Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera is one of those pieces of musical theatre which either audiences love or hate. Musically, it is fascinating, tuneful and rather untuneful at once; dramatically, it is haphazard. Despite this, it is one of the most performed musicals in the canon and the subject of many adaptations and reworkings. Now Rufus Norris puts his stamp on it for the National Theatre: a stamp that says “Brace yourselves!”
At the beginning of the second Act of Rufus Norris’s production of The Threepenny Opera, now playing at the Olivier Theatre, Rory Kinnear strolls onto the stage, still dressing himself, and looks wryly at the audience. He expresses surprise that anyone has come back after Interval. He suggests that there might be better things to do, that outside the auditorium it’s a nice night, worth enjoying.
It is, no doubt, meant to be an ironic fourth-wall-crossing in-joke. Trouble is, it is a bloody good point.
Because, of all the adjectives that might be used to describe this production, enthralling is not one of them. Kinnear’s quip merely made one further regret the decision to stay, presumably not the intended result.
Simon Stephens, he of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night fame, has adapted, transformed really, the original work of Brecht, Weill and Elisabeth Hauptmann. This version has that curious modern historical feel which seems so compulsory these days for productions of plays written more than 70 years ago. It is not electrifying writing, some lyric changes are wry and cool, others not; its crude and obvious too. But the most egregious fault is that it does not find a way for the production to have an impact on the audience the same, or even similar, to the impact the ground-breaking original did in 1928.
The focus of the play is still about capitalism and corruption, but the entire vision for the production seems to be dark circus simplicity. Vicki Mortimer’s set is a sparse, back-stage affair, with the huge cavern of the Olivier space in full reveal and items of furniture and set pieces (staircases predominantly), bare and functional mostly, shuffled around the stage by the large cast. This is a typical Brechtian approach - but would Brecht in 2016 approach his task the same way he did in 1928?
Undoubtedly, the whole effect is very theatrical. The audience is acutely aware, always, that the magic of theatre is being revealed to them. Except, it’s not that magical for the most part. So much money has been spent making it appear that there is no excessive staging the result is conflictingly confusing.
It’s a very modern zeitgeist production from Norris. Colour blind casting is in play, but so is gender blind casting, or, in the case of Mr Peachem, gender-curious performance if not casting. There is a curiously unexpected, and largely inexplicable, kiss between two men and one role is played by a disabled actor. No one is under any illusions - the National Theatre is championing diversity. That’s appropriate, of course, but the question is whether that championing comes at a cost and whether that cost is proportionate to the gain. Most critically, is the cause being championed the right way?
Jamie Beddard’s casting highlights the issue. Beddard has cerebral palsy and a speech impediment and, in the first Act, he seemed reduced to token status - he got some good laughs at different points, but sometimes it felt like the audience was laughing at him, rather than with him. But, in Act Two, the point of his casting became clear. Kinnear’s Macheath, representing entitled white folk, can’t be bothered to listen carefully to Beddard’s Matthais and rudely dismisses him, saying he can’t understand “a fucking word” he says.
Beddard, carefully and with venom, then fronts Macheath and sums him up as “a cunt”. Everyone hears that word clearly enough and, unsurprisingly, laughter erupted. However…it did feel like Beddard had been cast solely to make that joke, empowering as it may be. Why not cast him in a role where his disability was not, overtly anyway, necessary for the part? He might have been a very funny Officer Smith for example.
These gnawing concerns were only exacerbated by the whole circus/freak show/sideshow dynamic of Norris’ vision for the production.
When it begins, you might be forgiven for thinking that you were seeing some dark, grotesque imagining of Cabaret or Barnum or Side Show - as it ambles on, there are vaudevillian and music hall flavours added to the mix, as well as much clowning of different types.
No doubt this works as a conceit for a version of The Threepenny Opera, but it comes at a cost. Macheath is not remotely menacing and there is never really a sense of danger or fear surrounding his machinations. When he slaughters people idly, red ribbons symbolise blood in a pantomime kind of way. Murder is funny not scary.
Equally, there is no real sense of passion about Macheath, despite the fact he has many of the female characters obsessed with him or fighting over him and at least one male character with an interest in locking lips with him. Kinnear’s take on the part is 9 parts lounge singer and 1 part conman; it’s slick and knowing, but it never arouses excitement.
This might be fine if Kinnear was strikingly handsome or sang with real Las Vegas flair, but that is not the case. His Macheath seems more Minder than Peaky Blinders, more car salesman than blackmailing, murderous lothario. This is in line with Brecht’s original intention - stocky and middle-aged was his original character note for Macheath - but it is no longer 1928: the general perception of establishment/non-establishment villainy has changed.
He gets by with the singing, and his diction is excellent, but it’s not a performance where the music gets the terrific or warranted attention it should.
Kinnear suffers somewhat because some of the other singing is of the required standard. George Ikediashi, as the Ballader, opens proceedings with a smoky, suave rendition of The Ballad Of Mack The Knife which is arresting and engaging and which promises much. But although Ikediashi is establishing Kinnear’s character by his song, the promise is never fulfilled.
