[NEohioPAL] Review of FAA's "Threepenny Opera"

[Bob Abelman]

Threepenny Opera is the yang to Fine Arts' season of yin

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the Times papers 6/4/09

 

Ancient Chinese philosophers believed that everything in the universe operates in balance, where seemingly opposing forces -a yin and a yang-complement each other.  The result is tranquility and harmony.  So it is with this season of musical productions at the Fine Arts Association in Willoughby.

 

Counterbalancing a year of fun and frivolous musicals that include The Princess and the Pea, Seussical and Willy Wonka, Jr., the FAA has chosen to end its production schedule with the poster child for weighty and complicated musicals: The Threepenny Opera.

 

Adapted from an 18th-century opus, The Threepenny Opera was written by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill in the 1920s.  While the original work merely satirized society's injustices by exploring the inner workings of its lower class, The Threepenny Opera offers a dark, biting critique of corrupt capitalism and the lowlifes who embrace it.

 

It also purposefully undermines traditional forms of opera.  It does so by trading theatrical spectacle for simplicity, substituting grand arias with cabaret style music, and offering a population of unlikable characters as its protagonists.  Its songs are primal and end abruptly.  Their lyrics are explicit and jarring.  In short, The Threepenny Opera is a discordant yin/yang balancing act in three acts; an intriguing play in opposition with its own art form.  

 

The story revolves around Mr. Peachum, who trains London's beggars in return for a cut of their earnings.  To his dismay, daughter Polly marries an irresistible scoundrel named Macheath, a former military man who is in cahoots with the crooked police chief. To escape Peachum's wrath, Mac leaves town but first stops off at a brothel.  His favorite prostitute, Jenny, has been bribed to turn Mac into the authorities, but Mac escapes with the help of another girlfriend, Lucy Brown, the daughter of the police chief.  Mac is apprehended once more, is sent to the gallows for execution, but is granted reprieve by the Queen.

 

Given its inherent edginess, this play allows for endless possibilities of interpretation with varying degrees of decadence.  Many adaptations tend to accentuate all that is naughty and nasty in the play.  "Cross-dressed men and women in writhing sexual pretzels; leather boys and glitter queens vacuuming up piles of snow with their nostrils" is how The New York Times described one recent off-Broadway production.

 

This Fine Arts Association production, which runs through June 14, does not follow this path.  It employs a softer and more sanitized English translation of Brecht's play that, under the direction of James Mango, is particularly tame and mundane.  In fact, this production lacks the vitality necessary to give Brecht's story life and its social commentary teeth.  

 

To some degree, this is due to the casting.  The quality of a production of The Threepenny Opera often depends on its Macheath and the FAA wisely cast an equity actor in the role. Just not the right one.  Paul Floriano is suave and skilled, but he is not sufficiently dangerous, seductive or intimidating.  His air of detachment, as if above the riffraff that surrounds him, comes across as being uncommitted to his own acting choices.  

 

The rest of the cast is comprised of community players who try hard to get their heads around this complex play and its difficult music.  The successful ones include Aubrey-Kristen Fisher, as Polly, who has a wonderful singing voice but doesn't quite capture the ingénue nature of her character.  Carla Petroski, as Jenny, is a force to be reckoned with.  Michael Rogan and Candace Russell bring charm to their portrayals of Mr. and Mrs. Peachum.  As Lucy Brown, Natalie Dolezal is one of the few who captures the intended humor in this play. 

 

Audience seating is on stage around circular tables, with the performance taking place in and around this unadorned space and an eight-piece orchestra playing from the wings.  This captures the intimate cabaret feel of the play, but also compromises audibility, complicates Mr. Mango's staging and confounds Allison Prucha's choreography, which is too broad for such close proximity. 

 

Mr. Mango must be applauded for taking the risk of staging this challenging show.  The Threepenny Opera is the yang to the Fine Arts Association's season of yin.  Unfortunately, yin wins.
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