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[0:05] Andrew Child: Hi, I'm Andrew Child, and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's show description.

[0:24] Andrew Child: Today's episode focuses on chapter 13, The Threepenny OPERA, and with us today is the author of that chapter, Lauren T. Mack.

[0:33] Lauren T. Mack: Thank you for having me.

[0:34] Andrew Child: Lauren is a Brooklyn-based actor and writer who has appeared on stage in New York at the York Theatre, New York Fringe Festival, IRT, the PIT, and on stages throughout the US and France. Lauren's voiceover work ranges from Ford Motors to audio play meditations with Fullmetal Workshop. Lauren also produces award-winning indie films such as CAT PLANET and recently appeared in Velour, which was an official 2020 selection for QueerX FF. Lauren teaches acting at New York Film Academy and is a proud member of Actor’s Equity and a Key with Ring of Keys. You can read more about Lauren at LaurenTMack.com.

[1:19] Andrew Child: Lauren, thank you so much for being here today.

[1:22] Lauren T. Mack: Well, thank you so much for having me.

[1:24] Andrew Child: So I loved your chapter on The Threepenny OPERA. I'd love to sort of start chatting today. For those who maybe haven't gotten their hands on the book yet, what makes The Threepenny OPERA a key musical in musical theater history?

[1:42] Lauren T. Mack: I mean, so many reasons. I was so excited when I got to write about this chapter because for me, as a musical theater student growing up, I always, you know, of course, you love Oklahoma, you love Brigadoon, you love these shows, but you also kind of find yourself, and I know there are musical theater students listening to this right now who are like, yeah, but like where's all the Urinetowns at? You know, like why isn't there more of that? Where is the stuff that we can actually sink our teeth into intellectually? And you know, The Threepenny OPERA really shifted that conversation. It really, you know, if you think about what was popular in the 50s, musicals-wise, you're looking at The King and I, you know, you're looking at Guys and Dolls.

These are fairly formulaic shows, right? You know, there's not a lot of bucking of social norms, you know. But a lot of the, you know, all the legit shows were uptown, right? All of the legit shows were in, you know, Times Square, 42nd Street. That was where, you know, a hit show would be. And this show had its home at the Theatre de Lys, which is in Greenwich Village.

[3:04] Lauren T. Mack: Wow. Yeah. And the two producers were unknowns, you know, Carmen Capalbo and Stanley Chase. They crowdfunded the initial run for 10k for a short-term lease, you know, all of their friends just put in. And you know, it was anything, and this was sort of something that was starting to happen at this time, right? It's what we now looking back refer to as the off-Broadway movement. But at the time, we, you know, no one knew that that's what it was, right? It was just any production or theater company that was kind of deemed too radical or strange for a Broadway audience would find a home in a cafe downtown or a church basement or a music venue. You know, they were going wherever they could to make their work happen.

So, you know, and this was also an incredibly accessible show. The best seats in the house were three dollars and sixty cents. Wow, you know. And they had to do that because to convince a Broadway audience or a Broadway critic to come all the way downtown, which now we laugh about because, you know, half of us live in Brooklyn, but like to come all the way down there was a huge deal, especially because that was like sort of the hot house where the counter-cultural movement was happening in the 50s, right? You had Beatniks down there. Jackson Pollock was doing his work down there, Jack Kerouac, Merce Cunningham. You know, this was where the new stuff was happening. So The Threepenny OPERA found its home there because it got a lot of great response from producers initially, but everything kind of petered out.

And it's still a very unique musical. There's dissonance in the chords, you know, it's not always like, oh, I'm gonna relax and put on The Threepenny OPERA. Like, God no. It attacks you, man. It, you know, and that's the heart of the piece, right? It's demanding you pay attention. You know, and we hear you can hear and see this influence in later musicals like Cabaret, like Company, like Pippin, you know. It was really sort of the face of this trend that it started for musicals to buck a formulaic ending, to acknowledge the audience and kind of slyly wink, you know, and to address like really heavy and salacious topics like, you know, prostitution, the hero's a murderer, systemic inequity, you know. I mean, these were not things you did at that time in the musical.

[5:38] Andrew Child: Do you think that the unique location of this show and sort of positing Bertolt Brecht among those names that you just listed who were kind of having their own movement downtown, did that increase this show's success? Did that make this show something that it wouldn't have been had it opened in a more mainstream venue?

[6:03] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah, interesting you say that. I think yes. I think the success came from, you know, and this was something Bertolt Brecht would be very proud of that it was the people, you know, it wasn't the elites that made this popular, you know.

[6:15] Andrew Child: Okay, yeah.

[6:15] Lauren T. Mack: But you know, funnily enough, at this time, the production in the United States, which was not the first production of The Threepenny OPERA, the first one was in Berlin in the 20s. And he was actually in East Germany at this time. He wasn't really involved with the American production. He gave his sign-off for the translation, but the people who were stateside were Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill. Kurt Weill was the composer, Lotte Lenya had famously played Pirate Jenny and was his wife and after he passed, kind of the guardian of his estate and his work. So those were the folks, you know, so they were, you know, European refugees themselves. So at first the audiences that were coming in were European refugees from World War II, sort of nostalgic for, you know, the sound of the time before the war, because this, you know, premiered in 1929 in Berlin.

