The Threepenny Opera

Threepenny Opera, The (Die Dreigroschenoper)

    Author: Bertolt Brecht (with Elisabeth Hauptmann)

    First Performance: 1928, Berlin

    Published: 1929

    First English Translation: 1949

    Genre: Musical drama in 3 acts; German prose with songs

    Setting: Soho, London, late 19th c.

    Cast: 7m, 4f, many extras

Peachum runs a very prosperous business, sending out suitably costumed beggars on to the streets of London, but fears that his daughter Polly has eloped with the notorious robber Macheath, ‘Mack the Knife’. Macheath and Polly celebrate their wedding in a stable amongst stolen presents, and welcome as a guest ‘Tiger’ Brown, the Police Chief, who is a close friend and former army comrade of Macheath's. When Polly admits to her parents that she has married Macheath, they resolve to denounce him...

[The entire page is 475 words long]

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