Over The Top Alienation: Threepenny Opera at MXAT

By the time a four-story human skeleton on skeleton horseback appeared with blazing eyes in the last act of Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera, I was sold. This spectacle would soon be followed by two women flying up in the air, followed by Mack stealing a move from Trisha Brown and walking straight up a wall.

The director, Kiril Cereibrenikov (don’t know if I transliterated that from the Cyrillic correctly…this is probably going to be a common problem) is apparently known for his unique style and take, but I’m not sure that begins to describe what I just saw. The show was four hours long with two intermissions, but it really didn’t feel that bad to me. By the time the first intermission rolled around I was still on the fence: although I was enjoying the staging and his aesthetic, not knowing the play as well or the language kind of made Brecht’s whole alienation effect concept pointless. But I reminded myself that this was my first time seeing a show all in Russian that I was less familiar with, something that I will be doing a lot of in the next 3 months and need to get used to.

By the time the last act started I had come around. This is probably due in large part to how they ended the intermission and began the final act. In the play, Mr. Peachum is the boss of the city’s beggars, so practically every member of the 23-person cast appeared onstage or in the audience as beggars—and each with their own unique shtick. All of them were based on Russian beggars and I’ve seen many of them myself: the Orthodox Christian man, the old woman sitting with a hat in front of her, the musicians, etc. It was hilarious, and went on for a long time.

But this time the alienation was not lost on me. Even through my own laughter, I was unsettled that around 1,000 audience members were laughing at the mocking of a very real problem. When an actor playing a drunk threw something at one of the actors playing an old beggar woman, there was a moment of pause—everyone else felt the way I did.

It’s a common misconception of Brecht that he doesn’t want to be entertaining. Really, spectacle can be the best way to catch the masses’ attention and then do something to make them think about the message. Threepenny Opera’s director didn’t really know how to edit himself throughout the spectacle, but it somehow worked.

On the metro home after the show, two guitar players entered our car, singing. A man preceded them as they walked down the car…holding out his cap.