When I first read that Sean Graney and his theater company, The Hypocrites, were going to do Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s musical masterpiece, The Threepenny Opera, as its inaugural show of the season, I started to sweat and salivate in delirious, lip-smacking anticipation, sort of like a Massai lion in the middle of a gazelle flock, or Kathy Griffin mistakenly surrounded by paparazzi. In my humble opinion, if there is one director in Chicago who can pull off a Brecht production to remember, it’s Graney, whose out-of-the-box thinking and fresh introspections into dramatic text has wowed me in the past, namely in his brilliantly mesmerizing promenade stagings of two works so disparate from one another, Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis and August Strinberg’s Miss Julie, both with the Hypocrites, and his hip, marvelously antic production of Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw at the Court Theater. And with the first number of The Threepenny Opera, the famous jazz standard, “Mack the Knife”, which introduces the various crimes that MacHeath, the play’s lead, has committed, Graney delivers - the Steppenwolf Garage space literally explodes with frenetic, dazzling, contagious energy as his 17 actors run, crawl, jump, dance, belt, shimmy, contort, do everything short of Shawn Johnson’s balance beam routine, an opening number that jolts like an unexpected lightning shock, waking you up from the comfortable doldrums of your summer vacation. Although, I don’t think this production of The Threepenny Opera is perfect, with that opening number, the Hypocrites and the brilliant Sean Graney announce that they have the first must-see production of the fall theater season for all true lovers of original, creative, provocative, intriguing live performance (which seems to exclude the Jeff Awards committee members, but more on that later).
There is so much to love and admire in this production of The Threepenny Opera. There’s the evocative Josef von Sternberg-meets-skater boys production design which covers the Steppenwolf Garage with bold graffiti, situates most of the audience members around two large kidney-shaped tables which also double as performance spaces (the fact that the cast is jumping over your head to get onto the stage is both exhilarating and frightening), incorporates two skateboard ramps and a fog machine, and uses costumes full of black and white lace. There’s the hypnotic lighting design which powerfully situates the action in a decadent, highly stylized world of amorality and immorality. There’s the amazing Tim Splain who pulls solo musical duty as pianist/accompanist but who makes Weill’s complex, influential musical score soar (he also played piano in the acclaimed Evanston and off-Broadway productions of the Next Theater’s Adding Machine: the Musical). Tim at the piano in the middle of the room, with some of the cast members either sitting with him, or slinking on top of the piano, while performing their musical numbers, is a great touch, reminiscent of the 1920s German music hall milieu so prevalent during the time of Threepenny’s writing. There’s the terrific singing and staging of the musical numbers “Pirate Jenny” and “Pimp’s Song”. There’s standout performances from Robert McLean, playing the corrupt police chief, Tiger Brown, MacHeath’s best buddy, who infuses the characters’ relationship with a creepy, one-sided Bro-mance quality that is fresh and entertaining; from Kurt Ehrmann, as Mr. Peatchum, head of the beggar crime cartel and MacHeath’s nemesis, who manages to effectively balance moral bankruptcy and sympathetic insecurity; and most especially, from Sara Sevigny, as his wife, the heavily addicted Mrs. Peatchum, who sings most beautifully among the cast members, but is also most in-tune with the Brechtian sensibility- her Mrs. Peatchum is crass, overbearing, wickedly sardonic, clueless, gullible, a complex performance so magnificently realized (I would LOVE to see her do a Mother Courage).
But I think the one thing that really differentiates Graney’s Threepenny is the fact that he has found the way to get the inadvertent hilarity and ultimately the humanity in Brecht’s text to shine through. So many Brecht productions come off sharp-edged, cutting, bleak, pessimistic, blatantly political and exhortative, and to be honest, self-important, and his works are all that, but frankly, it’s a boring, been-there-done-that approach to Brecht. I like the fact that Graney has dug through the text and effectively brought out the characters’ vulnerability, general human frailty, and propensity to make less-than-optimal decisions, without blunting the political and dramatic impact of the text. These come out in the directorial choices: the fresh take on the MacHeath-Tiger Brown Bro-mance; making one of the whores an effeminate guy (the very funny Joey Stakely) talking about his wife and kids while lounging with the rest of the whores; having Vanessa Greenaway play a warmer Jenny who comes off as less of a bitter, aging harridan; calibrating MacHeath’s (the very good Gregory Hardigan) delivery of the famous line about what is worse, robbing banks or founding a bank, which makes it less of a political stump slogan, and more of a nuanced provocation.
Of course there are some things that I wish could be improved in this production (and maybe some of these will change over the course of the run). Although the entire cast is committed and passionate, I think they can be a little bit more consistent in terms of the quality of the singing and in the stylized nature of the acting (naturalistic acting is going to be quite incongruous with this material, and some of the actors are pretty much in this acting style). There could have been less stepping-out-of-character comments (again, these clash with the stylized material, in my opinion). I’m not really sure why four of the characters undress and change into their new costumes on the kidney tables during one Act III number (was it cramped in the dressing rooms? Hey, this is Steppenwolf!). Some of the pacing needs to be tightened up. The Steppenwolf Garage acoutics are not the most desirable for a musical of this scale and concept. But all of these are minor quibbles for three hours of a production that is energetic, breath-taking, sophisticated, and fascinating. Unfortunately, I guess I don’t have the same taste as several of the audience members who walked out after the first intermission during the performance I saw (did they have a bus to Waukegan, Illinois, or Gary, Indiana, to catch, perhaps?) or the Jeff Awards Committee, who has decided not to attach its, ahem, “prestigious” Jeff-recommended designation to this production (read about it in Kris Vire‘s blog), which makes anyone involved with The Threepenny Opera ineligible for any Jeff Awards nominations next year. Maybe the Jeff Awards should be giving their honors in Gary, Indiana instead? I’m sure the theatrical scene there needs the boost that only they can provide. With folks like Graney and the Hypocrites, Chicago theater is safe, sans any theatrical awards.
The Hypocrites’s production of The Threepenny Opera runs at the Steppenwolf Garage Theater, 1650 N. Halsted, until October 12. Chris Jones likes it a lot. Like me, his taste will not pass muster with the “prestigious” Jeff Awards committee.
Tags: Jeff Awards, The Hypocrites
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