But then the counter-cultural moment happened. And I really think that you can't leave politics out of this show because the reception in Berlin, right? The reception in Berlin, you know, was pretty clearly delineated along people along the lines of ideology, whether you were more capitalist and on the side of the bourgeoisie, or if you were more a socialist, right? And then we have this show happen again in the 50s in the United States and what's happening right then, the McCarthy hearings, right? So there is yet again a division between, you know, the younger generation, you know, the Beatniks, the counterculturals, the revolutionaries, you know, who were deeply attracted to this work. And it did help that at this time, you know, both Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht were subpoenaed by the House of Un-American Activities Committee to speak. And that added to their notoriety, I think, all the whole.

[8:26] Andrew Child: Yeah, yeah. So do you think that the American market sort of had a place for this show in the 50s, you feel like, because of what was going on in the world?

[8:37] Lauren T. Mack: See, I think it didn't. I think it did it by the skin of its teeth. It really wasn't popular with, you know, if it had gotten a space uptown, I don't know that it would have done very well. Interesting, you know, I think it was really that geographic positioning because it did have, you know, Marc Blitzstein, who was the translator of the lyrics and a brilliant writer in his own right, had like a couple of concerts to kind of garner some interest, try things out, and Kurt List, who was a Viennese-born music critic, so he's from Austria, came to the United States at some point during the war, right? He called the early production, quote, a piece of anti-capitalist propaganda which exalts anarchical gangsterism and prostitution over democratic law and order. I mean, but is he wrong?

[9:43] Andrew Child: But is he wrong?

[9:44] Lauren T. Mack: No, he's absolutely greatly right. Like it's just not a bad thing, right? But it was something where, you know, they had this great concert, people were, there was a lot of enthusiastic response around it. But all of the producers sort of fell off and didn't really follow up. Part of that reason was the sort of anti-communist sentiment in the United States at the time. But honestly, it also was because in 1933 there was a production of The Threepenny OPERA that I believe only ran like three weeks. It was a terrible, terrible translation. Oh gosh. Okay. And also, you know, if you think about the United States in the 30s, it was quite hostile to socialism. And actually we had a Nazi problem as well. You know, so it was really unsuccessful. And so a lot of producers were like, all right, well between the current political climate and the evidence we have of an English translation of this, even though it wasn't Marc Blitzstein's work, people really backed off of it.

[10:56] Andrew Child: Okay.

[10:56] Lauren T. Mack: You know, so it was that was why these two sort of nobody producers, right, managed to make it happen because they were like, well this is the shot we've got. Right. So that's what we're gonna do.

[11:09] Andrew Child: So you've already sort of mentioned a couple of musicals that sort of took direct influence from The Threepenny OPERA and I'd say probably the big ones, the obvious ones that will openly tell you and recognize that they owe a lot to The Threepenny OPERA and the work of Bertolt Brecht would be Cabaret and Urinetown that you mentioned. Can we talk a little bit about what are some of these shows, either Cabaret and Urinetown or some of the other ones you like you mentioned Pippin, what are they latching on to in The Threepenny OPERA? What did The Threepenny OPERA do so well and do so early on that other shows could then follow suit?

[11:50] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah, I mean, I think so Cabaret is a really interesting one, right? Because it takes place in the time when The Threepenny OPERA was premiering, right? In the time and place in which it was premiering. You know, and a fun fact about the 1972 production of Cabaret is that Lotte Lenya was in it. Right, right. And to add that like flavor, right? And that realism of it. So, you know, I think there is, and what Kurt Weill, the composer, was getting at, he sort of broke ground. So it's called The Threepenny OPERA, right? And it's based on a 17th-century opera called The Beggar's OPERA, right? And that is a very traditionally what you would think of when you think of opera, classical music, that type of thing. He was making this opera that used atonality that was borrowing from jazz, which he heard in the seedier nightclubs of Berlin, which is where Cabaret is set.

[12:57] Lauren T. Mack: Okay. So there's, it's almost like two, you know, it's like the Spider-Man meme. They're all pointing at each other. You know, it's very much that. I mean, like there was so much, and you see it in these, even in the structure of Cabaret, right? The musical numbers are not all necessarily happening in a traditional musical theater sense of like I can't speak it, so I have to sing it, right? In a dramatic scene. Some of these numbers are actual just numbers in the nightclub, right? And there is direct address to the audience, and I think that's something that the Cabaret revival did so incredibly well was the MC talking directly to the audience. And that is something that is like the Brechtdian thing.

But we'll get to alienation. But I guess I want, yeah, we should also talk about, at least for a time, there was a bootleg on YouTube of Alan Cumming doing The Threepenny OPERA, who then would play the MC in the revival. So it's again, it's one of those like having Lotte Lenya in the original cast, you know, it's you're doing like a little motion with your hand when you talk about Cabaret and The Threepenny OPERA that the listeners won't be able to know about, but it's like it's just this little cocoon and they're just feeding into each other.

[14:22] Lauren T. Mack: But you right off the bat you talked about you're in town. So I would love to know sort of what are you seeing in your in town front that you think is a direct lineage to Three Penny.

