The Styrous® Viewfinder: The Threepenny Opera & the Tango

August 31, 2024

The Threepenny Opera & the Tango

Die Dreigoschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)

On August 31, 1928, Die Dreigoschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by Bertolt Brecht with music by Kurt Weill, premiered in Berlin. The play has been represented on the Viewfinder (links below) several times. There have been hundreds of presentations of the work but there are two very interesting interpretations I have found fascinating.

The first was adapted by playwright Wallace Shawn and brought back to Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54 in March 2006 with Alan Cumming playing Macheath, Nellie McKay as Polly, Cyndi Lauper as Jenny, Jim Dale as Mr Peachum, Ana Gasteyer as Mrs Peachum, Carlos Leon as Filch, Adam Alexi-Malle as Jacob and Brian Charles Rooney as a male Lucy. Included in the cast were drag performers. The performances, set design by Derek McLane, costumes by Isaac Mizrahi and choreography by Aszure Barton are astounding! It is also heavy on LGBTQ references.

There is a video of the complete performance on YouTube; although the quality of it sucks royally, it is worth watching even with all it's imperfections. There is a good quality video of the Tango-Ballad performed by Lauper (as Jenny) and Alan Cumming (as Macheath) during the 2006 Tony Awards (link below).

Alan Cumming & Cyndi Lauper - 2006 Tony Awards

While Cummings and Lauper sing the Tango-Ballad, they are joined by the cast dancing to the tango, men with men, women with women; this is appropriate as the dance originated in Argentina and was performed in the brothels of Buenos Aires where men danced with each other while they waited for the women who were busy with other clients. The anticipation aroused sexual tension between two male dancers. Eventually it developed into the aggressive movements and struggle for dominance that define the dance.

During tango’s early days, Argentina was largely populated by male, working-class immigrants. One statistic claims there were seven men to every woman in the country, making marriage and companionship both competitive and a prize awarded only to a few.

Due to Argentina’s draught of X chromosomes, even heterosexual brothers danced with one another. Same-sex dancing was simply a fun way to pass time, a chance to brush up on moves before a potential female suitor came along. It put two men chest to chest, moving strong hips to the alluring beat while fighting for dominance on the floor, just good fun.

In 1903, the very first photo of the tango was published in the magazine Caras y Caretas. The dancers were both men.

Two men dancing the tango - February, 7 1903

Caras y Caretas magazine

Two women dancing the tango - ca 1920

Soviet postcard

In 2001, the world’s first official queer milonga opened in Hamburg, Germany. Argentina’s inaugural International Queer Tango Festival sashayed onto the scene that same year. These two simultaneous events marked the beginning of the Queer Tango movement—a distinct style deliberately tossing gendered movements aside in favour of giving and receiving ‘impulses.’

The second version by the Berliner Ensemble, Berlin, Germany, opened on September 27, 2007, by director Robert Wilson. It had all the wonderful qualities, but different, of the Roundabout production of the previous year (links below).