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The Threepenny Opera

Bertolt Brecht - Author

John Willett - Translator

Ralph Manheim - Translator

Ralph Manheim - Editor

Nadine Gordimer - Foreword by

Norman Roessler - Introduction by

Paperback | $11.00 | add to cart | view cart
ISBN 9780143105169 | 176 pages | 18 Dec 2007 | Penguin Classics | 5.31 x 7.79in | 18 - AND UP
Summary of The Threepenny Opera Summary of The Threepenny Opera Reviews for The Threepenny Opera An Excerpt from The Threepenny Opera
Brutal, scandalous, perverted, yet humorous, hummable, and with a happy ending- Bertolt Brecht's revolutionary masterpiece The Threepenny Opera is a landmark of modern drama that has become embedded in the Western cultural imagination. Through the love story of Polly Peachum and "Mack the Knife" Macheath, the play satirizes the bourgeois of the Weimar Republic, revealing a society at the height of decadence and on the verge of chaos. Complemented with music by Kurt Weill, it was one of the earliest and most successful attempts to introduce jazz into the theater, and the song "Mack the Knife" became one of the most popular and widely recorded songs of the twentieth century.

"The Threepenny Opera and Mother Courage are the great plays of our time."
-Lillian Hellman

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