[14:34] Lauren T. Mack: Well if you look at like the orchestrations of Three Penny, you know, there's a lot of doubling of like reeds and things like that. It's a smaller band. Um and the band is in view. Um you know, there's also you can also like you know just go back and listen to like the opening of Urinetown and then listen to the overture for the THREEPENNY and like tell me it's not, you know, tell me it's not. But there is also a lot of direct address in the audience to the audience there too, right? Um and I think this is the point at which we should bring up the V effect, right, the alienation.

[15:11] Andrew Child: So talk to us a little bit about that.

[15:13] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah. Yeah so so this is like um, you know, this is like what I think you know one of the elements of Brecht's work that's like best represented in Three Penny. Um it's this idea that um so it's often mistranslated into the alienation effect, but it's really like the idea that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or the action but that they should actually recognize that this is not real.

[15:45] Lauren T. Mack: So it's like sort of the opposite of suspending one's disbelief, right? It's like putting, it's like um dropping the disbelief. Um and um and the idea is that it would provoke some self-reflection and a critical view of what's going on on stage and therefore in the world. Um, you know, Aristotle, that good old buddy, um argued, you know, that catharsis sort of forced the audience to practice empathy. You know, if you really identify with the character, then you will have experienced, sort of walked a mile in their shoes, and you will have learned something from it, and it will improve the society overall, right?

[16:25] Lauren T. Mack: What Brecht is saying is the opposite is that when you get swept up in the story, you start getting attached to that particular character, and you don't actually think about the larger pieces at work. So the ways that he did this was um, you know, reminding the spectator that the theater isn't real. So exposing pieces of the set, you know, um, holding up placards before every scene as if it's a silent movie to remind you that, you know, this isn't real, um, direct address to the audience, speaking right out. Um, even as I we were talking about the dissonant music, even that it doesn't let you sit back and wash over you, you have to kind of sit up on your seat.

[17:09] Lauren T. Mack: And the idea, and you also don't get a happy ending, right? Or you get a happy ending that's sort of unsatisfactory and you don't believe it. Because he wanted the audiences to leave unsatisfied and recognize social injustice and exploitation and be moved to go out from the theater and do something about it because they were frustrated, they didn't get the satisfaction in the theater.

[17:32] Andrew Child: Right.

[17:33] Lauren T. Mack: So, you know, if you think about going back to Urinetown, like thinking about the end of Urinetown, Officer Lockstock yells, uh hail Malthus. Uh-huh. Um, right. And so, you know, you've got a Broadway audience going, like, who the heck is Malthus? Right? Everybody's looking it up after the show, and then everybody starts thinking about, oh yeah, like the usage of resources, like what is that? Right?

[17:58] Lauren T. Mack: Um, and I think Urinetown is actually a really great example of this. Uh, spoiler alert if you haven't seen it, mute this right now. Um, you know, um, but you have um, you know, the characters kind of do get what they want, and it's not good for the world. You know, this idea that like, oh, well, if everybody has the water, then everybody actually dies. That's actually a bad thing, right?

[18:27] Lauren T. Mack: Um, it and it makes us as an audience feel uncomfortable and go, oh, where have I done that in my life? Right. Um, but he also, you know, Brecht also did this in Three Penny, this alienation with um Macheath, like in the uh 54 production in the United States, uh uh Macheath um was uh directed to be more effeminate, um, so that this idea of a murderer, um, uh this like hyper masculine um ideal, and then this characterization that is sort of seems to be bucking up against that, right?

[19:01] Lauren T. Mack: Um yeah at playing Pirate Jenny when she originated the role in 1929, now in 1954, she's still playing it, and the idea of like the most desired prostitute is one who is much older, right? The idea that, you know, so like so sort of forcing people to start to address, like, oh, why do I think that's dissonant? Okay, why, why do I think why do I think uh, you know, uh uh a man who uh gives um some effeminate characteristics can't murder? What is that?

[19:17] Lauren T. Mack: Why do I think murder, uh violence is masculine, right? Um so the idea is that you are getting at truth and not necessarily reality. And I think that's a very important thing to highlight, especially in the culture in which we live right now. Um, you know, like to understand that reality is not the same thing as truth, right? As an actor, the reality is is that you're on a stage. You have to cheat out, right? You have to project your voice. Can you still give a performance that feels true and resonates with people? Absolutely, right?

[20:17] Lauren T. Mack: And so you're hitting so much on these big ideas that are so integral to Brecht's philosophy, to really Brecht's major contributions to the theater that we still see popping up in so many different ways, you know, not to hearken back to just this one production, but the Alan Cumming production of Three Penny, they used like neon signs that would lower down and say, We're in Mack's Den now, or you know, or we're in uh Peachum's parlor that there is no set piece, they're just telling you this is where this scene takes place.

[20:52] Andrew Child: We see so many ideas like that still going on in theater. Would you recommend for listeners? Are there other works of Bertolt Brecht that you feel like highlight this philosophy just as well as Three Penny or better than Three Penny?

[21:08] Lauren T. Mack: Or would you say that Three Penny is a really good starting place to start grappling with this idea?

[21:13] Lauren T. Mack: That's a that's a great question. Well, firstly, you know, something I I'm I'm sorry I haven't brought up sooner is that Brecht didn't do this alone. Um this was not Brecht's alone. And um, and I want to do a little justice here to Elizabeth Hauptmann, um, who uh was his uh um he dated all of his collaborators. Elizabeth Hauptmann uh was his girlfriend and uh initially brought him the material for THREEPENNY OPERA, wrote the majority of it, um, you know, borrowed uh, you know, other um language from uh a uh criminal poet um named Francois Villon.

