they're chainin' up people and askin' ME Kill them NOW, or LATER? / Und legen ihn in Ketten und bringen vor mir Und fragen: Welchen sollen wir töten?

Alan Cumming (as Macheath) and Cyndi Lauper in the recent NYC revival of "Threepenny Opera." (photo © 2006 Joan Marcus.)

Slut / "Die Dreigroschenoper"
Datum: Montag, 21. Januar 2008
Uhrzeit: 21:30 Uhr
Ort: Atomic Cafe
Adresse: Neuturmstr. 5
80331 Mьnchen DE

On Monday 21 January 2008, a very talented and nasty band (composed entirely of young gentlemen) called Slut will perform a compressed musical version of "Die Dreigroschenoper / The Threepenny Opera" at a club called The Atomic Cafe in Munich / Munchen DE. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the collaborations in the 1920s-30s of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill is how un-dated they are -- how timeless, perhaps even eternal. Every new musical and theater generation has rediscovered and found itself spontaneously inspired by this music and theater.

Here is Slut performing "Seeräuber-Jenny / Pirate Jenny," a monologue song by a hotel chambermaid who is secretly the Queen of the Pirates, plotting mass violent murderous vengeance on everyone who was ever unkind or nasty to her as she cleaned their rooms and toilets.

Or maybe she's just completely insane and fantasizes that she's the Queen of the Pirates plotting mass violent revenge. Let's hope it's the latter and that her Ship, the Black Freighter, never sails into the harbor.

I've never heard a bad version of "Pirate Jenny" in any language. The song is so powerful, it elevates anyone with the nerve to sing it to the necessary level of anger, fury, madness and revenge.

Slut had intended to perform and record the complete "Die Dreigroschenoper," but were denied permission by the copyright holders to Kurt Weill's music, The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music in New York City. I shall simply state here that after watching Slut perform "Seeräuber-Jenny," I think this is a mistake and a shame. I have enormous admiration for the KWF, but over the years it becomes sadly apparent that scholars and musicologists -- an elite academic priesthood -- have taken possession of Weill's wonderful music, and have become increasingly chilly to the people Weill originally wrote it for and gave it to: Singers, actors (like his wife Lotte Lenya, the original Pirate Jenny of Berlin stage and Pabst's 1931 film, which can now be purchased in North America on DVD)), and, through them, the People who heard it and adored it. This not only is inimicable to Weill himself, but slowly bleaches and sanitizes the raw and explosive power of the original work.

Of the magnificent Brecht collaborations, the KWF and their excellent Weill bulletin have an unhappy tendency to worship Weill but to insult and denigrate Brecht at almost every opportunity. This is about the same as film scholars who praise Oliver Hardy to the skies, but tell the world that Stan Laurel sucks.

To the pathetic extent that I grasp the German language, this is exactly the way I would like to speak German and this is how I would like to sing German. (And this is the way I would like to play guitar.) Slut's singer is Chris Neuburger.

Brecht was a brilliant playwright and poet, but he was not subtle. Everything he says he says in small, fierce, often crude and vulgar words which everyone can immediately understand. You can hate Brecht, but you can't leave the theater in the slightest doubt about exactly what he was screaming at you. Nobody doesn't understand Brecht.

In 2006 in New York City there was a short but highly acclaimed revival of "Threepenny Opera" starring, among other great performers, Cindy Lauper, with a new English translation by the actor and writer Wallace Shawn. Here's a spectacular duet from it.

~ ~ ~

Seeräuber-Jenny
"Die Dreigroschenoper"

Text: Bertolt Brecht
Musik: Kurt Weill

Meine Herren, heute sehen Sie mich Gläser abwaschen
Und ich mache das Bett für jeden.
Und Sie geben mir einen Penny und ich bedanke mich schnell
Und Sie sehen meine Lumpen und dies lumpige Hotel
Und Sie wissen nicht, mit wem Sie reden.
Und Sie wissen nicht, mit wem Sie reden.

Aber eines Abends wird ein Geschrei sein am Hafen
Und man fragt: Was ist das für ein Geschrei?
Und man wird mich lächeln sehn bei meinen Gläsern
Und man sagt: Was lächelt die dabei?

Und ein Schiff mit acht Segeln
Und mit fünfzig Kanonen
Wird liegen am Kai.

