NEXT DAY THE WHOLE OF MAHAGONNY WAS ON FIRE. THE BURIAL OF J. MAHONEY THE LUMBERJACK BECAME A TURNING-POINT IN THE CITY’S HISTORY. DO NOT BE RESENTFUL BUT OBSERVE THIS VAST DEMONSTRATION, WHICH IS BEING STAGED IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST.
Then the half-curtain opens, showing the projection of Mahagonny in flames and the people of the city gathering upstage with ‘placards, signs and banners’. The only words here are those of the chorus ‘Why, though, did we need a Mahagonny?’ as at the end of our scene 1, which is taken from the finale of the Songspiel. They are followed by a stage direction saying:
After the song the crowd starts moving in small groups, each carrying its placards etc. and marching in a big semicircle from back left down past the footlights to back right. The placards say roughly:
1. For the natural order of things
2. For the natural disorder of things
3. For the corruptibility of our courts
4. For the incorruptibility of our courts
5. For freedom for the rich
6. For freedom for everybody
7. For the unjust division of temporal goods
8. For the just division of spiritual goods
9. For the underhandedness of the human race
10. (A giant placard) Against the human race
In the middle of the procession comes a group carrying Jim’s coffin. The play ends with huge songs as the demonstrators continue their constant marching.
Curtain.
End of the opera.
In the piano score the ‘stage darkens’ after the conclusion of ‘God in Mahagonny’ (which, it will be remembered, opens the final scene there), and is followed by a projection. This introduces a separate scene 22 in Auden/Kallman’s version, which otherwise follows the piano score and goes thus:
22
In these days, because of the unheard-of rise in prices, gigantic riots broke out in Mahagonny, preluding the end of Suckerville. The rioters carried the body of Jimmy Gallagher in procession
The screen opens. On the backcloth one sees Mahagonny in flames. Begbick, Fatty and Moses stand downstage. After they sing, groups of Demonstrators enter in continual succession until the close.
BEGBICK, FATTY AND MOSES:
Why, though, did 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.
GROUP OF MEN enter bearing Jim’s hat and cane on velvet cushions:
We need no raging hurricane,
We need no bolt from the blue:
There’s no havoc which they might have done
That we cannot better do.
A SECOND GROUP enter with Jim’s ring, revolver and cheque-book:
As you make your bed so you lie on it,
The bed can be old or brand-new:
So if someone must kick, that is my part,
And another get kicked, that part’s for you.
As you make your bed so you lie on it
And you buy the sheets for it too:
So if someone must kick, that is my part,
And another get kicked, that’s for you.
BEGBICK, FATTY AND MOSES:
Why, though, did 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.
JENNY AND SOME GIRLS enter carrying Jim’s shirt:
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.
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.
Bill enters at the head of another Group of Men.
BILL:
You can bring vinegar – to him
You can wipe his forehead – for him
You can find surgical forceps
You can pull the tongue from his gullet
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
BILL’S GROUP:
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
Various placards are displayed. They run more or less:
For the natural order of things
For the natural disorder of things
For the freedom of the rich
For the freedom of all
For the unjust division of temporal goods
For the just division of spiritual goods
For pure love
For brute stupidity
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
Moses enters at the head of a new group.
You can talk good sense – to him
You can bawl oaths – at him
You can just leave him lying
You can take care – of him
Can’t give orders, can’t lay down any law to a dead man.
MOSES’S AND BILL’S GROUPS:
Can’t do anything to help a dead man
No one can do nothing for a dead man.
Begbick enters with a third group that is carrying Jim’s body.
BEGBICK:
You can put coins in his hand – for him
You can dig a hole – by him
You can stuff that hole – with him
You can heap a shovelful – on him
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
BILL, MOSES AND THREE GROUPS OF MEN:
Can’t do anything to help a dead man
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
Fatty enters with a fourth group. They carry an enormous placard:
For the re-establishment of the golden age.
FATTY:
You can talk about the glory of his heyday
You can also forget his days completely
You can change his old shirt for a clean one
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
ALL:
No one can do nothing for a dead man
Can’t help him or you or me or no one.
Curtain
This ‘Poem on a Dead Man’ also formed part of Weill’s Berliner Requiem, written in the winter of 1928-29. In the version which Brecht had written some four and a half years earlier its fourth verse went
You can talk about the glory of his heyday
You can also forget his days completely
You can lead a better life, lead a worse one
Can’t do anything to help a dead man.
– without the opera’s final line.
* These numbers refer to the ‘Hints for actors’ in the Notes p. 93 ff.
* This was at a time when the three-day concentration of the Afghan Division provoked an enormous mêlée of soldiers and supply racketeers in Saipong, to say nothing of the less reputable camp followers associated with army units on the move.
* These figures refer to numbered passages in our text.
1 These narrow limitations do not prevent the introduction of an element of instruction and directness or the basing of the whole arrangement on gests. The eye that reduces everything to its gestic aspect is morality. I.e. the depiction of mores. But from a subjective point of view …
Let’s have another drink
Then we won’t go home tonight
Then we’ll have another drink
Then we’ll have a break.
The people who sing like this are subjective moralists. They are describing themselves.
2 Romanticism likewise is merchandise. It figures only as content, not as form.
3 ‘A dignified gentleman with an empurpled face had fished out a bunch of keys and was making a piercing demonstration against the Epic Theatre. His wife stood by him in this decisive moment. She stuck two fingers in her mouth, screwed up her eyes and blew
out her cheeks. Her whistle made more noise than the key of his cash-box.’ (Alfred Polgar, describing the Leipzig premiere of Mahagonny.)
4 The large number of craftsmen in the average opera orchestra allows of nothing but associative music (one flood of sound leading to another), and so the orchestral apparatus needs to be cut down to thirty specialists or less. The singer becomes a reporter, whose private feelings must remain a private affair.
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Translation for all the plays and texts by Brecht © Bertolt-Brecht-Erben 1979
Introduction and editorial notes copyright © Eyre Methuen Ltd 1979 and Methuen Drama 1994
Man Equals Man and The Elephant Calf first published in this translation in
Great Britain in hardback and paperback 1979 by Eyre Methuen Ltd
Man Equals Man: Original work entitled Mann ist Mann © Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag 1927
This edition of Mann ist Mann includes Das Elefantenkalb (The Elephant Calf) as part of the work
The Threepenny Opera first published in this translation in
Great Britain in hardback and paperback 1979 by Eyre Methuen Ltd
Original work entitled Die Dreigroschenoper © Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag 1928
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny first published in this translation, together
with The Seven Deadly Sins, in hardback and paperback 1979 by Eyre Methuen Ltd
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny: original work entitled Aufstieg und Fall der
Stadt Mahagonny © Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag 1927
The Seven Deadly Sins: Original work entitled Die Sieben Todsünden der Kleinbürger
© Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag 1959
Note by Kurt Weill: About The Threepenny Opera (A Public Letter)’ pp. 318-19, ‘Notes to my opera Mahagonny’ and
‘Introduction to the prompt-book of the opera Mahagonny’ by Kurt Weill pp. 349-53, reproduced by courtesy of Lotte Lenya-
Weill; ‘Suggestions for the stage realisation of the opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’ by Kurt Weill and Caspar
Neher pp. 353-7,reproduced by courtesy of Lotte Lenya-Weill and the Estate of Caspar Neher
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eISBN-13: 978-1-4081-7740-2
Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 2 Page 40