[21:49] Lauren T. Mack: Um, you know, uh, and she she was also the one who gave him Das Kapital and introduced him to Marxism. Wow. Uh yeah, so uh so and she was um not really she was listed as a co-writer, but not really given a whole lot of credit for the work. She wrote the book for Happy End, which is um another uh Brecht Weill collaboration um that uh I highly recommend checking out.

[22:07] Lauren T. Mack: She wrote the book for that, but it um and and uh was nominated for uh a Tony for it, but uh six years after her death. So she never she never really in her lifetime got to see um, you know, her work shine. But Happy End is a great one.

[22:33] Lauren T. Mack: Um I would say also uh, Caucasian Chalk Circle and Mother Courage, um, you know, are also and it's interesting because you know, I wouldn't call those musicals, those last two necessarily musicals, I would call them plays with music. Um, but I still I still think that there is a very interesting sensibility there.

[22:55] Lauren T. Mack: Um, that uh if if people want to try to understand this um, you know, the Fremdungs effect, this V effect, this um, you know, alienation effect, uh, I think those are great places to look. But I also think we see it in our culture now. Meme culture is a really good example of uh that alienation effect.

[23:18] Andrew Child: Great. Say more, say more.

[23:20] Lauren T. Mack: Oh boy, where do I start? Okay, so you know, I think there is um, you know, sort of a lack of straightforwardness to the humor of meme culture, and sometimes it's it's so um data-ist and random that it almost comes back around to being in earnest, you know.

[23:37] Lauren T. Mack: Um, but uh the memes, I do feel uh, you know, so many people I've spoken to have um gotten a better understanding about uh say um a piece of music or um a uh you know piece of political theory or anything from a joke being made in a meme, um, because it doesn't give you all of the information, right? It's just the image, and then you have to go into it.

[24:04] Lauren T. Mack: But the meme itself, right, is not an original piece, right? It's almost always using um imagery that was created by somebody else or as a stock photo or you know, a screen cap from a movie, right? So again, we're coming back to that Spider-Man pointing, all the Spider-Mans pointing at each other, right? Okay, where does the where does the idea start? And is the idea living in the meme itself, or is it, you know, uh something that originated with one person a long time ago?

[24:36] Andrew Child: Right.

[24:37] Lauren T. Mack: And I don't know if there is necessarily a new idea, right? Is there anything like that? But I, you know, I think the, you know, there's there's a lot in Three Penny that speaks to our culture right now. I mean, the uh the alienation that one feels um in uh, you know, the current pandemic that we live in, right?

[24:59] Lauren T. Mack: Um, the alienation of being separated from everybody and yet being more connected as a culture than we ever have been. You know, we have the you know, we have somehow created this, you know, situation where we have like 17 apps to communicate with each other, but we feel more alone than ever before.

[25:17] Andrew Child: So if you had to address Three Penny tomorrow, if you had to direct it, if you were casting it, if you were producing it, what would be the thoughts in the forefront of your mind? Like, what are you trying to bring the audience's attention to within the production if you were presenting it tomorrow or next week?

[25:40] Lauren T. Mack: Well, number one, I would want to do the entire thing on TikTok.

[25:43] Andrew Child: Oh, cool, okay.

[25:44] Lauren T. Mack: I think that uh, you know, something the accessibility of Three Penny is what I think makes it so compelling. But I think uh it's a long runtime, it's like two and a half hours, you know. Like I think that our uh, you know, I I would be interested to see what it would be like to play with attention spans um and make people uncomfortable in the context of TikTok, which feels like a very comfortable thing to do, right?

[26:11] Lauren T. Mack: It's feeding, we just can constantly scroll to the point where the TikTok algorithm actually, every once in a while be like, hey, you're scrolling too fast.

[26:18] Andrew Child: Right.

[26:19] Lauren T. Mack: Right. Um, but I also would focus on the war song. Um, which is a great song. Incredible song. I mean, talk about a steinswinger, you know, like it's a real banger.

[26:32] Lauren T. Mack: Um, and uh, and I think that um, you know, that was sort of the turning point for audiences in um 1929. Um, the audiences in Berlin didn't really get it until they got to the war song, which features a career criminal and the chief of police reminiscing on their happy days in the army.

[26:56] Lauren T. Mack: Um, and then they were like, oh, we get what's going on here. Yes, they're all the same thing, right? The call is coming from inside the house. The Spider-Man pointing at each other. There we go. Spider-Man's pointing at each other, right? Like this is all systemic, you know.

[27:13] Lauren T. Mack: And I think that when we look at the militarization of our modern police right now, I think the war song is um, you know, about as uh, you know, defund the police, abolish the police anthem as anything else, right? Because it's talking about how really uh the laws only apply if you don't have friends.

[27:38] Lauren T. Mack: Which is then just so frustrating that you know, someone wrote this back in the 20s, or multiple people wrote this and could recognize this back in the 20s, and yet we're still having this conversation, we're still needing to have people realize this and make this click, which is a little bit crazy.

