing to the audience, showing off their skillfulness at greed, crime, and seduction. We can enjoy it all, without ever thinking of capitalism. 4 stars. show less