Martha Clarke's THREEPENNY OPERA at Atlantic- Page 2

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 8:07am

I'm not at all disheartened. Martha Clarke is not the kind of artist whose work lends itself to first previews. She comes from experimental dance and experimental theater, where things tend to evolve.

I first saw her "Garden of Earthly Delights," a theater/dance piece based on the painting by Hieronymous Bosch, in 1984 at the Theater at St. Clements Church on West 46th Street. Then Reginald Tresilian and I saw at the Minetta Lane Theater in 2009.

The production employed Flying by Fox and was pretty miraculous, but I imagine the first "preview" of it must have been nothing short of a mess. A glorious mess, but more like the hunk of marble into which Michelangelo peered and saw his David.


Here's a clip of the 2009 production:

http://youtu.be/UPyLZA53YmE

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 8:20am

She famously threw out the entire set of "Garden" during previews.

On the other hand, she does stuff that just doesn't work. But I always find her work interesting.

[StageStruckLad]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 8:21am

I also saw the first preview, and I thought it got stronger as it went on, which is perhaps a good sign for future performances as the cast settles into their roles. I loved Laura and Sally, although I thought that the sound design failed Sally during "Pirate Jenny." In fact, they definitely need to work on the sound overall. Michael Park sang well but didn't really seem sexy or dangerous enough for Macheath. F. Murray Abraham threw himself into his songs with gusto, but I'm not sure musicals come naturally to him. For me, the "Jealousy Duet" with Laura and the wonderful Lilli Cooper was the highlight. Oh, and the bulldog. I don't want to give any spoilers, but the bulldog's appearances are hilarious.

There was no mention in the Playbill on the orchestrations. I couldn't tell if they were Weill's original ones or not.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 8:58am

I thought Michael Park and Laura were both very good. The production is just missing a concept. The actors seem a little lost and it isn't cohesive. It's not bad but it isn't exciting, to me.

Also they put an intermission in the middle of the second act, which was new to me. The running time was just over 2 hours.

And yes, several sound glitches. Like four or five times where it was distracting. Hopefully they can fix that soon. Updated On: 3/13/14 at 08:58 AM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 9:42am

For those more familiar with Clarke's work- Does she normally create original works or does she put on reinventions of older pieces?

StageStruck, I agree with you about F. Murray Abraham being a little lost at sea. He's obviously a terrific actor, but the songs did seem to throw him for a loop.

The more I think about Sally Murphy's performance the more I like it. It's not the usual brash Jenny that I think we're used to seeing. She is very sad, and although a survivor she is dead inside. I'd love to see her take on Sally Bowles.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 9:56am

She's best known for her hybrid dance-theater pieces, which may or may not have text. She's created pieces based on material as diverse as Hieronymous Bosch, Italian folktales, Kafka, Chekhov, Colette, and the Shakers.

She also directs opera, and as someone mentioned in a different thread, she did a version of Alice in Wonderland at the RSC (I think), with a text by Christopher Hampton.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:01am

Is this one of those versions that gives "Pirate Jenny" to Jenny? So obvious, so missing the point of the song. (Although I fear that I'm in the minority with that opinion.)

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:08am

I agree with everything that's been said, for good and bad. I definitely think the show will be in excellent shape even after just a week of performances, so those of you who are going a little later in the run should be in for a treat.

Also, Whizzer, I LOVE the idea of Threepenny being done in rep with Urinetown. Let's get the most of out the crapsack world in which they're set.

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:15am

Bobby/Mack
Pennywise/Celia
Cladwell/Peachum
Sally/Polly
Hope/Lucy
Becky Two-Shoes/Jenny
Senator Fipp/Tiger Brown
Lockstock/Streetsinger/various characters

[AC126748]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:23am

Yes, "Pirate Jenny" is assigned to Jenny in the Blitzstein translation (because Lenya insisted in the original Off-Broadway production).

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:24am

I've seen at least once that had a mini-reprise of it later for Jenny, but had the main song assigned to Polly. Mack's discomfort realizing that his wife at least tangentially knows his mistress was palpable in that production.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:38am

Isn't "Barbara Song" sometimes performed much later in act two in some productions?

