Aadyam gives Brecht’s raucous, naughty musical a new tune

Mumbai: Motley’s Imaad Shah will bring Bertolt Brecht’s raucous musical The Threepenny Opera, to St Andrew’s Auditorium over November 10 and 11. This is the seventh and final production to be staged under the Aadyam banner this year. In its third year, Aadyam is a theatre initiative by the Aditya Birla Group in association with The Times of India.

In this post-modern adaptation of Brecht’s classic play, Mr Peachum, the owner of a small organization that makes outfitting and fake props for fake beggars in a poor part of the city, finds out that his daughter and only child, has fallen for and gotten married to the bandit Macheath. What follows is a crazy ride through a world of thieves, prostitutes, beggars, back alleys, and two-timing characters as Mr and Mrs Peachum go about trying to imprison Macheath and get back their dear daughter. The play is inherently naughty, sexual, playful and with a constant sympathy for the poor and downtrodden.

Shah, the play’s director says, “This play has a really entertaining take on a bleak worldview. It makes no bones in stating that the extremely rich live off the extremely poor. Thus, morals and abstract ideas concocted by society are of no significance when faced with the reality of survival.

It tackles a lot of ideas that I think are mirrors to Indian society and the world at large. But of course it tackles these using songs that are dark, jazz-influenced, sexy and cynical.”

The production will see an ensemble cast comprising Arunoday Singh, Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Meher Mistry, Delna Mody, Saba Azad, Joy Fernandes, Uday Chandra, Rahil Gilani, Vivaan Shah, Suhaas Ahuja, Auritra Ghosh, and Shazneen Acharia.

While it is very much set in the past, particularly the 1920s with period costumes, Imaad has worked with musicians, stylists, designers, choreographers and dancers to create a world that is part punk-rock, part film noir, part cabaret and jazz choreography that is visually powerful at the same time in keeping with its bawdy premise.