FATTY: But we might strike a gold-field.
MOSES: Maybe. But the coast is too long.
MADAM LADYBIRD BEGBICK appearing in the window of the driver’s cabin: Are we stuck?
MOSES: Yes.
BEGBICK: Good! Why don’t we stay here? As I always say: If you can’t get to the top, stay at the bottom. Listen to me. The people we’ve met who have seen the gold-fields agree that the rivers don’t like parting with their gold at all. It’s back-breaking work. That’s hardly in our line. But I took a good look at the faces of those fellows and they’ll part with their gold all right, I assure you. Men are easier to manage than rivers. This is the spot for us. Any objections? Then that’s settled.
In this empty waste is our town founded
And its name is Mahagonny
Which means Suckerville!
FATTY AND MOSES: Suckerville!
BEGBICK:
We will make it a snare
Plump little birds will be eager to enter.
Everywhere men must labour and sorrow
Only here is it fun.
For the deepest craving of man is
Not to suffer but do as he pleases.
That is our golden secret.
Gin and whisky
Girls for the asking.
We’ll have a seven-day week: every day a day of leisure;
And the raging typhoon will never bother us here.
No one shall suffer from the blues,
They’ll smoke and dream of all the promises of nightfall
And every other day we’ll have boxing
With mayhem and knockouts though the fighting is fair.
Stick that fishing-rod in the ground and run up this bit of
Linen so that the ships returning from the gold-coast
Can see us as they pass.
Set the bar up there
Beside that tamarack.
There is our town
This shall be our centre
This is the … As-You-Like-It Tavern.
The red Mahagonny pennant is run up on a long fishing-pole.
FATTY AND MOSES:
Why, though, do we need a Mahagonny?
Because this world is a foul one
With neither charity
Nor peace nor concord
Because there’s nothing
To build any trust upon.
2
Within a few weeks a city had arisen and the first sharks and harpies were making themselves at home
Jenny and six girls enter carrying large suitcases. They sit on their suitcases and sing the Alabama Song.
Oh, show us the way
To the next whisky-bar.
Oh, don’t ask why!
For we must find the next whisky-bar.
For if we don’t find the next whisky-bar
I tell you we must die!
Oh, Moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye.
We’ve lost our good old mama
And must have whisky
Oh, you know why.
Oh, show us the way to the next pretty boy
Oh, don’t ask why, oh, don’t ask why!
For we must find the next pretty boy
For if we don’t find the next pretty boy
I tell you we must die!
Oh, Moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye.
We’ve lost our good old mama
And must have boys
Oh, you know why!
Oh, show us the way to the next little dollar!
Oh, don’t ask why, oh, don’t ask why!
For we must find the next little dollar
For if we don’t find the next little dollar
I tell you, we must die!
Oh, Moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye.
We’ve lost our good old mama
And must have dollars
Oh, you know why.
They go out with their suitcases.
3
News of the founding of a new Jerusalem reached the big cities
On the backcloth appears a projection showing a view of a metropolis and a photomontage of men’s faces.
MEN:
We dwell in large dark cities: miles of sewers below them;
Thick over them, smoke; in them nothing at all.
No peace, no joy: here is no soil to grow them;
Here we quickly fade. More slowly they also shall fall.
Fatty and Moses enter with placards.
FATTY: Far from the hullaballoo …
MOSES: – The big express-trains never bother us –
FATTY: … Lies our Joytown, Mahagonny.
MOSES: They just were asking where you’ve been so long.
FATTY: We live in an age that produces many city-dwellers city life does not content: all are flocking to Mahagonny, the Joytown.
MOSES: Chips and chippies are cheaper!
FATTY:
Here in all your cities there is so much noise
So much ill-temper and discord
And nothing to build your trust upon.
MOSES: For yours is a foul world.
FATTY AND MOSES:
But once you puff with fellow
Mahagonny-dwellers
Smoke-rings white as snow
Soon you’ll feel your parchment-yellow
Cheeks glow.
Sky-blue reflections turn
Gold in your drink:
Should San Francisco burn
All there for which you yearn
Must, good or evil, churn
Down the same sink.
MEN offstage:
We dwell in large dark cities: miles of sewers below them;
Thick over them, smoke; in them nothing at all.
No peace, no joy: here is no soil to grow them;
Here we quickly fade. More slowly they also shall fall.
FATTY: Then off to Mahagonny!
MOSES: They just were asking where you’ve been so long.
4
The next few years saw the discontented from every country making their way towards Mahagonny
Jim, Jake, Bill and Joe enter carrying suitcases.
Off to Mahagonny
Where all the winds refresh
Where gin and whisky rivers flow
Past horse- and woman-flesh!
Green and lovely
Moon of Alabama
Shine for us!
Underneath our shirts we’ve got
Money and we’ve got a lot
That should smear some smile across
Your big and stupid face.