Where Kinnear shines is in his rapport with his various confederates - Macheath and the ensemble have a curious Bill-Sikes-and-dog relationship, and it really works. The symbiotic-vampiric-desperation connection is a shuddering undercurrent, painful and reflective of the vision for modern life held by the neoliberalism establishment.
The sense of Macheath as manipulator of the oppressed, the uneducated and the needy is craftily achieved. Excellent support comes from Dominic Tighe, Conor Neaves (standing in for Andrew Buckley and shining) and Sarah Amankwah in particular. There is also something brilliantly Keystone Cops about Matt Cross’ Officer Smith and he and Kinnear play well off each other.
The best characterisations come from the Peachum family with whom Macheath’s fate is complicatedly entwined. Mr Peachem is a power-broker, Mrs Peachem a predatory lush and Polly, their daughter, is a female accountant well able to put two and two together.
Haydn Gwynne, playing an exuberant mash-up of Mama Rose, Claire from A Delicate Balance and Mrs Lovett, prowls and staggers around the stage like an alcoholic Shere Khan. She is the embodiment of a strong cocktail and one feels tipsy just watching her. Filled with bitterness and lustful opportunism, Gwynne makes Mrs Peachum unique and memorable. She gets by with the singing, but her upper register is challenged by the diverse demands of Weill’s score. Her projectile vomiting is almost worth the price of admission alone.
More successful vocally and equally successful in the acting department, Nick Holder makes an impressive partner to Gwynne. Stephens has refashioned the character as a kind of amalgam of all of the eccentricities and foibles of politicians over the last few decades - he wears high-heels, and apron and lipstick, is a corpulent over-indulger and lover of excess in all its forms, revels in a cruel disregard for those less connected or rich than him and no stranger to criminal activities. Money is his motivator and the extremity of Holder’s performance clearly puts Gwynne’s Mrs Peachum into perspective. Both are funny and disturbing.
Peter de Jersey makes a fine fist of the corrupt police officer, Chief Inspector “Tiger” Brown and he plays the corruption/public image duality well. The suggestion of a previous sexual association with Macheath (that curious kiss!) seemed trite - do all the authority figures have to be touched with homosexuality as a part of their villainy? Debbie Kurup is in entertaining form as Brown’s long-legged, defiant daughter, Lucy, one of Macheath’s lovers de jour.
Another is Jenny Diver, here played and sung with formidable, impressive commitment and skill by the gifted Sharon Small (who played Polly in the Donmar production in 1994). Visually, Jenny is somewhat alternative, slightly punk in style; internally, she is fragile and defeated, a true tragic figure wrapped up in a surface comic cocoon. The Peachems use her ruthlessly, heartlessly. Small sings with a pure tone and displays an impressive range; every note is trimmed with feeling and intensity.
Ubiquitous National Theatre darling, Rosalie Craig, plays the fourth of Macheath’s main female lovers; she is the object d’art he marries for respectability and convenience. Craig is required to play Polly as plain but smart, which is odd given the Peachems’ function in Brecht’s text is to represent the bourgeoisie nature of the criminal classes. Surely, both parents would have wanted their beautiful daughter (and Craig is undoubtedly classic English rose material) in trophy mode? Are we not well past the Peanuts playground where glasses denote intelligence?
There is surely a much better Polly in Craig than is on show in this production. She seems restrained and subdued; she should be soaring. Polly is just as much a player as her parents, although she may be slightly naive in some respects, and it is difficult to understand why Craig was not allowed to fly. She seems underpowered vocally too, which must have been a deliberate choice, as Craig has terrific vocal chops. Her best moment comes in her spirited musical debate with Krudup’s Lucy, the Jealousy Debate.
What really does work, exceptionally well, is David Shrubsole’s first class musical direction. The eight piece orchestra, all costumed as clown figures and occasionally having an onstage presence, pump Weill’s eclectic, jazz-influenced and stimulating score with zest and insinuating élan. Shrubsole ensures that clarity of diction is at a premium, and ensemble numbers have excellent balance and engage interest easily. Musically, despite the limitations of some soloists, this The Threepenny Opera generally rocks.
Imogen Knight’s choroegrpahy is slight and mostly uninteresting. Stronger, more extreme choreography would have enlivened the piece immeasurably. There is no faulting Paule Constable’s outstanding lighting design which, in true Brechtian style, darkens the lighter sections and illuminates the blacker passages. Heat and calculating coldness is evoked as needed by Constable’s prescient attention to detail and meticulous shifting of lighting states.
In the end, though, this is an ambitious production from Norris which falls well short of the mark. It seems ill-suited to the vastness of the Olivier and would have, no doubt, worked infinitely better in the Dorfman. Brecht’s epic original, to function as he would have wanted it today, alarming, convention-breaking and thought-provoking, needs full epic treatment for its specific performing environment.
Norris’ The Threepenny Opera in the Olivier is missing at least two of its three pennies.