[27:57] Andrew Child: It is a little bit crazy, but you know, also that I think that you know, history is not a line, it's a spiral, right? We like circle in on it a little bit closer every time.

[28:06] Lauren T. Mack: Um, I think that uh, you know, when you look at the crisis, you know, because lots of people love to like compare, you know, Weimar era Berlin to, you know, what's happening in our country now, especially during the Trump years, you know, and I think that's a really overly simplistic way to view things.

[28:27] Lauren T. Mack: But I will say there is um a large gap between rich and poor right now. Um we have uh massive systemic inequality, but we also have um the leisure time and the resources to be reading up on Marxist theory and materialist feminist theory and like all of these things, you know.

[28:51] Lauren T. Mack: I think that there is um a similarity in the way that ideas are um being able to be forged right now. Um there's an excitement. Um, and it, you know, I think that that is uh I think that's what makes THREEPENNY so evergreen, is because it really is like a um a cry against, you know, uh I I like to refer to Bertolt Brecht as sort of a Kanye figure because he really only wrote things as a contrarian response to someone else. He had to have an enemy, he had to have beef in order to write something, you know, and this is like his uh, you know, this was his first major hit, you know. Um, and at the time, you know, we talk about Brecht so much right now, but uh, but at the time Brecht was incredibly jealous of Weill because his music was the one that was playing in all of the clubs. There was even a club that only played THREEPENNY OPERA music.

[29:49] Wow.

[29:50] Lauren T. Mack: Um, yeah, like, and uh, and Brecht was mad that he couldn't find a way to make his ideas as catchy as the music is, which is why I feel like this piece lends itself well to TikToks because TikToks and memes and internet culture in general has made um the I um has made ideas catchy. It has made ideas. Let's talk about catchy. Let's talk about Bobby Darin covering Mack the Knife, you know, which is crazy to take this song that, as you've mentioned, like we got discord, we got dissonant, it's supposed to make you uncomfortable, and we've got you know, uh top 50 Billboard hit.

[30:34] Yeah, yeah.

[30:35] Lauren T. Mack: Crazy that that song can become popular in the right hands because it is it's so catchy. This music is dangerous.

[30:44] Yes, it's very dangerous.

[30:45] Lauren T. Mack: And here's the thing about Bobby Darin, which I love. So Bobby Darin was the one who took home the 1959 Grammy um for Record of the Year, but Louis Armstrong was the first one to cover it.

[31:00] Oh, interesting.

[31:02] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah. So and Louis Armstrong was, you know, giving it a lot of the um subtext of you know, uh being on the other side of oppression in this country, right? Um, as much as he could at the time, right? Um, but uh, you know, uh he did, you know, um he did like Bobby Darin did uh like give um Louis Armstrong, like a little up in the song itself, like added sort of contemporary ad libs, and like um, and like Armstrong had this sort of playful tribute to La Delanya in the lyrics, right? Um, uh, which um then Bobby Darin copied, and then Ella Fitzgerald's live recording won a Grammy a year later.

[31:52] Um, you know, uh, and she uh at the time, like in the introduction, she says something like, Oh god, I hope I remember all of the lyrics, and she forgets them, and she does a live improvisation that includes lyrics, oh Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong, they made a record, oh, but they did.

[32:10] And now Ella, Ellen and her fellas were making a wreck, what a wreck of Mack the Knife.

[32:16] So again, we got Spider-Man all pointing at each other.

[32:19] There we go. And listeners, if you wanna talk more about uh these pop artists covering musical theater songs, definitely I'm gonna give a little plug, give a listen to the My Fair Lady episode with Peter Felicia.

[32:32] He goes in depth.

[32:34] Lauren T. Mack: All these names that we're mentioning now, like they were all covering My Fair Lady, they were all covering Hello Dolly.

[32:40] So it is we're keeping THREEPENNY like right in line with these big mainstream hits that were playing uptown concurrently. So I'd love to ask Lauren, in your opinion, because I will I'll get a little bit personal here, and I'll say that I found THREEPENNY OPERA um because as like a little kid, I got my hands somewhere on an album that is Beatrice Arthur doing just whatever the heck she wanted to do.

[33:10] She's like, you know, at death's door, so old, sitting in a chair, and she's just singing whatever she wants to sing. And for whatever reason, this old lady was like, I want to do Pirate Jenny.

[33:22] I want to sing Pirate Jenny in my like farewell concert, which is crazy, which is weird. And she sings it and she gives minimal context leading up to it. And then she sings this very scary song.

[33:35] Um, like you already sort of summarized for us about you know, the most desirable prostitute kind of having a dark side to her. Um, and it's very scary, and out of context, it's it's crazy that this woman sang that.

[33:52] So that sort of led me to THREEPENNY OPERA. So I'd love to ask for someone who wanted more traditional of an approach, maybe wanted a little more context than finding that song. How would you recommend a listener who doesn't know THREEPENNY OPERA but is interested? Should they be reading it? Is there a recording that you'd recommend? There's more than one movie. How would what would you say is the best in to THREEPENNY OPERA?

[34:16] Ooh, honestly, that's a really good question. Um I think any piece, but especially this piece, the way in is to do it, is to go try and try and learn Pirate Jenny.

