The story has become pretty standard, drama-wise: a woman wants to better the world by working with the Salvation Army (or at least a thinly-veiled version of same), finds love with a jaded "realist," and gives up her optimism in time to marry her less-than-ideal beau. George Bernard Shaw started the trend with Major Barbara, Frank Loesser musicalized it with Guys and Dolls, but in between these two hits was a minor flop by the only guys who could make Shaw say, "Wow, cynical much?": Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Happy End.
While not officially inspired by Major Barbara nor the inspiration for Guys and Dolls, Dorothy Lane (a/k/a Elisabeth Hauptmann)'s book for Happy End sticks to the basic template: Bill Cracker, a notorious gangster in 1919 Chicago (Macheath's grandson, perhaps?) woos innocent Lilian Holiday (no meaning behind that name; nope, none at all), a Salvation Army lieutenant who doesn't mind slumming with the riff-raff if it wins more souls for God. As Lilian gets further involved with the criminals, the Salvation Army begins to question her dedication to their cause, and she begins to question her own values. But the title demands that it all end happily, or at least as happily as a Brecht/Weill musical can, and so it does… in the most cynical way possible.
The show's 1929 premiere was an unequivocal disaster: star Helene Weigel departed from Hauptmann's unfinished book to read from the Communist Manifesto, the press couldn't tell if the ad-libbing was scripted or not (it was, after all, a Brecht and Weill piece), and ripped the show to shreds in the papers. It closed in a week, and has only received a few revivals since then. It arrived on Broadway for a few months in 1977, starring Meryl Streep as Lilian and Christopher Lloyd as Bill, but disappeared again quickly without even an original cast recording.
In fact, in the nearly eighty years since the musical's premiere, there hasn't been a single complete English recording—which, when one thinks of it, is somewhat strange. The show gave singers such gems as "The Bilbao Song," "The Sailor's Tango," and the legendary "Surabaya Johnny," but until now, Weill fans had to track down these bittersweet masterpieces on other compilations, or listen to the whole show in its original German. But last summer, American Conservatory Theater gave the show a rare professional revival, translated by
Michael Feingold and directed by ACT's artistic director
Carey Perloff. And not contented to merely revive the musical, they recorded it with their full cast and orchestra, conducted by ATC's musical director Constantine Kitsopoulos. The album was released this week from Ghostlight Records, and is a must-have for all Brecht and Weill enthusiasts.
The recording not only has the famous songs mentioned above, but quite a few excerpts of dialogue that help the listening experience seem more like a theatrical experience. Charlotte Cohn is an appropriately sweet-and-sour Lil, balancing the innocence of Lil's ambition and love with the bitterness of her increasing perception. Peter J. Macon has an appropriately rich and melodic voice for Bill, and it's quite easy to see why women would fall for his version of the heartbreaking rake. Linda Mugleston, a Broadway stalwart who loaned her talents to the West Coast for this production, doesn't have many songs as The Fly (Bill's mysterious boss), but as ever, performs very well and with plenty of caustic wit. Brecht and Weill, for all their popularity throughout the decades, are still as controversial today as they were in the Weimar era. While the politics of their musicals might seem quaint today, their musical stylings aren't for all tastes, and those who don't care for The Threepenny Opera probably won't care for this, either. On the other hand, for those unfamiliar with Threepenny, Happy End might just be a good introduction to the Brech/Weill oeuvre. The songs are shockingly frank, the music jarringly atonal, the cynicism is on the sleeve, but if you can swallow this bitter pill, you just might like what you hear.
