Word: peachum
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Macheath, always the gentleman, marries Peachum's daughter Polly in a stable; when Peachum finds out he vows to have Macheath hanged. He finally catches the man-about-town at his weekly appointment with his whore, Jenny. This, of course, is the role Lotte Lenya made famous, and it's central to the show. Marylou Ledden plays the part with sense--she catches the world-weariness in Brecht better than anyone else in the cast. But her inadequate singing must be the reason the director, Harvey Seifter, gives Jenny's big number, "Pirate Jenny," to Polly Peachum (Ann Titolo) instead...
...white gloves, cane and jackknife--has become a stage favorite. The king of the underworld who's best friends with the chief of police strides through The Threepenny, Opera refusing to be judged. Women, of course, fall all over him, and he's married two (at least). Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, the "king of the beggars," a less familiar character, acts as Brecht's mouthpiece to deliver the show's straight-forward message: don't condemn how others earn their next meal until you're faced with missing one yourself. Working, begging, taking bribes, stealing--they blur together in Brecht...
Other performers in the Caravan production are obviously talented but don't even try to be sordid. You would be glad to have Ida Beecher's Mrs. Peachum as your grandmother; she plays the kind old lady to perfection, but brings an element of benevolence onto Brecht's stage that doesn't belong there...
Granted that premise, this production is riveting. As a monocled Mack the Knife, Raul Julia moves like a Fred Astaire of gangsterdom, sometimes prowling for his favorite whore, Jenny (Ellen Greene). C.K. Alexander's Mr. Peachum-the Fagin of London's turn-of-the-century beggars-might have been drawn by George Grosz. The Kurt Weill score, too renowned for praise (Mack the Knife, Pirate Jenny), is superbly rendered. This Threepenny Opera honors the Brecht who wrote with a hammer and swung a sickle. T.E, Kalem
Most of the cast fill their roles with 18th century gusto. Teresa Toulouse, for example, combines the vengefulness of Gilbert and Sullivan's jilted Katisha with the coarse bumptiousness of Eliza the Flower Girl in her characterization of Lucy Lockit, Polly Peachum's rival for the love of the unfaithful highwayman Macheath. Joanna Blum as Mrs. Peachum also plays her role to the hit. Unscrupulous and unmarried, she jerks around the stage, hands on hips, spitting out cynical asides to the audience...