One More Night at the Opera

SLINKY PROSTITUTES CARESS and proposition unaccompanied males, a bearded ruffian distributes bee to members of the audience, the whole cast of underworld denizens bursts into spontaneous ballad--and that's only the beginning.

It's also the best part of the Adams House Drama Society's valiant--if not altogether successful--rendering of John Gay's classic The Beggar's Opera. Audience involvement in the cast's antics is the keynote of this production; if the rest of the show can't fulfill the promises of the opening, it's at least partly because the audience has a hard time getting involved in a series of jokes it can't understand.

While the assumptions underlying Gay's 1728 ballad-opera--that human nature is universally corrupt, that greed, vice and pettiness are not limited to any one social class--are as valid as ever, much of the play's humor derives from specific references to 18th century mores that are necessarily dated. To be sure, high class ladies still affect airs and politicians are still crooks, but we no longer comprehend Gay's jabs at Walpole and his ministers, nor do we have as much patience with the constant appellation of every woman as "hussy" or "slut". Not, for that matter, is The Beggar's Opera any longer completely successful as a musical parody of Italian opera, since the popular ballads that comprise its score are popular no more.

Still, the Adams House Drama Society struggles bravely. To squeeze every last ounce of humor from the show, director Richard Engelhart has his cast play as broadly as possible, so that where satire fails, farce takes over. In the process, he makes the most of the show's bawdiness, matching the already lewd dialogue with plenty of crotch-grabbing and adding some contemporary sexual cliches of his own.

Most of the cast fill their roles with 18th century gusto. Teresa Toulouse, for example, combines the vengefulness of Gilbert and Sullivan's jilted Katisha with the coarse bumptiousness of Eliza the Flower Girl in her characterization of Lucy Lockit, Polly Peachum's rival for the love of the unfaithful highwayman Macheath. Joanna Blum as Mrs. Peachum also plays her role to the hit. Unscrupulous and unmarried, she jerks around the stage, hands on hips, spitting out cynical asides to the audience.

Al Cameron is less impressive as her gray bewigged, dandified husband, but his gentlemanly affectations provide an effective visual and aural contrast to the antics of his partner in crime, the hard-drinking, Scottish jailor, Mr. Lockit (Daniel Frank). While Lisa Popick looks just right as Macheath's favorite prostitute Jenny Diver, Meredith Birdsall is completely inadequate as his favorite wife, Polly. Awkward and artificial, she sports a perpetually perturbed countenance and her attempts at crying are laughable.

Birdsall's strong soprano voice, however, partially compensates for the weakness of her acting. Musically, in fact, the entire cast of The Beggar's Opera is unimpeachable. While Ben Cox's Macheath displays more world-weariness and self-parody than vigor, he sings in a melodious high tenor that does ample justice to Gay's ballads. Toulouse too has an outstanding, well-controlled soprano--although her duets with Polly would be more effective were she a contralto.

There are some wonderful moments in The Beggar's Opera--Master Kiely all grimaces and contortions as the Beggar/playwright, Macheath's gang lustily anticipating their booty, the prostitutes--each with a distinctive dress and a personality to match--swinging their way across the stage, mimicking lords and ladies and boasting gleefully of their conquests. Sharp characterizations of the prostitutes and gang members perfectly the rowdiness and vibrancy of the London underworld make these last scenes the most exciting in the production.

Despite the exertions of a talented cast, The Beggar's Opera founders as a result of sheer length. As a play, Gay's opera is too concerned with satire to retain much dramatic force, and three hours of sometimes dated humor interspersed with dozens of similar-sounding ballads is just too much tediousness for mere talent to overcome.

Not that The Beggar's Opera isn't worth seeing--some of the energy and fun that went into this production do manage to communicate themselves to the audience. Just don't expect to catch the late show of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," afterwards. And if you're male, by all means go unaccompanied.