NOW THAT MAC HEATH'S

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SOPHIE BAKER IT WAS exciting to imagine a London production of one of the most popular works of the greatest socalist writer of this century, Bertolt Brecht. Especially 'The Threepenny Opera', , a universally accessible musical, human, funny, tragic, aggressive, with the music of Kurt Weill matching Brecht's anti-bourgeois drama so aptly that it is hard to envisage one without the other.

Of course, ! knew there would be painful contradictions. The theatre is a bourgeois medium in this society, and the West End the Mecca of the middle-class. In addition, the opera itself had never possessed the inner strength of Brecht's later works which more successfully resist attempts to reduce them to bourgeois entertainIt has been seen that Brecht's attempt to counter Romanticism and sentimentality had, to some extent, failed in "The Threepenny Opera' and that people have always romanticized the characters and songs of Mack The Knife, Pirate Jenny Peachums.

What could have saved this new production from such a fate, which sends audiences away content in their own self-esteem and liberalism, would have been to do what Brecht would undoubtedly have done had he been directing it, which is to emphasize the relevance of the opera to the prevailing situation. As it is, the director, Tony. Richardson and the translator, Hugh Macdiarmid, seemed to be doing everything in their power to reduce the impact and significance of the piece to present-day events, and to underline in a glitteringly liberalistic, sophisticated Vanessa Redgrave as Polly peachum, Joe Mella as Macheath (above) in wedding scenes from Bertolt Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera'. Left: Dan Meaden as the Queen's Messenger, and Annie Ross as Jenny. way the undertones of anarchistic despair.

In effect, Tony Richardson and Hugh Macdiarmid have had on "The Threepeny Opera' the kind of effect that Lawrence Daly and Joe Gormley are having on the miners' strike-to stretch a political analogy.

The original translation of Marc Blitzstein was neither literal nor poetic, mirroring instead the human dimensions of Brecht's outrage, and the burlesque used rather as a weapon than as entertainment. Macdiarmid's method is slavish rather than dialectical.

The production as a whole suffers therefore from these two major weaknesses - that of direction and translation. The cast struggle heroically with such odds against them. Vanessa Redgrave is badly miscast as Polly Peachum, embarmassagly meet knows quite how, to make the part stand up. Annie Ross as Jenny is a good choice with just the right degree of brashness offset with dignity. Joe Melia, hardly anyone's idea of a cut-throat, nevertheless succeeds in conveying sinister machinations quite sinisterly. Barbara Windsor does her usual turn communicating working - class idiocy in that inimitable fashion which makes her the darling of middle-class theatre audiences.

But what a pity it all is, given that the Brecht-WeillBlitzstein version has a powerful relevance to us now, for "The Threepenny Opera' presents a picture of that marvellous world of free enterprise in which the ruthless gangster is king. The real message is that there is very little difference between the present-day gangsters of free enterprise who wear starched white shirts, pin-stripe trousers, carry rolled umbrellas and work in City merchant banks and the world of hard crime.

Then, by a strange and not unhappy coincidence, the hero of the opera bears the same name as our present Prime Minister, and those who mourn their dead in Derry might also have found other coincidences in the Ballad of Mack The Knife:

'When the shark bites With his teeth, dear, Scarlet billows start to flow. Fancy gloves, though, wears Mack Heath, dear, So there's not a trace There are also shades erry and Bloody Sunday her tales of Mack Heath: 'On the sidewalk, Sunday morning, Lies a body oozing life. Someone's sneaking round the cornerIs that someone Mack the Knife?!

And there are other parallels for those who wish to see them in "The Threepenny Opera'. A thought of British troops in Ulster might not have gone amiss in the following song : 'Let's all go barmy Live off the Army See the world we never saw. If we get feeling down, we'll wander into town, And if the population Should greet us with indignation We'll chop them to bits Because we like our hamburgers raw.' And. if that seems rather treme to you, Brecht was ear on one thing: 'But blood is blood par pure is red And the Army is still recruiting.' But most relevant of all in this time of the miners' strike, the calling of commissions of inquiry, arbitration, deals, negotiations and the attempt to drive men to settlement, is the finale of the Ballad of Mack The Knife: 'Happy ending, nice and tidy, It's a rule I learned at school, Get your money every Friday, Happy endings are the rule.

So divide up those in darkness From the ones who walk Light em up boys There's your picture, Drop the shadows Out of sight.' And that is exactly what the production of "The Threepenny Opera' at the Prince of Wales theatre does; it drops the shadow over the real relevance of the piece. Inasmuch as there are indestructible elements in Brecht and in the music of Kurt Weill, there are reasons for going to see it, although the price of admission no longer bears any relation to the original threepenice which was intended.

Thursday 17,