Here it is sung fairly early on in act one.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 10:58am

I've never entirely understood the "move any song anywhere and give it to any character" approach historically taken with Threepenny. "Pirate Jenny" is most effective (for me) when Polly sings it at the wedding, because it's unexpected from what the audience assumes is a standard ingenue (which Polly isn't). "Barbara Song" is Polly's song to her parents when she returns home after the wedding.

My favorite recording remains the René Kollo, Lemper, Dernesch, etc. one with the original orchestrations and songs in their original context. (Although they let Milva also cover "Pirate Jenny," because, I suppose, so many people need to hear Jenny sing it.

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 11:02am

The backstage politics of Threepenny development are as interesting as the onstage politics.

The song "Mack the Knife" is in the show because the original Mack demanded a dramatic entrance number, especially to allow the flamboyant costume pieces he had taken to wearing. Brecht and Weill, true to the letter of the law, wrote an entrance song for Macheath... in which he does not sing and appears only in the background. In the scene that follows, he got his requested mentions of the costume pieces he had added, when Peachum and Celia mock them.

Pirate Jenny was written for Polly to sing AS Jenny, but Lotte Lenya insisted on performing the song later. Since her recording became iconic, and the Blitzstein album was for many years the only standard available version, Jenny singing the song became an accepted way to do the show, but one that the script supports somewhat less.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/13/14 at 1:02pm

Weill agreed to give Blitzstein the rights after hearing him sing his version of "Pirate Jenny" over the phone. Lenya loved it, and Blitzstein and Weill were happy to give the song to her. While Blitzstein was working on the adaptation, Weill died of a heart attack at age 50. That gave a Rent-like fervor to the proceedings: Everyone was doing it to immortalize the work of Kurt Weill. Bertolt Brecht approved Blitzstein's work by airmail from East Berlin, where he was leading the Berliner Ensemble.

The adaptation was tried out in a legendary concert version at Brandeis University, which was conducted by Blitzstein's good friend, Leonard Bernstein. At that point, they thought it was going to be produced on a major opera stage.

Because they were giving Lenya one of Polly's songs, Lenya suggested to Blitzstein that they give Polly one song from another of Weill's scores: "The Bilbao Song" from Happy End was inserted in the first act for Polly to sing as "The Bide-a-Wee in Soho."

They ended up at the tiny Theater De Lys on Christopher Street, now called the Lucille Lortel, where it ran from September 1955 to December 1961, a record broken only by The Fantasticks.

For anyone who is interested, there are videos on YouTube of Lotte Lenya singing it in the 1933 German film and on British television in 1962, as well as audio of her singing it at the Brandeis concert conducted by Bernstein.

But the version that is perhaps the truest to the original meaning of the Brecht/Weill song is the 1964 one by Nina Simone. Ask Reginald Tresilian to tell you about the time he and I saw her singing it live, in an outdoor concert in a baseball field near a housing project in Brooklyn, to a rapt audience of people who probably never heard of Brecht or Weill or Lotte Lenya. What enraptured them was Nina Simone singing about a woman who cleaned floors and dreamt of revenge. This video is Simone singing it in 1992, 28 years after she first recorded it:

http://youtu.be/BB__mz4KGC8

Updated On: 3/13/14 at 01:02 PM

[charliebrown5]

Posted: 3/16/14 at 12:06am

I saw this show Thursday and again tonight. I was really impressed by how much the first third of the show has improved over the past few days. The first third is already much clearer, cleaner and crisper. The sound is louder, the group numbers are tighter and the entire thing has much more energy.

The show only tends to drag whenever Sally Murphy is featured. It’s not her fault; I blame the direction. The brothel scene drags on too long without much happening before she sings Pirate Jenny. And then her take on Pirate Jenny is long, slow, sad and forlorn. She doesn’t move and I find her hard to understand. The moment simply does nothing for the show. Unfortunately, later on the director has Murphy stand in a back corner of the stage by herself in dim lighting and sing Song of Solomon, which is another long, slow and sad ballad. As soon as she starts singing, you can actually see the audience sigh and start to move restlessly and feel them losing interest. I haven’t seen this show before, but there has to be a better way to stage these songs.

