History Theatre / TheThreePennyOpera

--> '''Tiger Brown''': ''🎶We'll meet a darker race''!🎶''

--> '''Mack:''' ''🎶We'll fight them face to face''!🎶''
--> '''Tiger Brown''' ''🎶Cause it is clear we'll better''!🎶''
--> '''Mack:''' ''🎶We'll kill them it doesn't matter''!🎶''

--> '''Tiger Brown''': 🎶''We'll meet a darker race''!🎶
--> '''Mack:''' 🎶''We'll fight them face to face''!🎶
--> '''Tiger Brown''' 🎶''Cause it is clear we'll better''!🎶
--> '''Mack:''' 🎶''We'll kill them it doesn't matter''!🎶
--> '''Mack and Tiger Brown''' 🎶''[[ImAHumanitarian We'll chop them up and make from them a beefsteak tartare]]''!

--> And when it rained / and we met a new race / a brown one or a pale one / [[ImAHumanitarian maybe we'd use them to make our steak tartare]]!

* ConspicuousGloves: As detailed in the opening song "Moritat" ([[CoveredUp better known]] as "Mack the Knife"), the gangster Macheath is identifiable by his signature kid gloves. Besides being stylish they help him avoid blood stains.

Brecht's production was intended to be an ironic {{Deconstruction}} of familiar European dramatic conventions and he made several important dramatic innovations, illustrating his concept of "epic theater", namely protagonists the audiences do not easily identify with, action taking place on multiple levels and social and political commentary used for dramatic effect. The music by Kurt Weill has endured in many cover versions recorded in Germany and in English (in a series of translations). The songs frequently covered include "Mack the Knife", "Pirate Jenny", "What Keeps Mankind Alive" which have seen versions by Music/BobbyDarin, Music/FrankSinatra, Music/NinaSimone, Music/NickCave, Music/TomWaits among others.

* ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' (1931): There have been many movie adaptations. This is the first one and it actually involved Brecht, Weill and Lenya directed by G. W. Pabst (of ''Film/PandorasBox'' fame). It is notable for featuring most of the cast from the original production: Ernst Busch as the Street-Singer/Narrator, Carola Neher as Polly Peachum, Fritz Rasp as Beggar King Peachum and Lotte Lenya as Jenny (who sings "Seerauben Jenny). Currently available on Creator/TheCriterionCollection (alongside a French version also directed by Pabst).

* ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' (1931): There have been many movie adaptations. This is the first one and it actually involved Brecht, Weill and Lenya directed by G. W. Pabst (of ''Film/PandorasBox'' fame). It is notable for featuring most of the cast from the original production: Ernst Busch as the Street-Singer/Narrator, Carola Neher as Polly Peachum, Fritz Rasp as Beggar King Peachum and Lotte Lenya as Jenny (who sings "Seerauben Jenny).

** [[invoked]]A more famous example has pretty much become AscendedCanon. In the original production, the song known as PirateJenny was to be sung by Polly and intended to be an ImagineSpot about how much she hates her family and dreams of escape. Later productions, and the 1931 Film version, gave it to Lotte Lenya's Jenny whose performance gave it the now familiar meaning of an oppressed woman's fantasy ImagineSpot of revolutionary justice.

* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: Bobby Darin's famous version of "Mack the Knife" is faithful in the first and second verses (which describes Mack as a rogue connected to mysterious murders, UndisclosedFunds, and suspicious sightings) but the following verses can be described either as propaganda or RomanticizedAbuse when compared to the original, since it makes Mack the Knife's victims sound like willing conquests to a rake:
--> ''Now Jenny Diver, ho, ho, yeah, Sukey Tawdry\\
Ooh, Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown\\
Oh, the line forms on the right, babe\\
Now that Macky's back in town''
** A more accurate translation (by Frank [=McGuinness=]) renders that as:
--> ''Jenny Towler\\
Poor wee Jenny,\\
There they found her\\
Knife in breast.''

* JoinTheArmyTheySaid: "The Cannon Song" evokes this. John, Jim and George are three friends who sign up for the CallToAdventure. They end up committing atrocities against people in colonial outposts and eventually end up as ShellShockedVeterans, disgraced for being deserters or in the case of George, shot for looting:

-> ''There are some who are in darkness\\

* AffablyEvil: Macheath's gang.

* JoinTheArmyTheySaid: "The Cannon Song"

** The music and lyrics by Weill and Brecht mirrors, intentionally, common folk music and music hall style songs and ballads but attacks the entire genre by exposing it as best a coping mechanism for living with poverty, injustice, abuse and other crimes. Where such folk music often by means of euphemism, suggestion and implication commented on reigning issues of the day, Brecht and Weill's music directly highlights it and brings it to the forefront and only makes the characters sentimentalism about poverty even more absurd. This is made obvious in "What Keeps Mankind Alive" which is all about people ignoring or forgetting the ugliness in their own lives and society and putting a StepfordSmiler and accepting the facade of a CrapsaccharineWorld.

