Read-Aloud: "The Threepenny Opera" by Bertholdt Brecht
Details
(In our readalouds, the text is screen-shared. No experience in reading aloud or prep necessary.)
(Wiki:) The Threepenny Opera[a] (Die Dreigroschenoper [diː dʁaɪˈɡʁɔʃn̩ˌʔoːpɐ]) is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera,[1] and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much contribution Hauptmann might have made to the libretto, Brecht is usually listed as sole author and Hauptmann as the sole translator, which was probably an unfair oversimplification typical of the time.
The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world.[3] It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.
***
The Threepenny Opera offers an ideal starting point for understanding Brecht’s theoretical and practical work. It is a transition piece between his earlier plays, which are sometimes considered both expressionist and anarchic (Baal or Galy Gay), and his famous dramatic parables, mostly written in exile (Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Person of Szechwan and Life of Galileo, for example). Brecht used Threepenny as a testing ground, experimenting with new dramaturgical and technological devices (such as projections of scene titles, visible staging machinery and non-traditional ways of acting) as well as narrative and musical forms which would come to shape his typically ‘epic’ approach to theatre-making.
Brecht, Bertolt; Weill, Kurt. The Threepenny Opera (Student Editions) (pp. xvi-xvii). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
***
Latecomers (unless we know you) will generally NOT BE ADMITTED once the reading starts.
If this is your first time with us, consider joining five minutes early, so we can work out any technical issues you may be having.