On a positive note again, I think F. Murray Abraham, Mary Beth Peil and Michael Park are finding more depth in their characters. Each of them added a lot of moments that were very effective. I think there’s still a lot more humor to mine, but already there’s a marked improvement. One thing that will help a lot is improved diction and enunciation in both speaking and singing. Part of the reason Laura Osnes shines so brightly (she’s fabulous) is because she’s very easy to understand. I can still only understand F. Murray Abraham about 60% of the time.

Overall, the show is already in much better shape and I'm looking forward to seeing it again once it opens.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 3/16/14 at 12:42pm

Here's hoping the Martha Clarke production comes together of course, and a quick moment in remembrance for Raul Julia's spectacular Macheath back in the Lincoln Center production in 1976. Having seen that one, I'm lucky enough not to long for another great live production of this very tough show.

[macnyc]

Posted: 3/16/14 at 10:20pm

I was a bit wary of this going in, because of the comments I had read on this board. But I really enjoyed this production! I didn't find it boring or flat at all. The ensemble was used very well, creating interesting tableaus in back of the action up front. All the performances were solid, with Laura Osnes, Mary Beth Peil, and Lilli Cooper as standouts. Sally Murphy is handing in a wonderful turn as Pirate Jenny. I thought she was just great. The lighting and the staging were interesting. I really enjoyed Romeo too! I think the nudity was well done and really conveyed the decadence of the setting. I had no complaints about this production, my first Threepenny Opera.

[AC126748]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:52am

I was at yesterday's matinee. Unfortunately, it's a boring and listless production, with uneven acting.

Yes, the acting standouts are Mary Beth Peil, Laura Osnes, and Lilli Cooper, as macnyc points out in his post. Peil is the perfect embodiment of Mrs Peachum, and her "Ballad of Sexual Dependency" was show-stopping. She did more with a look or a slight move of the body than most can do in an entire performance. She and F Murray Abraham are well-matched, even if Mr Abraham is still finding his footing as Peachum.

Osnes, likewise, is doing the best work I've ever seen from her as Polly. She has that ideal balance between delicacy world-weariness. While I don't love Polly singing "Barbara Song" instead of "Pirate Jenny" at the wedding, she delivered it nicely, and it's one of the few moments that's well-staged in the production. Cooper is a superb Lucy, with a great smoky voice. However, the interpolation of "Ballad of the Drowned Girl" makes absolutely no sense other than to give her more material.

The fatal miscasting here is Michael Park as Macheath. He cuts a dashing figure in his tailored three-piece suit (even though his "kid gloves" look more like the kind you'd trim your garden with), but he has neither the menace nor the sexual magnetism that make for a great Mac. Likewise, his voice has lost some of the shine it possessed when he was younger. Sally Murphy, a performer I usually adore, is just plain odd as Jenny, write down to an unplaceable accent that's half-Austria and half-Minnesota. Abraham, as I said, is growing in the part of Peachum, aiding my his natural charisma, and the rest of the ensemble is passable with few standouts.

Clarke's production seems to be searching for a concept. It's messy, but not in an interesting way. If this was your first introduction to her work, you'd leave scratching your head as to why she's often touted as one of the visionaries of her generation.

[StageStruckLad]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 9:36am

No love for Romeo from some of the more recent reviewers? Has he grown in his role?

[AC126748]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 9:53am

Adorable dog!

But he did little more than elicit a few "awwwws" from the otherwise-bored blue hairs in the audience.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 10:03am

The tradition of Jenny singing Pirate Jenny, for better or worse, dates, if not earlier, to the 1931 film in which Lenya as Jenny sang it. Nina Simone's version is, of course, superb. So is Judy Collins's.

Pirate Judy Updated On: 3/17/14 at 10:03 AM

[James2]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 10:37am

At some point during the first preview, I found myself thinking how interesting Michael Cerveris would be as Macheath. Anyone agree?

[AC126748]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 10:41am

I would love to see Michael Cerveris try his hand at MacHeath.

[macnyc]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 11:58am

^^^ Yes please!

Updated On: 3/17/14 at 11:58 AM