** Likewise, certain common archetypes to the crime genre and the Victorian era, are directly attacked and exposed. Brecht's Mack the Knife is not a LoveableRogue but other characters project that archetype on to him and he uses that sentiment to better exploit his friends, lovers and prostitutes. Unlike John Gay's original work, where Macheath is rakish and funny, Brecht's Mackie is a violent pimp, and the play reminds the audience that Mack and Tiger Brown committed many atrocities and war crimes in India as part of the colonial service, which is somehow more legal and acceptable than his open crimes in London.

* BreakoutPopHit: Mac The Knife. Hilariously so. But thanks to Bowdlerlization

* SinisterTangoMusic: Macheath and Jenny have a "romantic" tango song about their past relationship when he used to pimp her, which is mildly sinister in the traditional but [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku8RVgRejMs bowdlerised Blitzstein English translation]]. The German original and later more accurate translations go even further by referring to violent abuse and back-street abortion. The differing titles reflect this. In German it is called "Zuhalterballade" (Pimp's Ballad) and in English it is called "The Ballad of Immoral Earnings" which is apt since it is a classically Victorian euphemism.

* SinisterTangoMusic: Macheath and Jenny have a "romantic" tango song about their past relationship when he used to pimp her, which is mildly sinister in the traditional but [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku8RVgRejMs bowdlerised Blitzstein English translation]]. The German original and later more accurate translations go even further by referring to violent abuse and back-street abortion.

* ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' (1931): There have been many movie adaptations. This is the first one and it actually involved Brecht, Weill and Lenya directed by G. W. Pabst (of ''Film/PandorasBox'' fame). It is notable for featuring most of the original cast from the original production: Ernst Busch as the Street-Singer/Narrator, Carola Neher as Polly Peachum, Fritz Rasp as Beggar King Peachum and Lotte Lenya as Jenny (who sings "Seerauben Jenny).

* Music/MarianneFaithfull's ''20th Century Blues'' features versions of a few Brecht-Weill songs (with lyrics by Irish Playwright Frank [=McGuinness=] based on an earlier production). Features ''Mack the Knife'' and ''Pirate Jenny'' alongside lesser known Brecht tunes like ''Surabaya Johnny'' and ''The Ballad of the Soldier's Wife''.

* ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' (1931): There have been many movie adaptations. This is the first one and it actually involved Brecht, Weill and Lenya (''Dreigroschenfilm'' / ''Threepenny Movie'', 1933), directed by G. W. Pabst (of ''Film/PandorasBox'' fame). It is notable for featuring most of the original cast from the original production: Ernst Busch as the Street-Singer/Narrator, Carola Neher as Polly Peachum, Fritz Rasp as Beggar King Peachum and Lotte Lenya as Jenny (who sings "Seerauben Jenny).

Brecht's production was intended to be an ironic {{Deconstruction}} of familiar European dramatic conventions and he made several important dramatic innovations, illustrating his concept of "epic theater", namely protagonists the audiences do not easily identify with, action taking place on multiple levels and social and political commentary used for dramatic effect. The music by Kurt Weill has endured in many cover versions recorded in Germany and in English (in a series of translations). The songs frequently covered include ''Mack the Knife, Pirate Jenny, What Keeps Mankind Alive'' which have seen versions by Music/BobbyDarin, Music/FrankSinatra, Music/NinaSimone, Music/NickCave, Music/TomWaits among others.

The play centers around the marriage of Polly Peachum (daughter of "Beggar King" Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum) to notorious gangster, alleged rapist, and aspiring gentleman Macheath (better known as Mack the Knife). Despite his notoriety, Mack has completely outsourced his crimes to his gang, and lives on his reputation alone. He's best friends with his old army buddy Jack "Tiger" Brown, the London chief of police, whose daughter Lucy he's dating on the side. He's also chummy with his former live-in girlfriend Spelunken-Jenny, a whore he still visits on Thursdays (hey -- a gentleman is entitled to his habits). And he's got great plans: instead of robbing banks and stabbing men, he now wants to ''found'' a bank and ''hire'' men. After all, true grand scale thievery can only be done by the bourgeoisie. Mack is ready to climb out of the criminal slums and into criminal nobility. And Polly is just the right kind of wife to have by his side for it.

The only problem in his plan is Jonathan Peachum, who not only hates Macheath, but will do ''anything'' to get his daughter back -- after all, she's valuable goods, and he's invested a lot of time and money in her proper upbringing. Peachum devises a plan to blackmail Tiger Brown and convince him to arrest Macheath. Since the Queen's coronation is due in a few days, Brown has his hands full trying to keep the beggars off the streets. Which Peachum decides to use to his advantage in blackmailing Brown: imagine thousands of beggars, crawling out of the gutters, crowding around the Queen... Mack tries to flee, but can't shake his Thursday habit at Jenny's brothel and is consequently arrested by a reluctant Brown. And when Lucy Brown shows up, apparently married to Macheath and pretending to be pregnant, Polly starts to realize that the marriage was a huge mistake.