[34:37] Um and and sing her words and and and feel that because you know, we talk so much about this alienation effect, and I think sometimes people mistake that for not having a deep connection to the piece and to the character.

[34:56] And um, you know, Pir that that song um that Pirate Jenny sings, Pirate Jenny, is really about sexual violence. It's about her taking revenge on all of the people who have hurt her, right?

[35:16] To do the work to me is to start to approach it. I would also say like haunting covers are, you know, Nina Simone's. Um and Bob Dylan actually wrote uh like uh he said uh he was laid um quote flat on his back um by the translation of the ship, the black freighter, and composed in that style and then wrote when the ship comes in.

[35:45] Um wow.

[35:47] Lauren T. Mack: So I honestly I think the way to get into this piece is to find your personal emotional hook into it. Um because I think that you know, if you try and approach it like a uh, you know, a traditional musical where you might like go like listen to the OBC and you know, um let you know try and imagine what the production might be like.

[36:12] I think without the visual aspect, without the felt experience of it, it can sometimes feel inaccessible, and you're like sort of like, why is this what you know, why is this so you know all over the place in atonal and this is making me mad?

[36:26] But it's it's about the feeling, right? So to me it's it's the it's experiencing the piece to me. But also I would recommend um if you can get your hands on a recording of uh the Berliner Ensembles productions, um especially uh the one they did a few years ago, um was just so arresting um and stark.

[36:49] Um, but I I honestly would say the best way is to is to either do it or get in the theater and experience it live, like if you can. And so is this a show that did you meet this show in that way? Were you able to see it live?

[37:03] Or you were you able to work on it?

[37:05] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah, I um uh a college production, you know, was cool in. And I was just doing, you know, ensemble, but I couldn't stop um, you know, like the ballad of dependency. I would just sit backstage every night and just be so enraptured by this like dark, really toxic relationship, and like how you know, um, how like sexy and alive it was at the same time, you know, but it was it was the presence, honestly, and it was having to pick apart this work and go, okay, how do we how do we still make this feel relevant?

[37:44] Um, you know, and and turns out, you know, the more you approach the work, the more you do the work, the more you're like, oh wow, this all is happening right now. There is nothing I need to do to make it relevant, you know.

[37:57] Um I'll say this is a very different show, I think, than some of the other episodes when I'm talking to people, one of the things that comes up is, you know, uh the Fantasticks springs to mind. And it's like, this is a hard show to do wrong.

[38:14] Like you can go see this show in like an amateur production with no budget in the basement of the church, and you're gonna have the best night you've ever had at the theater.

[38:23] It is hard to screw up the Fantasticks. I would not say that about The Threepenny OPERA.

[38:30] I would say that there's a lot of delicacy in the mix here. Um, it while we're talking about how much is relevant, how much we can see in it that still resonates today, it is so easy to like place a concept on top of this and really drive any nuance into the ground and just make this sort of like heavy-handed and preachy.

[38:51] So I'd love to know, like dramaturgically, coming out a different sort of listener now who maybe is listening and knows THREEPENNY inside out and is preparing to mount a production at their college, in the basement of a church, on Broadway, whatever.

[39:08] Um what would you say dramaturgically? Like what would you say to that person? What should they be thinking about? What should they be engaging with?

[39:19] Lauren T. Mack: Um for me, I think I see a lot of concept THREEPENNY productions in the in the way that you know it's like, okay, we're gonna do Hamlet, but on the moon, you know, like I've seen some of those as well.

[39:33] Yes, yes.

[39:34] Lauren T. Mack: And I think that like that sort of is like a way of trying to like skate around the um to make it more palatable to an audience and be like, oh well, I don't want to alienate people. We need those subscribers, which is capitalism, all right?

[39:47] Like let's talk about it. But I think um I want to hide I I want to just read this quote because I feel like it's it says everything we need to say.

[39:55] Oh, great.

[39:55] Lauren T. Mack: Um Mark Blitzstein um saw an original production in Berlin when he was a student. Um, so decades before he translated it and made into the you know Broadway hit we know today, as a kid, he saw it, and he described um Brecht's style as quote daringly anti-aristotelian.

[40:15] It rejects atmospheric or emotional persuasion, audience involvement, audience catharsis. It demands floodlit exploration, unsentimental demonstration, audience estrange estrangement, final audience realization.

[40:29] Set forth as a concept, this may seem forbiddingly cold, but so intense is the Brechtan energy, so varied the ingenuity, so deep the insight and compassion, and so unerring the sense of human comedy that in actual reading and certainly in a good performance, the play takes on a quality of an intellectual circus.

[40:49] Wow.

[40:50] Lauren T. Mack: That I know.

[40:52] I know.

[40:53] Lauren T. Mack: So like I would say focus, focus on um, you know, I think we as musical students of musical theater, as lovers of musical theater, we're we unironically love things because they are sentimental, right? But here you have to be vicious.

[41:10] You have to be like Mack the Knife. You have to be able to say, I don't really care if you don't get it.

[41:24] Because that's the magic of THREEPENNY is saying, like, I don't care if you get it, but I'm also at the same time addressing you directly and saying, come along, right?

[41:34] If you're brave enough, come with me, right? But I think that's something that we sort of miss in audience interaction nowadays at all.

