Brecht Collected Plays: 2: Man Equals Man; Elephant Calf; Threepenny Opera; Mahagonny; Seven Deadly Sins: Man Equals Man , Elephant Calf , Threepenny Ope (World Classics)
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MRS PEACHUM: Right, Filch, you shall go with me into my own Room, Filch. You shall tell me the whole Story in comfort, Filchy, and I’ll give thee a Glass of Cordial Médoc that I keep locked up in my bedside table for my own drinking. Exeunt.
Peachum enters with Polly, and Gay’s scene 7 follows, including Polly’s song ‘Virgins are like the fair Flower’, whose text is translated in toto. Mrs Peachum then appears, but without her song from the original, and goes straight into her opening speech of the scene in our version. A shortened version of Gay’s scene 8 dialogue follows, down to where Peachum pinches Polly, asking ‘Are you really bound Wife to him, or are you only upon liking?’; he forbids Macheath the house, and Polly (in lieu of ‘Can Love be control’d by Advice?’) goes into the Barbara Song (which expands and updates the same theme, and whose text is given in full). Mrs Peachum’s faint (p. 119) then follows much as in Gay, though now she asks for the Cordial and doubts Polly’s ‘Readiness and Concern’.
Only one beggar then enters, who proves to be the disgruntled no. 136. ‘First-class stains, Mr Twantry,’ says Polly, handing over the criticised outfit. The problem now, as in Gay’s scene 10, is: how is Polly to live. Peachum answers ‘It’s all perfectly simple’ etc. as now (p. 120), and Polly’s refusal to consider divorce follows. Then back, more or less, to Gay:
PEACHUM: Yes, yes, yes. You’re a silly little goose. But it’s all so simple. You secure what he’s got; I get him hanged at the next Sessions, and then at once you are made a charming Widow.
POLLY: What, murder the Man I love! The Blood runs cold at my Heart with the very thought of it. But it would be murder!
PEACHUM: Murder? Rubbish. Self-defence. It’s all self-defence. My position in the world is one of self-defence.
– this last, crucial idea being new. Mrs Peachum then reminds Polly of her filial duties, as in Gay, and refers to ‘Those cursed Play-Books she reads’ before threatening to ‘tan her behind’ (p. 120). Peachum’s last word is ‘Polly, you will get a divorce!’
The rest of the scene is not in Gay. It strikes eleven, and a crowd of beggars streams in – ‘The second shift,’ says Peachum. They arrive decently dressed, but change into their begging outfits, stumps, bandages etc. This introduces the present dialogue from the speech of complaint half-way down p. 119 down to ‘This one will do,’ with the addition of a tirade by Peachum against his daughter. Mrs Peachum’s speech ‘Anyway, he’s got several women’ (p. 121) follows, after which the dialogue continues much as ours down to Polly’s ‘There’s nothing on record against Mac at Scotland Yard’ (p. 122):
PEACHUM: Right. Then put on your hat, and we will go to Mr Brown. To bis wife: And you’ll go to Turnbridge. For the villainy of the world is great, and a man needs to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen from under him.
POLLY: I, Papa, shall be delighted to shake hands with Mr Brown again.
But in lieu of the First Act finale, Polly then sings a translation of Gay’s song against lawyers, ‘A Fox may steal your Hens, Sir’.
ACT TWO
Scene 4 [1 in script]
This is set as ‘Stable. Morning. Macheath. Enter Walter.’ The two men start with a version of the Peachum-Filch dialogue from Gay’s Act 1, scene 2. Black Moll becomes ‘Blattern-Molly’ [Pockmarked Molly], who can be ‘back on the beat tomorrow’, says Macheath. Betty Sly is ‘Betriebs-Betty’ [Busy Betty]. Tom Gagg is unchanged. After Gay’s line ‘There is nothing to be got by the Death of Women, except our Wives’ Walter (not Filch) is sent with a message to Newgate, having first been told to look through the storeroom to see if there are any decent clothes. Mrs Trapes needs them ‘to clothe five young pigeons to work Kensington Street’. On his exit Polly enters as at the start of our scene, whose opening dialogue approximately follows, as far as the entry of the gang (p. 127). Once again, the listing of the gang members (p. 126) derives from Peachum’s speech in Act 1 scene 3 of the original, and includes such figures as Harry Paddington, Slippery Sam (’Schleicher-Samuel’) and Tom Tipple (‘Tippel-Tom’). The poetic naming of ‘Bob the Pickpocket alias Gorgon alias Bluff-Robert alias Carbuncle alias Robert the Saw’ is mainly from Gay, but Brecht makes him the gang member Polly likes best. The speech about Jack Poole and banking is not in the script; the list simply ends, and Polly says her ‘Why, Mac!’ etc. as on p. 127, to introduce the gang’s entry.
