Threepenny/Pirate Jenny

I'm performing the song Pirate Jenny for a review in a little over a month but had never seen Threepenny Opera (though I most certainly will be once it opens). The song itself is easy enough to get; What I'm wondering is how the song fits into the show, the characters, etc. This is mostly for curiousity's sake, since I have the characterization for the song down well enough. Just anything you might know that might be interesting, about the plot, etc.

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In the original 1928 German production, Lotte Lenya played Polly... and she sang "Pirate Jenny" - which has nothing to do with the character Jenny Diver (the whore) in the show. Weill liked the name Jenny, among other American names, and used them a LOT. When the show came to the U.S. in the 1950's production off-broadway (that was actually the second U.S. incarnation - there had been another NY production and that was just like the 1928 German one too), it starred Charlotte Rae as Polly, Bea Arthur as Lucy, and Lotte Lenya as Jenny Diver. Because Lenya was a great song-interpreter and people loved her singing the song "Pirate Jenny," and because she was Weill's wife, she was given the song That is where the confusion over who the different Jenny's are comes from.

As for the song itself, it stands alone perfectly well. I would just interpret it your way and infuse it with your own power and emotion... if you are performing the song, then you must relate to it somehow :) Go with that! Break legs at your performance.

I actually think Nina Simone's live recording of the song is the most exciting - I prefer it to even Lotte Lenya's.

well it is done differently every time
See Lotte Lenya in the Movie
and than just say
This is too hard
No really
I think she is a maid in a flop house and she falls for a sailor and yearns for his return
also listen to Ellen Greene after a few drinx
good luck

Huh?

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"Charlotte Rae played Mrs. Peachum. Jo Sullivan was Polly in that production."


DRRR! Sorry about that. I was tired and my brain was mush when I replied to that posting! lol thanks for making that clear.

Updated On: 3/2/06 at 01:13 PM

Betty Buckley's rendition is bone-chilling good!

Don't listen to Lenya's cut on the original cast album. It sounds very sanitized. Listen to her do it on one of her solo albums, preferably in German. She sounds extraordinary singing it in German.

Ellen Greene's version is also incredible. I don't care for the actress who sang it on the Donmar cast recording (name escapes me), and as has been mentioned, Nina Simone does a killer rendition.