“The Threepenny Opera”: Braunschweig State Theater: Amusement park with undead

It seems that we have arrived here with Heiner Müller’s “Hamlet Machine” in the ruins of Europe, where the swimming pools have dried up and abandoned diving boards stand around in the desert like signs of doom. But there are still plenty of colorful balloons and people dressed in pink, as well as a dangerously funny cat head with green eyes that looks very much like American mass culture, floating above everything.

A polar bear sits at a bar that has long since stopped selling drinks. Every now and then, when he gets in the way too much, someone beats him up. He accepts it humbly. Two masked boxers appear and disappear again – this production is not lacking in ideas, even nonsensical ones. This could – as with Herbert Fritsch – be wonderfully bizarre if it were consistently morally free. But that is obviously not what is wanted here.

Katharina Schmidt is staging the “Threepenny Opera” at the Braunschweig State Theater, according to the season booklet, “in a glittering world intoxicated, shortly after the apocalypse.” After the apocalypse? One wonders whether people here are not adhering to an overly postmodern, casual idea of ​​the end of the world. Or does the apocalypse perhaps mean the First World War and its consequences such as inflation and mass unemployment, instead of the atomic world war that is threatening today? Brecht and Weill actually drew on this experience for their work, which premiered in 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, today’s Berliner Ensemble. The sad polar bear at the bar suggests an ecological catastrophe.

How can you tell the story of the beggar king Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum and Macheath, better known as Mackie Messer, in Pia Maria Mackert’s post-apocalyptic stage design? It shows again that the “Threepenny Opera” is an extremely robust work. The text and music resist all attempts to turn it into a mere projection surface for one’s own intentions.

This is primarily due to the ingeniously simple construction of the piece, which forms a sound structure that has never existed before from the primordial mud of capitalism: an opera that wants to make sure of its origins, which for Brecht/Weill means merging the prevailing dissonances into one to bring a simple playing form with catchy melodies. This actually always works. So why not here in Braunschweig too?

Or is the subject of a beggar’s opera (based on John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera”) perhaps now antiquated? On the contrary, it seems more relevant than ever. Through the obvious connection between crime and the beautiful appearance that prevails, Katharina Schmidt’s production gains the inner tension that makes the evening interesting in its own way.

So let’s forget the apocalypse, it’s not the topic here, nor was it with Brecht/Weill. On the contrary, it’s about the vitality of those who know how to make their small – or even large – capital out of the most hopeless situation. In their choice of means, they unlawfully and extremely ruthlessly seize on other people’s property and power. With Brecht/Weill, that sounds like a song of praise. The beggars, and even the criminals, are dangerous because they are completely free from all moral shackles and are extremely inventive.

Götz van Ooyen’s Peachum appears draped like an undead (like everyone else here), but that’s misleading. Luckily, the “Threepenny Opera” thrives on dissonance, so it can withstand that without losing too much of its impact. Peachum holds the reins of the begging syndicate; anyone who wants to beg in the city needs a license from him. But today’s Peachum goes further, of course. We see him in front of the television, which is playing commercials asking for donations for his many projects. »Give hope!« Please deposit into the account shown, his account.

This becomes a coherent symbol of a society that capitalizes on compassion, that shamelessly lies to serve its own interests. Of course, someone like Peachum only acts out of the noblest ideals, for human rights and a happy future. Götz van Ooyen plays this in a convincing way: This monster has the talent for greater things, perhaps even becoming a minister!

If it weren’t for the hardly less talented Mackie Messer, his annoying competitor. When Peachum hears that his daughter Polly Mackie Messer has secretly married, he vows revenge. Mackie should go to the gallows! Roman Konieczny’s Mackie looks like a smart alien with his sparse but very long white hair, which no one is surprised about anymore.

Polly Peachum (Lea Sophie Salfeld) and Lucy (Nina Wolf), the daughter of police chief Brown (bizarre in his virtuosic contortion: Tobias Beyer), are completely in love with Mackie, Brecht’s “Ballad of Sexual Subordination” provides the explanation. It is in human nature and is driven by greed of all kinds.

But the strange borrowings from horror and undead subjects, for example, are nothing compared to Brecht’s language, the force of which Weill further enhances musically. The “Threepenny Opera” proves to be an efficiently constructed work of the first order. No ornament hinders the function of a scene here. Instead, sentences so striking that you want to frame them anew every time, for example in the very contemporary “Cannon Song”: “Soldiers live on the cannons”. Of course the classic: “First comes the food, then the morals.” In times when we are fed moral commandments ad nauseam, a drastic reminder not to mix up cause and effect. Oh yes, we have long been able to correctly answer the question of what breaking into a bank is compared to founding one in our sleep: Nothing!

But the “Threepenny Opera” on stage must of course be more than a collection of striking quotes. This is also evident in Braunschweig, where the game is played well despite the most false assumptions. Also thanks to the excellent Threepenny Orchestra under the direction of Clemens Rynkowski. However, the acting ensemble did not perform first-class in the singing numbers, which became particularly clear when at the end, when Mackie is about to be hanged and he sings vehemently against it, his microphone fails. What could now be heard from him without technical support seemed thinner than thin (at the very end he sang with a hand microphone).

The Braunschweig audience, known for being offensively conservative, reacted dividedly. The lady next to me complained alternately that it was too loud and then again that it was too quiet. A small part of the audience left during the break, and quite a few applauded loudly at the end.

By the way, the king’s riding messenger saves Mackie at the last second, and instead of being hanged, he is raised to the nobility and receives a castle and a pension. Nobody knows why, life is unfair and purely a matter of luck.

Next performances: April 10th, 14th and 18th
www.staatstheater-braunschweig.de