The Threepenny Opera is Brecht's reworking of John Gay's 18th century classic, The Beggar's Opera. First performed in Berlin in 1928, it has remained one of Brecht's most popular plays. The plot is primarily Gay's, but Brecht changed the focus of the satire, added several scenes and, with Kurt Weill's jazzy music, introduced an entirely new set of songs. This version, adapted by Marc Blitzstein in 1951, won the play a huge following in New York and London.

The scene is Soho. The bandit Macheath - a.k.a. Mack the Knife - courts and marries Polly Peachum. Her father, who governs London's beggars, giving them licenses to beg in particular districts and props and costumes to make them look more needy, opposes the wedding and tries to arrange Macheath's arrest. Though Macheath is in cahoots with Tiger Brown, the Commissioner of Police, Peachum is powerful and Macheath is forced to flee. Before leaving London he stops by his regular brothel, and is caught through the treachery of a prostitute he used to live with. He escapes jail through the help of Tiger Brown's daughter, Lucy, whom he has also wedded, but is caught again with yet another woman after Peachum threatrens to overrun the coronation ceremony of the new monarch with crippled beggars. Macheath is sentenced to hang and it seems that even his industrious gang of lawbreakers cannot save him...

- Adam Barnard, Director

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