Off to Mahagonny
Where all the trade-winds blow
Where steaks are cut and blood runs out
But no one runs the show!
Green and lovely
Moon of Alabama
Shine for us!
Underneath our shirts we’ve got
Money and we’ve got a lot
That should smear some smile across
Your big and stupid face.
Off to Mahagonny
On swift and even keel
Where civ-civ-il-i-sation
Will lose its scab and heal.
Green and lovely
Moon of Alabama
Shine for us!
Underneath our shirts we’ve got
Money and we’ve got a lot
That should smear some smile across
Your big and stupid face.
The men go out.
5
One day there came to Mahagonny among others a man called Jimmy Gallagher. We are going to tell you his story.
A quay near Mahagonny. Jim, Jake, Bill and Joe are standing before a signpost that reads: To Mahagonny. A price-list hangs on the signpost.
JIM:
When you arrive some place the first time
You’re a bit out of focus to begin with.
JAKE: You don’t know where to go or how to go.
BILL: Who to order around.
JOE: Who to take off your hat to.
JIM:
It’s inconvenient
When you arrive some place the first time.
Lady Begbick enters carrying a large notebook.
BEGBICK:
Gentlemen, welcome.
Just make yourselves comfy. Consulting her notebook.
So you’re the famous Jimmy Gallagher!
We hear tell of your knife tricks, Jimmy.
At your bedtime you must always have
English-made gin and bitters.
JIM: Pleased to meet you.
BEGBICK: Lady – that’s short for Ladybird – Begbick. They shake hands.
And for your arrival, John Jacob Smith
We’ve put on our party clothes.
JAKE: Nice to know you.
BEGBICK: And you’re known as Billy?
JIM introducing him: Bookkeeping Billy.
BEGBICK: Then you must be Joe?
JIM introducing him: Alaskawolf Joe.
BEGBICK:
And just to show how glad we are to have you
Prices will be cut till further notice.
She makes changes on the price-list.
BILL AND JOE shaking hands with her: Thanks a million.
BEGBICK: Now you’ll want to look into our latest crop of cuties …
Moses brings in pictures of the girls and sets them up. The pictures are like the covers of the old penny-dreadfuls. Gentlemen, every man carries an image of the ideal in his heart: one man’s voluptuous is another man’s skinny. The way this one can wriggle her hips should make her just about perfect for you, Joe.
JAKE: Maybe that one over there would suit me.
JOE: Actually, I had something a little darker in mind.
BEGBICK: What about you, Billy?
BILL: Me? I pass.
BEGBICK: And you, Jim?
JIM:
No, pictures don’t say nothing to me. I have to pinch them and pat them to know if it’s really going to be love.
Come out, you beauties of Mahagonny!
We’ve got the dough, let’s See your stuff.
JAKE, BILL AND JOE:
Seven years we worked Alaska:
That means frost-bite, that means dough.
Come out, you beauties of Mahagonny!
We like to pay for what we like.
JENNY AND GIRLS:
Here we are to help you melt Alaska:
Did you freeze there, but make the dough?
JIM: Well, hello, you beauties of Mahagonny!
JENNY AND GIRLS:
We are the cuties of Mahagonny:
By paying well, you’ll get whatever you like.
BEGBICK pointing to Jenny:
That’s the girl for you, John Jacob Smith:
And if her behind doesn’t have bounce in it
Your fifty dollars won’t be worth their weight in toilet paper.
JAKE: Thirty dollars …
BEGBICK to Jenny, shrugging her shoulders: Thirty dollars?
JENNY:
Have you thought at all, John Jacob Smith
Have you thought what you can buy with thirty dollars now?
Ten silk step-ins and no change.
My home is Havana.
From my mother I get my white blood.
She often said to me
‘My lamb, don’t sell yourself
The way your mother used to
For a buck or two.
You can see what that life has done to her.’
Have you thought of that, John Jacob Smith?
JAKE: For that, twenty dollars.
BEGBICK: Thirty, sir. We don’t bargain. Thirty.
JAKE: Out of the question.
JIM:
Well, maybe I’ll take her.
You, what’s your name?
JENNY:
Jenny Jones from Oklahoma.
I’ve been hereabouts for seven weeks now.
I was down there in the larger cities.
I’m game for all things that I am asked to do.
I know you Jimmies, Jimmies, Jimmies from Alaska well:
You have it worse in winter than the dead have
But you get rich in hell.
In leather jackets and your wallets stuffed with greenbacks
You come to see what Mahagonny has to sell.
But this time’s not like other Jims:
They all went crazy for my limbs
Those limbs belong to you now, baby.
It wasn’t love before to me
So clasp your hand about my knee
And drink from my glass too now, baby.
JIM: Good. I’ll take you.
JENNY: Bottoms up, handsome.
They are on the point of moving off to Mahagonny when some people arrive from that direction, carrying suitcases.
JOE: But who are these people?
THE PEOPLE WITH SUITCASES:
Has the ship left?
