{"id":1207,"date":"2015-12-11T10:42:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T10:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2015-12-11T10:42:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T10:42:14","slug":"new-old-same-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2015\/12\/new-old-same-old.html","title":{"rendered":"New old, same old"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kneehigh<\/a><\/p>\n

The Beggar’s Opera and Dead Dog in a Suitcase<\/strong><\/p>\n

The world has grown old. There are no new stories, no new songs. We stick to what we know. Comfort-binge legends of sweet romance and poetic justice. Inarguable hard truths of self-serving cruelty.<\/p>\n

This is the genius of John Gay\u2019s Beggar\u2019s Opera<\/em><\/a>, and of Dead Dog in a Suitcase<\/em><\/a>, the inspired new version by theatre company Kneehigh. Gay, writing in1728, set his story in contemporary London \u2013 the noose-dodging surge of pickpockets and hired informants, the harsh punishments suffered by the weak, skirted by the elite. There\u2019s a tug of love triangle between star crim Macheath and the two women he casually marries \u2013 but Gay throws his romantic plot into the gin-soaked rookeries of Georgian London. He depicts criminal networks that pivot on blackmail \u2013 Peachum (based on the publicity-hound thief taker Jonathan Wild) runs a criminal enterprise, incentivising his network of crooks with the threat of turning them in if they don\u2019t perform. But Gay also gestures to a wider world of political graft and pocket-lining policy \u2013 hopelessly inept, hopeless corrupt.<\/p>\n

Kneehigh specialise in rorty, raucous, crowd-facing drama that doesn\u2019t so much seduce an audience as pull it in tight for a sozzled, sweaty hug. Its best shows (Tristan and Isolde<\/em>, Brief Encounter<\/em>) are warm and wild, with a yearning core. Dead Dog in a Suitcase<\/em> is certainly one of their best, but also something different \u2013 fiercely funny, but disillusioned, with a dangerous impatience that eventually breaks free.<\/p>\n

In this version by Carl Grose, we\u2019re in a nameless city, a sliver away from lawless. Peachum\u2019s business seems legit (pilchards, mostly) \u2013 but he hires Macheath to waste the truth-digging mayor (the dog is collateral damage) and with his leopard-print helpmeet (Rina Fatania, pictured above: hilarious) stitches up the ensuing election. But Macheath\u2019s a loose cannon in superman underpants, who knows too much and has been shagging a swathe through the ladies: knocking up many, marrying several. The mayor\u2019s widow wants answers, pretty Polly Peachum wants to run away with Mac, and there\u2019s a muddle of identical shiny black suitcases: people inadvertently swap cash, clothes, the fly-blown corpse of the mayor\u2019s dead dog (cue pop-up flies).<\/p>\n

\"Dominic<\/a>

Dominic Marsh as Macheath Photo: Kneehigh<\/p><\/div>\n

The Beggar\u2019s Opera<\/em> is hard to pull off. It can seem an act of Hogarthian archaeology (by director Jonathan Miller<\/a>) or genteel homage (in Benjamin Britten<\/a>\u2019s setting). The music director here, Charles Hazelwood, has worked on Gay\u2019s ballad-opera before, and now pushes the sound world in all directions. Georgian ballad and shouty ska, r\u2019n\u2019b stylings (via Jack Shalloo<\/a>\u2019s genius doormat) or a bittersweet Winehouse twang \u2013 it\u2019s all here. Some tunes that Gay uses (\u2018Over the hills and far away\u2019; \u2018Greensleeves\u2019) wind through, as do trenchant numbers from the Brecht\/Weill rewrite, The Threepenny Opera<\/em>. There\u2019s even a snatch of the clinking clanking sound of Cabaret<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

These are terrific choices, because although they sound beguilingly familiar \u2013 I beamed whenever anyone started singing \u2013 their familiarity tugs you backwards. The car radio blares, but the wheels are spinning. Polly\u2019s silvery voice imagines getting \u2018over the seas and far away\u2019 \u2013 but is this insubstantial ache the best we can imagine? She wants to go somewhere else, she tells her mum. \u2018I\u2019ve been there,\u2019 snaps Fatania. \u2018It\u2019s shit.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Scrub out the world and start again<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shoreditch Town Hall was the perfect London venue for the show \u2013 a Victorian building <\/a>fallen among hipsters, jostled by shabby chic bars, meaty blowouts and implausible barbershops. New old, same old. Same on stage too \u2013 actor-musicians weave around the scaffolded set, with puppets and pole dancers, a Punch and Judy show acting as commentary. I don\u2019t mean it as a sneer to say that there\u2019s nothing new here \u2013 Mike Shepherd\u2019s production swaggers magnificently in the moment \u2013 but the enveloping sense of stasis seems to be the point. Because three centuries on, this story is as maggoty as a rotting dog. The stench of bifurcated justice, merciless business ethics and politics tucked into someone\u2019s pocket is still in our nostrils. Macheath may be the poster guy for this world, but he doesn\u2019t pull its strings.<\/p>\n

How do you solve a problem like Macheath? Murderous, bigamous, slippery as a swizzlestick, he\u2019s heading for the hangman, no question. Gay, riffing off conventions of Handelian opera, grants him an implausible last-minute reprieve. Weill, more cynical yet, does the same. Grose, cannily, puts Mac\u2019s escape in his own hands, and then asks what escape from this tired, murky world might mean. The finale throws cosy back in our faces, fills the space with smoke and bones, offering no shiny solutions but the yowling hope of scrubbing out the world and starting all over again.<\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beggar’s Opera and Dead Dog in a Suitcase The world has grown old. There are no new stories, no new songs. We stick to what we know. Comfort-binge legends of sweet romance and poetic justice. Inarguable hard truths of self-serving cruelty. This is the genius of John Gay\u2019s Beggar\u2019s Opera, and of Dead Dog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,86,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-musicals","9":"tag-opera","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1210,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions\/1210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}