[41:42] And I'm not talking about like, you know, the moment in the in the finale where everybody like, you know, take walks into the audience, like, please God, don't do that.

[41:49] Um, but uh I think there is like a there's an onion, there's an onion article or something about like, oh god, they're coming into the audience.

[41:58] But um, but you know, I think there is um sort of a uh attitude we have towards the audience now that is sort of like us and them um in the theater, you know.

[42:11] I think we have this attitude of like, oh, well, if people can't stay off their phones, they shouldn't come to the theater. Instead of figuring out how we can integrate phones into the theatrical experience.

[42:20] You know, instead of wondering why that's more interesting to them.

[42:25] Right.

[42:25] Right.

[42:26] Right.

[42:26] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah. There is this incredible book that I recommend to everyone. So I'm gonna recommend it to you, and I'm gonna recommend it to the listeners as well.

[42:34] I'm checking the title, it's over here next to me. It's called Theater and Audience by Helen Freshwater.

[42:40] It's like it's like a read it in like two or three sittings. It's a very small book.

[42:46] Lauren T. Mack: Um, but her whole thing is she'll change the way you go into every theater now. Cause basically she says, like, if the artistic director or whoever comes out and is saying, We want everyone sitting forward, we want you engaging with the work.

[43:01] Lauren T. Mack: Um, she's basically like, fuck you.

[43:04] Lauren T. Mack: Fuck you. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to do. And she goes into all these experimental theater pieces that are incorporating like video game mentality and all these different things. It totally revolutionized, and I would say I was already a person who, you know, who was introduced to Brecht uh like formally in college, was familiar with the V effect, like new stuff like this. So when I'm in the audience, I'm feeling I am already consciously thinking about theater and audience relationship. I've read through this book so many times, and it totally changed the way that I enter a theater space and think about my relationship to the performers as an audience member, just because it hits on everything that you just talked about.

It hits on so much that came from that quote. Um well, and I love that you say this because the form is the function, right? And the thing I would say to producers of this work is um if you're doing three penny and the seats are you know a hundred dollars a pop and you don't have lower prices for younger people or for you know anybody who can't afford it, because let's be honest, there are people who are in their like mid-30s and forties who can't afford you know, um, like if you're if you're making this work inaccessible and treating it as a treasured classic with which we cannot mess, you know, then you are missing the point of three penny opera. To me, the way you put on a production and the way you run your theater company is what shows up in the artistic product on stage.

And if you are, you know, doing a thing, you know, if like we're seeing with a lot of you know, uh a lot of folks now where um, you know, uh we see you, we hear you, um, you know, uh, we all know what I'm talking about. Um, but I mean, even, you know, looking at pay transparency, uh, there is a um really great newsletter uh by Lauren Halverson um called Nothing for the Group, which I love and everybody should read. Um, but in it, uh she uh at the bottom always has a posting of current jobs in the American theater, like let's say, you know, your literary manager, your, you know, AD, whatever, and then um, and the salary and then next to it, what you need to make in that city in order to live what we would call above the poverty line.

[43:57] Andrew Child: Okay.

[43:57] Lauren T. Mack: Wow. Right. Um, so if you're doing three penny, but you're not paying your interns, I don't have time for you.

[45:46] Andrew Child: Right.

[45:46] Lauren T. Mack: Like, and Brecht and Brecht will, you know, like come haunt you, I promise. Um, but I think that there is there is something about, you know, uh these these uh large scale um productions that just don't recognize also like what one must do for the community. You know, I think a three penny where the cast on their day off goes and volunteers is one that I would like to see. You know, um and would you say some of those things that you've just thrown out there, you know, like a three penny that is paying their interns a living wage or they're volunteering on their day off. Would you say you have any examples in mind of people who today are sort of on like carrying on this legacy of Brecht and Weil and Hockman um and are sort of living what they're putting on stage?

[46:42] Andrew Child: Do you have any examples of a group or uh an individual, a theater that's doing this now?

[46:49] Lauren T. Mack: Oh yeah. Oh, how many people can I name? Um yes. Um, I mean, like I want to draw attention because we talked a little bit earlier about uh the form follows the function, right? Um the way we make theater is what shows up on the stage. Um, so I just want to shout out quickly a couple of organizations and people that I think are really shifting the conversation right now. And um, you know, Broadway for racial justice, um, the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, um, Natalie Randall, Shakina Nayfak, Brandon Michael Nays, Dave on Williams, and Dave on Williams in particular for pushing forward the Black Theater Matters bill, um, which was a bill in equity um that is, you know, uh, you know, and and I know that um, you know, there might be a way, well, this is a lot of why gotta make it about race, and it's like, well, let me tell you about the black live uh black theater matters bill.

[47:51] Lauren T. Mack: So the black that actually has um materially changed um some things. It's putting forward, I mean, there's discussions happening right now about like whether or not a 10 out of 12 is a thing we should be doing, right? Like, is that a useful is that useful for everybody? Why are technicians not allowed in the rehearsal room until that moment, right? Like, um, why is it that there's only one day off a week? You know, I think the pandemic really forced us to address um, you know, uh the way why we say the show must go on. Um and whether or not that is um, like I think we can all agree it's not healthy, but like, does the work benefit or is it detracted by those backstage attitudes? Right?

