U.K: HAPPY END, A MUSICAL BY BRECHT AND WEILL ENDS ITS RUN AT A LONDON FRINGE THEATRE.

Record ID: 392780

  • Title: U.K: HAPPY END, A MUSICAL BY BRECHT AND WEILL ENDS ITS RUN AT A LONDON FRINGE THEATRE.
  • Date: 10th June 2002
  • Summary: VARIOUS. CAST PERFORMING "BILBAO SONG"
  • Embargoed: 25th June 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3V7B6L45B6JTIAK20OAADJ02V
  • Story Text: The legendary German theatrical pairing of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were responsible for some of the most important inter-war musical theatre of the last century much of which is frequently performed today and is as popular as ever. Happy End is one of their lesser known works and is rarely performed. It has just completed a critically acclaimed month long run at a London fringe venue.
    Happy End tells the tale of a Salvation Army Girl determined to rescue the souls of the bad guys of Chicago and the unlikely relationship she forms with top dog Bill Cracker.
    The storyline might sound startlingly similar to the better known Guys and Dolls, but this musical was penned in 1929, by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht as a follow up to their hugely successful Threepenny Opera.
    Heading up the cast as Bill Cracker is Alasdair Harvey, who is best known for his role as the beast in the original London production of Beauty and the Beast. For an actor used to the huge stages and technical wizardry of the West End, playing in a small theatre bar has been as daunting, if enjoyable experience.
    "Very different, yeah, this place, playing it here is very different, cos the audience are so near, it's so immediate, sometimes you brush legs with them and you don't know where to look because they are right in your eyeline the whole time, it's very very scary for me."
    Such an intimate venue throws the audience right into the action, as the actors mill around them for Harvey it adds an extra intensity to the piece.
    "There is a scene between Lillain and myself, which happens in the bar, over this bar here, and it comes at a real crux in the story where she comes back to try and save him, and it's a real moody scene, and he throws her out, and it's really tell tale"
    Joining Harvey in some of the most involved scenes is Tracy Wiles as Hallelujah Lil. Wiles is more used to performing in venues like the Central Space Theatre, and the venue, as well as a passion for Weill's music made her role in Happy End irresistible.
    "It's a great acting role, the songs are stunning, every song in it I love, really, I always liked Kurt Weill, so that was a big draw for me, the fact that it's a huge cast, I like working with loads of people, and the fact that it is very intimate, I like that as well."
    Despite the enduring popularity of Weill and Brecht, this show is rarely performed. It caused a scandal during its first performances and as a result became a theatrical rarity.
    "This play was written as a follow up to the Threepenny Opera which was a huge success and on the first night everyone loved it and there was rapturous applause and the director called his wife and said, we've got a hit, we've got a hit, and in the last scene, the Fly character, instead of delivering the speech that was written went off on a rant and upset the audience and they booed, and it closed, and it hasn't been done all that much since."
    Some of the songs, however have become well known in their own right, such as Surabaya Johnny and Bilbao Song.
    The show's director, Daniel Ghossain has long harboured a desire to stage the full show, to show where these classic songs originated, and when he came across the Central Space Theatre in London's Kings Cross, realised he had found the perfect setting for his revival.
    "part of the reason it hasn't been done very often is that it was never revived during their lifetime after it flopped following the first week of performances because of it's original anti-capitalist diatribe, which still exists in this script, although it is watered very much down in the American adaptation, and it has been done quite a lot in the States, most notably 25 years ago when Meryl Streep and Christopher Lloyd played the two leads, it has been performed very infrequently here, which is another reason that I felt it needed a revival, because I think it is a very strong piece, most notably for it's music, but also it's script which is very underrated at the same time."
    The parallels between Happy End and the Broadway hit, which was also made into a film, Guys and Dolls are undeniable.
    Although it is clear that Happy End was performed first, and as it died out so quickly it is unlikely that it was deliberately imitated there is a possibility that both musicals were based on the same short story although no-one knows for sure.
    "If anyone has borrowed anything off anybody, Brecht and Weill's Happy End existed before, I think Guys and Dolls first originated in the early Thirties, whereas Happy End was first performed and produced in 1929, it was based on an original source material which some people believe to be Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw, although it has never actually been revealed what the original source material was, so it's not an original story but it is an original take on traditional elements of traditional stories."
    ---ENDS---
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