The Threepenny Opera

Brecht’s Threepenny Opera—

The Threepenny Opera (written in 1928) is an adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (written in 1728) which shows political corruption and poverty in London. The characters are corrupt business men, prostitutes, and beggars. The Threepenny Opera was performed in Germany on the 200^th anniversary of the original production (in German it was called Die Dreigroschenoper). The songs in the original opera were familiar tunes that the audience could hum to and use to relate to the characters. The Threepenny Opera’s score was influenced by jazz music; it followed the original plot fairly closely, but used new music (assumedly so the 1928 audience could relate to it the same way the 1728 audience could). It was a satire on the injustice and crime in the city. There is not one uncorrupted character in the entire play, and in the end a phony happy ending happens where the corrupt main character is pardoned and saved from his justified death at the last minute. The play ends in a marriage feast.  

1928 was also the year of the German Federal elections and four years after Hitler was released from prison. The Nazi party received 2.6% of the election votes.

In 1929 the stock market crashed in America and made the German economy vulnerable. With the rise in unemployment rates and desperation, the Nazi party began to rally support and later came to power in 1933.

On page 107, Willi hums a song from the Threepenny Opera when he remembers Berlin. 

I had a hard time finding an image that I thought was representative of the novel, so I made a collage. To me the novel itself is a collage of the content of the notebooks and of Anna's life. I chose an image of something shattering into pieces because of the chaos of life. The walnut reminds me of a brain and I chose an image of it cracking to represent mental stress. I balanced the images in the corners to represent the compartments that Anna has split herself into in the different notebooks, to show an attempt to make sense of the chaos in everyday life, and to create the idea unity even in the chaos.