After the success of Weill and Brecht's previous collaboration, The Threepenny Opera, the duo devised this musical, written by Elisabeth Hauptmann under the pseudonym of Dorothy Lane.
The story is reminiscent of, but not the source of, the more well-known musical Guys and Dolls (which was based on DamonRunyon's short story, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown.")
"Happy End" has an intriguing pedigree. Written to follow up the enormous
success of "The Threepenny Opera" the previous year, Brecht allegedly left
the bulk of the writing to his secretary/collaborator/translator Elizabeth Hauptmann. Hauptmann's sources included, among others, Major Barbara - the story of a Salvation Army officer who falls in love with a gangster. To get round copyright problems connected with the source,
they invented a pseudonym ‘Dorothy Lane’ as the writer of the script.
By the interval on opening night in Berlin in September 1929, the production
was already considered a great success, but an impromptu departure from the
script towards the close of the show – by actress Helene Weigel (Brecht’s wife)
reading from a communist pamphlet – caused a near riot in the auditorium.
The resulting press reviews caused such a storm of political controversy over
the production that it closed within days, deemed a total failure.
Not properly revived for decades, "Happy End" is of course not in any terms
a failure! Its music is arguably the equal of Theepenny, if not better. And the
English translation/adaptation by the American writer Michael Feingold in the
1970s took the show to ever slicker heights of the musical theatre genre.
link to the Stage Company TRUCCO website
|
1234