Their first exchanges are somewhat different, to where Mac tells them of his ‘little trip’ (p. 127). He and they then go into the storeroom while Polly delivers a monologue; there is no demonstration of her authority over the gang. They re-enter, and Mac resumes ‘The rotten part of it is’ etc. (p. 128) down to ‘toffs are all drunk’. Robert follows with ‘Ma’am, while your husband is away’, etc.; Polly says ‘goodbye, Mr Robert’ and shakes hands; then they leave as on page 129. Her dialogue with Macheath follows as now, as far as ‘Highgate Heath’ (middle of page):
POLLY: Then everything is all right. Goodbye, Mac.
MAC: Goodbye, Polly. He shuts the door behind here. Lighting a pipe: Polly is most confoundedly bit. Now I must have Women. There is nothing unbends the Mind like them. Cocktails are not nearly such a help.
– the last sentence being Brecht’s gloss on Gay’s lines. He then opens the storeroom door and tells Walter to assemble the Drury Lane ladies for him at 8 pm in Room 5 of the Cuttlefish Hotel (equivalent to the Tavern near Newgate of Gay’s Act 2).
MAC: Hurry! Exit Walter. This London owes me something for having fixed it up with a capital lot of women.
He speaks the final rhymed couplet, which our text gives to Polly, and there is no Interlude.
Scene 5 [2 in script]
Cuttlefish Hotel. 8 pm. Room 5. Mac and Walter.
MACHEATH rings.
WALTER: Captain?
MAC: How long am I to wait for the ladies?
WALTER: They’re bound to be here soon.
Macheath then sings ‘The Ballad of the Ladies’, translated from Kipling (and now included in GW Gedichte p. 1052). The bell rings again, and they troop in, the complete party from Gay’s Act 2 scene 4: Mrs Coaxer, Dolly Trull, Mrs Vixen, Betty Doxy, Jenny Diver, Mrs Slammekin, Suky Tawdry and Molly Brazen, with Walter bringing up the rear. Macheath makes approximately the same speech of welcome as there, down to where the music strikes up ‘the French Tune’, i.e. the Cotillon. Molly: ‘Ach, cash makes you randy’ (a phrase of Brecht’s which comes in others of his plays); then in lieu of the Cotillon the ladies ‘dance a little “Step” ‘, and Gay’s dialogue follows, down to Mrs Vixen’s ‘to think too well of your friends’. Mac interrupts it with his ‘Nice underwear you’ve got there, Vixen,’ introducing our present dialogue down to Second Whore’s ‘I just don’t wear any’ (p. 133). Gay takes over again with the exchange between Mac and Jenny, which leads, however, not to her ‘Before the Barn-Door crowing’ song but to ‘the brothel-ballade by François Villon’, as yet without its text. The hand-reading episode follows as in our text from Dolly’s first line down to Mac’s ‘Go on!’ (p. 132), after which Jenny says she cannot do so, and then disarms him, aided as in Gay by Suky Tawdry. It is, however, Mrs, not Mr Peachum who enters with the constables, and she then makes very much the Peachum speech from Act 2 scene 5 of the original. Walter, who has been sitting reading, runs out like Jake in our text, and all exeunt ‘most ceremoniously’.
Scene 6 [3 in script]
This is described as ‘Prison in Newgate. Brown sitting impatiently in a cell’. The scene begins as in our text, down to Brown’s exit (p. 136). Gay’s Act 2 scene 7 then follows, with Smith filling Lockit’s role. Left alone, Macheath makes his speech ‘That miserable Brown …’ as in our text (p. 136), but instead of the exchange with Smith he then continues ‘But the worst of it …’ (p. 136) as far as ‘into a tiger’, after which he goes on much as in Gay’s scene 8:
I shall have a fine time on’t betwixt this and my Execution. Here must I (all Day long) be confin’d to hear the Reproaches of a Wench who lays her Ruin at my
Door – just when a prisoner has some right at least to peace and solitude. But here she comes: Lucy, and I cannot get from her. Wou’d I were deaf!