The play was intended as a commentary on the evils of capitalism and has been notoriously misinterpreted by audiences worldwide, who consider Macheath the ''good guy''. As a TakeThat, Brecht went on to write the scathingly satirical ''Literature/ThreepennyNovel'' (1934), in which Macheath's popularity [[GodwinsLaw is compared to that of Hitler]] and Polly is madly in love with the idea of a suave, gorgeous Macheath (and sorely disappointed when he turns out to be an old bald bastard).

Theatres also tend to completely ignore Brecht's stage directions: he specifically wrote that Macheath needs to be old and ugly, Polly needs to come off as virtuous and agreeable, Mr. Peachum is not a miser but simply a nihilist, and the Queen's messenger absolutely needs to be on horseback as satire of classic bourgeous opera endings. Instead, Macheath tends to be handsome and young in most productions, Polly is commonly portrayed as a gangster moll, Peachum is portrayed as a miser, and the horse is nowhere to be seen. (Nowadays, even Brecht's own theatre in East Berlin performs the play this way.)

Various movie adaptations have been made, one of which actually involved Brecht, Weill and Lenya (''Dreigroschenfilm'' / ''Threepenny Movie'', 1933). Due to ExecutiveMeddling, however, it was severely {{Bowdlerise}}d.

For a complete German recording of ''all'' of the play's songs, the excellent 1999 all-star [[http://www.amazon.com/Kurt-Weill-Threepenny-Opera/dp/B00001R3MQ Berlin performance]] with Music/NinaHagen is a great place to start.

!!Adaptations and re-interpretations by others include:

* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', which was hugely influenced by "Music/PirateJenny" and includes its own analysis of Brecht's work.
* ''Film/LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen: Century 1910''.

* ''The Threepenny Opera'' by Music/NickCave, starring Andy Serkis (upcoming).

* AffablyEvil: Macheath's gang

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Bobby Darrin's cover of Mack the Knife projects this..
-->Sukey Tawdry, Jenny Diver, Polly Peachum, Lucy Brown, ...\\
The line forms on the right, dear, now that Mackie's back in town.
** It's only true of Polly Peachum, the other girls were prostitutes who presumably didn't have a choice in the matter. In her "Barbara Song", Polly Peachum describes how she virtuously turned down all the respectable men who asked for her maidenhead...until a man showed up who was neither respectable nor bothered asking....
* AnachronismStew: The story nominally takes place in 1904. While the "Cannon Song" and its discussion of colonial warfare would seem to place the story in the mid to late 1800s, the coronation the play is centered around is that of Queen Victoria, thus implying an earlier date. Not to mention that the play its adapted from was written and set in the 1700s. Oh, and Macheath in this play tends to dress as a RoaringTwenties gangster.
** The Donmar Warehouse production with Tom Hollander had something of a SettingUpdate with references to onion bhajis and Marks and Spencers in the lyrics.

* BettyAndVeronica: Polly and Lucy

* {{Bowdlerization}}: Most adaptions make the mistake of doing the production like a Broadway Musical, make the characters LighterAndSofter, remove the political and social criticial version and clean up all the song lyrics, in other words make it into a remake of the original ''The Beggar's Opera'' rather than the DarkerAndEdgier version it was originally supposed to be.

* DeusExMachina: At the very end, [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere out of nowhere]], Macheath is saved from the gallows with the information that he's not only pardoned but won a peerage. This was a deliberate parody showing how criminals are spared their fate and recieve unearned rewards in the manner of heroes in the old trope.

* UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper: Not within the play, but in a novel adaptation, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Threepenny Novel]], Macheath is identified with the Ripper. As a ShoutOut, Macheath also appears in ''Film/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', and is presented either as a JackTheRipoff, or maybe the ''actual'' Jack the Ripper.

are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced, and oppressed. \\

--> "Oh the poor shark \\

It has big teeth, buried deep \\

Hidden in his sleeve"

-->"What keeps mankind alive? The fact that millions \\

For once you must not try to shirk the facts. \\
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts."

--> "And when a client came I'd climb out of our bed\\

To see that whorehouse where we used to live?"

are daily tortured, stifled, punished, silenced, oppressed. \\

* DarkerAndEdgier: Like nearly all Brecht productions, it borrows from earlier plays, namely John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'', practically all the characters, the love triangle, the FriendlyEnemy cop is there and even the DeusExMachina ending. Only differences is that Mackie Messer is not the LoveableRogue that the original Macheath is, but a brutal pimp, rapist and child-murderer. The setting-update puts it in context of British Imperialism (via references to Kipling, one of Brecht's favorite writers) and the overall setting is more seedier.