[48:19] Lauren T. Mack: Um, you know, uh, and there's there's so many other folks. I mean, the Kilroys um release a list of plays um by people of marginalized genders, um, uh, and uh you can check out, and all of them are unproduced, by the way. These are all plays that have not yet gotten airtime um on a stage. Um the um Cornerstone Theater Company um doing projects to, you know, go out into the world and um create theater in towns where there isn't a theater. They build a proper theater for folks. Um, and then that, you know, just leaving theaters in their wake and teaching and teaching a community how to create a space. Um, you know, I think anybody who is um, you know, I think we can talk about, you know, oh, New York, New York, New York, and it's like the center of the theatrical world.

But I honestly feel like the real revolutionaries out there are the folks in Lexington, Kentucky, the folks in Columbus, Ohio, the folks who are making theater that isn't um, you know, uh getting these awards or a ton of the, you know, even funding that we get from the NEA, you know.

[49:57] Lauren T. Mack: I think the more we can anybody who is advocating for live streaming production so that folks with disabilities or people who are geographically unable to come to the theater can enjoy it. Um, you know, and I think we've seen by now that it's not that uh, you know, because the argument is always like, oh, well, it's gonna, then people won't want to come to the theater. They will have already seen the show. But what uh what I've actually been noticing is that it makes people hungrier to see it in person when they have the ability to. You know, it's like now I've gotten a taste and I really want to see it again. I think, you know, I think anybody who is leveraging technology and not, you know, old man screaming at clouding about it, you know, um, anything that is going to make the theater something that is for everyone and some a place that is a center for community and to have a conversation instead of a dark room where you go in, you are talked to or at for a couple of hours, and then you go out and go, Oh, I feel so cultured.

[51:06] Lauren T. Mack: Which these are great. These are awesome, and it's exactly it's picking up Brecht's work who had audience coming into the rehearsal room who was really going to like the fundamental things that were in place and saying, Is this important? Do we need this, or can we throw this out the window? So that's amazing. That's an awesome list. Thank you so much for sharing all that.

[51:30] Andrew Child: Is there any work? Is there any person, is there any theater group that you would say sort of because I think we can say that Bertolt Brecht had his own aesthetic, had his own philosophy kind of like to the max in all of his art. Would you say there's anyone who's sort of carrying on that legacy and thinking along those lines?

[51:55] Lauren T. Mack: I know that's also like a hard question to just sort of throw out there. Yeah, I mean I'm not and and again I'm going to have to I'm gonna have to go back and and look. Uh yeah, but uh the scenic uh designer for um the current round of company um is uh I just I you know there's obviously I could point to people like you know that are much bigger names, but this person um and God I I really wish uh I could find I could find the name.

[52:27] Lauren T. Mack: You know what? Go for it. We'll edit this part out, yeah.

[52:31] Andrew Child: Fabulous, thank you.

[52:33] Lauren T. Mack: No worries.

[52:35] Lauren T. Mack: Oh my gosh, come on.

[52:36] Lauren T. Mack: This is one my uh yes okay all right so somebody I can speak to is Bunny Christie um who did the costumes and the scenic design for uh the current production of company on Broadway um and uh also did uh the um set for a play called People Places Things okay which is about somebody who is going through withdrawals and there is this incredible moment um and uh they sort of do this trick in um in company as well where uh the main character lies down in bed and then another the the same person in another costume enters a door and then another person runs to the bathroom and throws up so it's all multiple actors but they're all dressed exactly the same and so it's the idea of all of this time passing right that is actually being condensed into like maybe a one to two minute sequence um and this is directly Brechtan right so like this idea of um and you know the film montage is the same concept right um Picasso's use of sort of collaging cube uh cubism right um all of that uh is is very similar to what Brecht was doing right it wasn't observing Aristotle's unities of time right it's it's um it's sort of breaking time in order to show you that time is, you know, as we are fond of saying now, a construct and a flimsy one at that.

[54:25] Lauren T. Mack: Right. Um, I think that there is uh there's there's something very arresting about that work um that uh sort of forces the audience to go, wait, what? And at the same time, it feels like a magic trick, and you're totally enraptured by how it's happening, even though you can see, you can you know it's got you're watching it live. It can't all be the same person. Right. So you're seeing behind the curtain at the same time as you're seeing this beautiful um illusion and metaphor for time.

[55:02] Lauren T. Mack: So to me, that is about as uh V effect as you can get. It's arresting and you're pulled in, and at the same time you're like, Well, what is time? That is wild.

[55:16] Andrew Child: You know what I mean?

[55:17] Lauren T. Mack: Yeah, no, that sounds very thank you for painting that picture for us.

[55:17] Andrew Child: Thank you.

[55:21] Lauren T. Mack: That was amazing.

[55:22] Andrew Child: My pleasure.

[55:23] Lauren T. Mack: And thank you so much for uh talking with me today about the three penny opera.

[55:27] Andrew Child: Yeah, it's my pleasure.

[55:29] Lauren T. Mack: Thank you so very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time.

[55:33] Andrew Child: Thank you, listeners, for joining us today. Please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description.

[55:43] Andrew Child: If you want to learn more about the three penny opera, please also review the links in the below description.

[55:49] Andrew Child: I'm Andrew Child, and thank you for listening to 50 Key Stage Musicals, the podcast.