The Beggar's Opera
by John Gay
"Life is a jest, and all things show it.
I thought it once, and now I know it."
(John Gay's epitaph, written by himself)
"The Beggar's Opera" is the first ever "ballad opera", or play with songs. It is
set in the seedy world of criminals, thieves, fences,
pimps and prostitutes of eighteenth century London, and tells the story of the highwayman,
Macheath, his seduction of various women, his betrayal, arrest for robbery, escape,
re-arrest and sentence to be hanged - though the convention of a happy ending
demanded a last-minute reprieve for him.
The play was first produced in 1728 at John Rich's theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was
a phenominal success, breaking all previous records, and was performed more than any other
play during the eighteenth century.It was claimed by contemporary wits that it
"made Gay rich and Rich gay".
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From about 1750, "The Beggar's Opera" became almost as popular
in the American colonies, and was said to be George Washington's favourite stage work.
It was written as a satire on the prevailing fashion in Italian opera as well as on
the corruption of the political life of the period. It is as
relevant now as it was when it first appeared, drawing obvious parallels between those in
positions of influence and authority, and the disreputable inhabitants of the criminal
world in which the action is set.
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"The Beggar's Opera" Set Model
I have only ever directed three musicals, but this has always been my favourite.
The songs are an integral part of the action, rather than being tacked on as an
afterthought or introduced for light relief, and they are all set to arrangements
of well-known tunes of the time at which the play was written, and many of them are
still familiar today.
The setting for my production had several levels, and was made from re-cycled timber,
(acquired from a pig farm!) so that it had a really old and used look, and was hung with chains and manacles suggesting
the prison in which a lot of the action takes place, and which would be the likely end for most
of the characters.
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The musicians were in costume and on stage throughout behind the prison bars.
The costumes were eighteenth century, but grubby and tatty like the characters. The
Peachum household tended to be dressed in reds and browns, while Lockit and the Newgate
prison characters were in black and dull greens and blues. The lighting also reflected these differences in mood,
being warmer for the scenes in taverns and gaming-houses, and much colder and more unfriendly for the prison scenes.
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