Man sagt: Geh, wisch deine Gläser, mein Kind
Und man reicht mir den Penny hin.
Und der Penny wird genommen, und das Bett wird gemacht!
(Es wird keiner mehr drin schlafen in dieser Nacht.)
Und sie wissen immer noch nicht, wer ich bin.
Und sie wissen immer noch nicht, wer ich bin.

Aber eines Abends wird ein Getös sein am Hafen
Und man fragt: Was ist das für ein Getös?
Und man wird mich stehen sehen hinterm Fenster
Und man sagt: Was lächelt die so bös?

Und das Schiff mit acht Segeln
Und mit fünfzig Kanonen
Wird beschiessen die Stadt.

Meine Herren, da wird ihr Lachen aufhören
Denn die Mauern werden fallen hin
Und die Stadt wird gemacht dem Erdboden gleich.
Nur ein lumpiges Hotel wird verschont von dem Streich
Und man fragt: Wer wohnt Besonderer darin?
Und man fragt: Wer wohnt Besonderer darin?

Und in dieser Nacht wird ein Geschrei um das Hotel sein
Und man fragt: Warum wird das Hotel verschont?
Und man wird mich sehen treten aus der Tür am Morgen
Und man sagt: Die hat darin gewohnt?

Und das Schiff mit acht Segeln
Und mit fünfzig Kanonen
Wird beflaggen den Mast.

Und es werden kommen hundert gen Mittag an Land
Und werden in den Schatten treten
Und fangen einen jeglichen aus jeglicher Tür
Und legen ihn in Ketten und bringen vor mir
Und fragen: Welchen sollen wir töten?
Und an diesem Mittag wird es still sein am Hafen
Wenn man fragt, wer wohl sterben muss.
Und dann werden Sie mich sagen hören: Alle!
Und wenn dann der Kopf fällt, sag ich: Hoppla!

Und das Schiff mit acht Segeln
Und mit fünfzig Kanonen
Wird entschwinden mit mir.

Pirate Jenny
from "The Threepenny Opera"

words by Bertholt Brecht
translation by Marc Blitzstein, 1954
music by Kurt Weill

You people can watch while I'm scrubbing these floors
And I'm scrubbin' the floors while you're gawking
Maybe once ya tip me and it makes ya feel swell
In this crummy Southern town, in this crummy old hotel
But you'll never guess to who you're talkin'.
No. You couldn't ever guess to who you're talkin'.

Then one night there's a scream in the night
And you'll wonder who could that have been
And you see me kinda grinnin' while I'm scrubbin'
And you say, "What's she got to grin?"
I'll tell you.

There's a ship, the black freighter
with a skull on its masthead
will be coming in.

You gentlemen can say, "Hey gal, finish them floors!
Get upstairs! What's wrong with you! Earn your keep here!
You toss me your tips
and look out to the ships
But I'm counting your heads
as I'm making the beds
Cuz there's nobody gonna sleep here, honey
Nobody! Nobody!

Then one night there's a scream in the night
And you say, "Who's that kicking up a row?"
And ya see me kinda starin' out the winda
And you say, "What's she got to stare at now?"
I'll tell ya.

There's a ship, the black freighter
turns around in the harbor
shootin' guns from her bow

Now you gentlemen can wipe that smile off your face
'Cause every building in town is a flat one
This whole frickin' place will be down to the ground
Only this cheap hotel standing up safe and sound
And you yell, "Why do they spare that one?"
Yes, that's what you say.
"Why do they spare that one?"

All the night through, through the noise and to-do
You wonder who is that person that lives up there?
And you see me stepping out in the morning
Looking nice with a ribbon in my hair.

And the ship, the black freighter
runs a flag up its masthead
and a cheer rings the air

By noontime the dock is a-swarmin' with men
comin' out from the ghostly freighter
They move in the shadows where no one can see
And they're chainin' up people and they're bringin' em to me
askin' me, "Kill them NOW, or LATER?"
Askin' ME! "Kill them now, or later?"

Noon by the clock
and so still by the dock
You can hear a foghorn miles away
And in that quiet of death
I'll say, "Right now.
Right now!"
Then they'll pile up the bodies
And I'll say,
"That'll learn ya!"

And the ship, the black freighter
disappears out to sea
And on it is me.