Two More Weeks

So Denny and Steve left today. A sad farewell for sure. But I'll see them in a few weeks in Vermont. The show has gone very well so far, and I gauge its success on the number of people leaning forward throughout the play. Many people are visibly offended by the content at times, which is also a point in our favor. The play is controversial, and if it does not shake some people up, it is not doing its job.

It did not become Hitler's LEAST favorite play for nothing.

And ha ha, the last quatrain we sing begins with "Combat injustice, but with moderation." Because if you work too hard to stand up to injustice, you will face retaliation, because as Jenny Diver says, "when you kick a man, he tends to kick you back."

Doing the Threepenny Opera in St. Thomas has been an uphill climb. As Steve says "theater is most difficult to do in places where it is easiest to live." VERY TRUE. When people are comfortable and complacent, getting them to relate and feel the urgency of edgy stuff is like herding cats. It seems that people want "feel good" theater here. Boo. Keeping the energy up through the play as been a struggle, but we have a few key people who help elevate every scene. And I kick off the show with a rousing rendition of Mack the Knife as a street singer. Yee haw.

For the most part, the audiences love it, especially the Caribbean-islanders, who identify very much with Mac the Knife's last words:

"Ladies and gentlemen, you see before you a declining representative of a declining social group. We lower middle-class skilled workers who toil with our humble crowbars on the cash registers of small shopkeepers are being swallowed up by big corporations with banks behind them. What’s a crowbar compared with a share of stock? What’s robbing a bank compared with founding a bank? What’s rubbing a man out compared with giving him a job? "

HERE HERE!!

So two more weekends (six more shows).