Description

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This Student Edition of Brecht's satire on the capitalist society of the Weimar Republic features an extensive
introduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion of
the context, themes, characters, style and language as well as
questions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text.
It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature.
Based on John Gay's eighteenth century Beggar's Opera, The Threepenny Opera,
first staged in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, is a
vicious satire on the bourgeois capitalist society of the Weimar
Republic, but set in a mock-Victorian Soho. It focuses on the feud between Macheaf - an amoral criminal - and his father in law, a racketeer who controls and exploits London's beggars and is intent on having Macheaf hanged. Despite the resistance by Macheaf's friend the Chief of Police, Macheaf is eventually condemned to hang, until in a comic reversal the queen pardons him and grants him a title and land. With Kurt Weill's
unforgettable music - one of the earliest and most successful attempts
to introduce jazz to the theatre - it became a popular hit throughout
the western world.

The text is presented in the trusted translation by Ralph Manheim and John Willett.

About the Author

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A major dramatist of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)was the founder of one of the most influential theatre companies, theBerliner Ensemble, and the creator of some of the landmark plays of thetwentieth century: The Threepenny Opera, Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. His plays and dramatic theory are central to the study of modern theatre.