No thank God! It’s still at anchor!
They crowd off hurriedly to the quay.
BEGBICK shouting after them: Bird-brains! Wool-heads! Look at them scuttling off to the ship like a pack of rats! And their pig-skin wallets are still fat with moola! Sons-of-bitches! Blue-nosed baboons!
JAKE:
I don’t get it, why they’re going.
From a fun place, you don’t run.
Do you think that something stinks there?
BEGBICK:
You boys now, you’re not going;
You’re coming along to Mahagonny.
Call it a favour to me
If you accept another cut in prices.
She puts a new price-list up over the other.
JOE:
In this Mahagonny that we’d put so high a price on
Things are too cheap. That disturbs me.
BILL: To me the place looks too expensive.
JAKE: And you, Jimmy, do you think the place looks good?
JIM: When we’re there, it will be good.
JENNY: I used to be so blue before.
THE SIX GIRLS: I used to be so blue before.
JENNY AND THE SIX GIRLS:
I never could be true before:
It wasn’t you before now, baby.
JENNY, THE SIX GIRLS, BEGBICK, JIM, JAKE, BILL, JOE: We know these Jimmies, Jimmies, Jimmies from Alaska well:
JENNY AND THE SIX GIRLS: They have it worse in winter than the dead have.
JIM, JAKE, BILL, JOE:
But we got rich in hell.
But we got rich in hell.
In leather jackets and their wallets stuffed with greenbacks
They come to see what Mahagonny has to sell.
Exeunt for Mahagonny.
6
Instructions
Street map of Mahagonny. Jim and Jenny walking.
JENNY:
One thing I have learned when I meet a gent for the first time, that’s to ask him what he is used to. Tell me then exactly how you would like me.
JIM:
As you are, you’re exactly my type. If you would call me Jimmy I’d imagine you liked me a little.
JENNY:
Tell me, Jimmy, how would you like my hair done: combed straight or with a wave?
JIM:
They both would look fine to me … whatever’s the mood you’re in.
JENNY:
What are your feelings about underclothes, friend? Should I wear step-ins when I’m dressed or a dress with nothing under?
JIM: Nothing under.
JENNY: As you like it, Jimmy.
JIM: But what would you like?
JENNY: Let’s say it’s much too soon for me to tell you.
7
Every great undertaking has its ups and downs
On the backcloth is a projection giving statistics about crime and currency fluctuation in Mahagonny. Seven different price-lists. Inside the As-You-Like-It Tavern, Fatty and Moses are sitting at the bar. Begbick rushes
in wearing white make-up.
BEGBICK:
Fatty, we’re ruined! Moses, we’re ruined! Haven’t you noticed? People are leaving! They’re rushing down to the quay with their bags. I saw them there.
FATTY: What should keep them here – a sprinkling of bars and a deluge of silence?
MOSES: And a fine lot of men they are! They hook a minnow and they’re happy; they puff smoke on the porch and they’re satisfied.
BEGBICK, FATTY, MOSES:
Our lovely Mahagonny
Has not brought in the business.
BEGBICK: Whisky’s down to twelve dollars a quart today.
FATTY: By tomorrow it’s sure to drop to eight.
MOSES: And sure never to rise again!
BEGBICK, FATTY, MOSES:
Our lovely Mahagonny
Has not brought in the business.
BEGBICK: I’ve lost all idea what to do. Everybody wants something from me and I’ve already given them everything. What more can I give to keep them from deserting us?
BEGBICK, FATTY, MOSES:
Our lovely Mahagonny
Has not brought in the business.
BEGBICK:
I, too, was once with a man who took me and put my
Back to the wall:
There we stood and talked for a while
And it was love that we spoke of.
Once all the money went
Talk like that lost its tenderness.
FATTY AND MOSES:
Ready money
Makes you tender.
BEGBICK:
It’s nineteen years back that the misery of struggling for survival began, and it’s sapped me dry. This was to be my last big scheme – Mahagonny, Suckerville. But the suckers refuse to get caught.
BEGBICK, FATTY, MOSES:
Our lovely Mahagonny
Has not brought in the business.
BEGBICK:
All that’s left is to retreat quickly
To follow our steps backwards through a thousand cities
To travel in time backwards through nineteen years, boys.
Pack your luggage! Pack your luggage!
We’ve got to go back!
FATTY:
Sure, Lady Begbick. Sure, Lady Begbick, we’ll go back.
But it’s you they’re waiting for. Reading from a newspaper.
‘In Pensacola yesterday the county sheriffs arrived in force and split to pick up Ladybird Begbick’s trail. They made a systematic search of every house and rode off together …’
BEGBICK: God! Now nothing will save us!
FATTY AND MOSES:
Dear Lady Begbick,
It’s a fact that crime has never paid well
And those dealing in vice do not
Live to grow old!
BEGBICK:
With just a few dollars!
Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 2 Page 21
