
With its colourful characters, humorous plot and memorable music, The Threepenny Opera (1928) is one of Bertolt Brecht’s most successful and most popular plays. Set in Victorian London, it portrays the tumultuous life of Macheath, an amoral bandit who marries Polly Peachum, the daughter of an unscrupulous entrepreneur. Because the marriage endangers his business, Mr Peachum wants to have Mac hanged. As the line between law and crime blurs, the play couples entertainment and critique to stage a biting satire of social norms, resonating strongly with our contemporary moment.
In the world of Threepenny and beyond, ‘money rules the world’, as Mrs Peachum fittingly states. Mr Peachum’s company capitalises on other people’s misery: his employees disguise themselves as beggars to raise money by evoking sympathy from passers-by. When his daughter announces her marriage, Mr Peachum is less concerned about her wellbeing than about his economic gain as he fears competition from Mac, the ruthless and shameless criminal. Even though Macheath is a bandit from the underworld, he is depicted as an ordinary businessman. Indeed, in Threepenny, society is ruled by criminals and prostitutes, with most of the action displaced to the street, the prison, and the brothel. Entrepreneur and gangster therefore become interchangeable as distinctions between moral and amoral, high and low, respectable and corrupt dissolve.
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