Lucy enters and upbraids Macheath, as in Gay’s scene 9, whose dialogue is then approximately followed, omitting the three songs, down to the end of that scene: Lucy’s cry ‘Oh Mac, I only want to become an honest woman,’ as in our text (p. 138). After that she ‘sings the song “Maria, Fürsprecherin der Frauen” ’, i.e. Kipling’s ‘Mary, Pity Women’, whose translation follows in full, and is also given in GW Gedichte p. 1055.
The next section is not in Gay: Lucy continues ‘Oh, Macheath, I do hope you will lift my troubles from my shoulders.’
MAC: Of course. As I said: as soon as I’m master of my own decisions.
LUCY: But how are you going to get free? My father truly was your best friend, and even if you played a dirty trick on him over me he can’t realise it. So what is he after you for?
MAC: Don’t talk to me about your father.
LUCY: But I just don’t understand what could have led him to put you in irons. There’s some secret involving Peachum and his making such an awful threat that Daddy fainted on hearing it.
MAC: If that’s so it’s all up with me.
LUCY: No, no, you must become master of your decisions. My whole life depends on it. You must do all right, Mac. You’ll end up all right, Mac.
Polly then appears as in Gay’s Act 2 scene 13 (middle p. 138), his dialogue being followed approximately as far as the song ‘How happy could I be with either?’ Instead of this song, however, ‘Polly and Lucy sing “Come on out, you Rose of Old Soho” ’ (whose title only is given, and which could well relate also to the next song ‘I am bubbled, I’m bubbled, O how I am troubled’). Then Gay’s dialogue is resumed as far as Peachum’s entrance at the end of the scene, but prolonging the Polly-Lucy dialogue as in our text from Lucy’s ‘What’s that? What’s that?’ (p. 142) to Mac’s ‘Polly!’. Peachum’s entrance is then replaced by that of Mrs Peachum, who drags Polly off much as he did in Gay’s scene 14, after which scene 15 is followed for much of the exchanges between Macheath and Lucy, down to her ‘It’s wonderful the way you say that. Say it again’ (p. 143). On his saying that she must help him she embroiders Gay’s original thus:
If only I knew what was the matter with my father. Anyway the constables are all drunk and it’s the coronation tomorrow and my father sent someone out for fifteen bottles of gin and when he didn’t come back at once his worries overcame him and he upped and drank a whole bottle of the housekeeper’s scent. Now he’s lying drunk as a lord beside his desk muttering ‘Mackie!’ If I can find the key shall I escape with you, darling?
They leave together as at the end of Gay’s Act. Then a new concluding episode follows, starting with a ‘gentle knock’ and Brown’s voice calling ‘Mac!’ (p. 143). Peachum appears much as in our text, though without his opening remarks to Smith, and our dialogue follows as far as his ‘People are sure to say … that the police shouldn’t have let him escape’ (p. 144). He rounds off this speech with ‘A pity: the coronation might have passed off without a single ugly incident.’
BROWN: What is that supposed to mean?
PEACHUM: That as it is the poorest of the poor won’t let themselves be done out of attending the coronation tomorrow morning.
BROWN: What do you mean by the poorest of the poor?
PEACHUM: It is reasonable to assume that I mean beggars. You see, it is like this. These poorest of the poor – give and it shall be given unto you, and so on – have nothing in the world apart from celebrations. Well, there are various possibilities. Of course there has to be a criminal. What happens to him is less important. Either they want to see a murderer hanged or they want to see one crowned. All the rest is immaterial.
BROWN: Look here, Mr Peachum, what do you mean by a murderer being crowned?
PEACHUM: Same as you do, Mr Brown.
BROWN: That’s outrageous.
PEACHUM: Quite right, that’s outrageous.
BROWN: You have given yourself away, Peachum. Hey, Smith!
PEACHUM: Don’t bring him into this. Or I’ll be awkward. There’ll be a lot happening tomorrow morning. The papers will report how in the morning fog an unusual number of poor people of all kinds could be observed in the twisting alleys, patriots all of them with joyous faces and little signs round their necks: ‘I gave my leg for the king’, or ‘My arm lies on Clondermell Field’, or ‘Three cheers for the king; the Royal Artillery made me deaf’. And all these patriots with just one objective, the streets the coronation procession will take. Drily: Of course any of these people would much prefer, just supposing there could be an execution of a really well-known and reasonably popular murderer around the same hour, to attend that, as it is always more agreeable to see murderers hanged than crowned. Your servant, Brown. Exit.
BROWN: Now only the mailed fist can help. Sergeants! Report to me at the double!
There is no Second Act finale in the script.
