Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny Themes

Most critics agree that Bertolt Brecht’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny serves as a satire of capitalist society. (It is well known that Brecht had begun reading Karl Marx’s writings during the time he was working on this play.) Brecht appears to be particularly critical of capitalist society’s obsession with money, its shallowness, and its hypocrisy, which are most evident in a contemporary urban setting. People’s greed and selfishness ultimately lead to their dehumanization and alienation from fellow human beings.

Brecht’s criticism is aimed at the rich and the arrogant who believe that money can buy pleasure. In his play, he demonstrates how money brings only unhappiness and loneliness; the “friends” Paul buys—Jenny, Heinrich, and the men for whom he buys drinks—abandon him when he needs them. Although Jenny and Heinrich proclaim their loyalty toward Paul, they refuse to pay for his release from prison.

Kurt Weill, Brecht’s collaborator and the composer of his songs, claimed that Mahagonny was an international city and that the American names suggest not America per se but a mythical America. Nevertheless, some interpreters have viewed the play as a critique of American society; they point to the American location, the whiskey, the poker table, the song about the moon of Alabama, and the electric chair as proof that Brecht deliberately wished to criticize American urban life. Some have even interpreted...