Spring Break
Threepenny well worth the price
by Cassie Seinuk
Music | 10/16/07
Posted online at 8:40 PM EST on 10/15/07
The Threepenny Opera has a legacy at Brandeis University. It was first staged on campus by Leonard Bernstein in 1952 before it moved to the stage in New York. Saturday, it returned, cutting through the fourth wall and exposing the audience to a seedy world of beggars, whores and gangsters. Fifty-five years ago, Brandeis students were only allowed to assist backstage and in the crew, but for this season's production, Bertolt Brecht's musical included a plethora of undergraduate students, two graduate students and a Brandeis professor in the cast.
The cast faced the challenge of bringing the show beyond the normal relationship between actor and audience, and in following Brecht's vision, they broke this divide and literally danced in the aisles, spoke to the audience and begged them for money. Justin Becker '09 engaged the audience as Flitch, a beggar boy and street singer. "It goes with the territory of Brecht, so it's a necessary concept-the central theme: Take it to their faces," Becker said. Since the Laurie Theater is a thrust-style space, with the audience wrapped around the stage, the actors we able to face in all directions and use the stairs as a playing space. Toward the end of the second act, Mr. Peachum, played by Joshua Mervis '08, climbed the stage-left stairs and acted as conductor to the finale taking place below. Said Mervis, "[Director] Eric Hill told us to get into the audience's faces, to make it as intense as possible."
The audience was forced to interact with the actors not only during the performance, but during the intermission as well. First-time BTC actor Ross Brown '10, in the role of Reverend Kimball, was unleashed into the house during the second intermission. I witnessed audience members trying to converse with Brown, only to find they were speaking to Reverend Kimball, Cockney accent and all. Said Brown of this unusual theatrical role, "It's really interesting to go out and to talk to the audience members because I had to come up with a back story. When someone asked me where I went to college, I told them Oxford."
The cast faced the challenge of bringing the show beyond the normal relationship between actor and audience, and in following Brecht's vision, they broke this divide and literally danced in the aisles, spoke to the audience and begged them for money. Justin Becker '09 engaged the audience as Flitch, a beggar boy and street singer. "It goes with the territory of Brecht, so it's a necessary concept-the central theme: Take it to their faces," Becker said. Since the Laurie Theater is a thrust-style space, with the audience wrapped around the stage, the actors we able to face in all directions and use the stairs as a playing space. Toward the end of the second act, Mr. Peachum, played by Joshua Mervis '08, climbed the stage-left stairs and acted as conductor to the finale taking place below. Said Mervis, "[Director] Eric Hill told us to get into the audience's faces, to make it as intense as possible."
The audience was forced to interact with the actors not only during the performance, but during the intermission as well. First-time BTC actor Ross Brown '10, in the role of Reverend Kimball, was unleashed into the house during the second intermission. I witnessed audience members trying to converse with Brown, only to find they were speaking to Reverend Kimball, Cockney accent and all. Said Brown of this unusual theatrical role, "It's really interesting to go out and to talk to the audience members because I had to come up with a back story. When someone asked me where I went to college, I told them Oxford."
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