ACT THREE
Scene 7 [1 in script]
The setting is ‘Peachum’s Beggars’ Outfitting Shop, 5 am’ and a Salvation Army hymn is being played off. Beggars are dressing. Great activity. Peachum is not on, so his opening remark (of our text) occurs later. Otherwise the dialogue is close to ours as far as Brown’s entrance (p. 150), except that the Ballad of Sexual Obsession is not included, nor the dialogue following it down to Mrs Peachum’s appearance with the tray (p. 149). Instead there is an exchange between a phony cripple and an authentic one. When Brown enters he ‘appears to have been transformed into a tiger’, and goes round ‘spreading alarm like a great beast of prey’. His big opening speech starting ‘Here we are. And now, Mr Beggar’s Friend’ (p. 150) goes on:
In the very earliest times – listen, now just you think about it – humanity understood the idea of friendship. Even the most bestial examples – look carefully – felt the urge to acquire a friend. And whatever they may have done in that grey prehistoric age they stood by their comrades. Thigh to thigh they sat in danger, arm in arm they went through this vale of tears, and whatever they grabbed they shared, man to man: think about it. And that is what I feel too, just as I’ve described it. I too, despite all weakness and temptation place a value on friendship, and I too …
PEACHUM: Good morning, Brown, good morning.
The speech echoes Brecht’s early ‘Ballad of Friendship’ (Poems 1913–1956, p. 52), and after it the dialogue remains close to ours from Peachum’s remark (p. 150) to his ‘You see, Brown’ (p. 151) immediately before the music, though omitting the ten lines before the drum-roll. Then he goes on to tell Brown that the beggars are fakes, just a few young people dressing up to celebrate having a king once more, and concludes ‘I’ve nothing against it; it was quite harmless.’ When no sound follows he repeats this remark. Then ‘a kind of band is beard playing an excruciating “Step” ’.
BROWN: What’s that?
PEACHUM: Dance music.
Beggars and whores ‘steppen’ [dance a ‘step’].
PEACHUM: Take off those chains, Smith. Yes, this is how the poor enjoy themselves …
He goes up to Brown and says:
As for you, Brown, your situation is no laughing matter. This is a little dance, but in Drury Lane it is bloody serious. You see, there are so many poor people. Thousands of them. When you see them standing outside the Abbey …
and so on, roughly as in our text from the foot of p. 152 to Brown’s exit a page later. Then the Step breaks off, the beggars gather round Peachum, and he makes them a long speech saying how much he has done for them. Pointing out how the rich cannot bear seeing people collapse from hunger because they are frightened that it might happen to them too – their one vulnerable point – he concludes ‘Tomorrow will show whether poverty can overcome the crimes of those on top.’ And ‘the beggars feverishly start getting ready’. End of scene.
Scene 8 [2 in script]
This corresponds to our optional
scene, and it derives from Gay’s Act 3 scenes 7 to 10. It starts thus, with the ‘Lucy’s Aria’ whose setting by Weill is given as an appendix to the miniature score of 1972.
Newgate. Lug’s bedroom above the cells. Lucy is drinking non-stop.
LUCY: Jealousy, Rage, Passion and Likewise Fear are tearing me to pieces, a prey to the raging tempest, tormented by worry! I have the Rats-bane ready. For the past day she has come here every hour wanting to speak with me. Oh, what a two-faced bitch! No doubt she wants to come and gloat at my desperation. O world! How evil the human race! But that lady doesn’t know who she is dealing with. Drinking my gin is not going to help her have a high old time with her Mackie afterwards. She’ll die thanks to my gin! It’s here that I’d like to see her writhing! I rescue him from hanging, and is this creature to skim off the cream? Once that slut has drunk the poison, then let the world breathe freely!
Thereafter the dialogue generally follows Gay’s (omitting his songs) down to Polly’s ‘I hear, my dear Lucy, our Husband is one of these.’ Brecht then interpolates:
LUCY: I’ll never be anything but a common trollop of the lowest sort. And why? Because I fail to put everything on a business footing.
POLLY: But my dear, that’s a misfortune could occur to any woman.
They continue with the original dialogue, past Lucy’s offer of the drink, as far as her ‘unless ’tis in private’ in Gay’s scene 10. Then Polly excuses herself, saying she is hungry. The next passage is close to our text from Polly ‘gaily’ (p. 158) to Lucy’s ‘They’ve caught him once more’ just before the end of our scene, but with some small changes and one or two additions, of which the most notable is after ‘Really, I don’t deserve it’ (p. 158):
LUCY: It’s so unfair that one must use such means to keep a man; but it’s one’s heart, Polly. But enough of that.