The Beggar’s Opera : The First Musical

A Brief Summary

Polly Peachum falls in love with and marries the womanizing1 highwayman2, Captain Macheath. Unfortunately, Thomas Peachum and his common-law wife, Polly’s parents3, oppose the marriage. Thomas is both a fence4 and at the same time a thief- taker5 and he decides to destroy Macheath. He has him arrested6 and sent to Newgate Prison. There the gaoler7’s daughter, Lucy Locket, who is pregnant by Macheath, engineers his escape. However, Macheath is recaptured and condemned to the gallows8. Nevertheless, before the execution can take place, the beggar-playwright intervenes to give the play a false happy ending, in accordance with contemporary tastes.

Metatheatre: drama about drama

The Genesis of John Gay’s Musical

The Beggar’s Opera is the only English-language play from 1701 to 1770 that has stood the test of time9.

The play does build on certain elements of Restoration Comedy.- for example, the veneer of civility between Polly and Lucy (who hopes to poison Polly) could be straight out of Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700).

While Gay’s play was certainly written in a theatrical desert, it is nonetheless10 a great play, which is still regularly performed by repertoire companies.

1 womanizing – philandering, Casanova-like2 highwayman – robber, bandit 3 one’s parents – one’s mother and father 4 fence – sb. who illegally sells stolen property 5 thief-taker – (historical) type of bounty hunter, sb. who received compensation for capturing delinquents6 to have sb. arrested – organize s.o’s detention 7 gaoler – jailor, prison guard8 the gallows – execution by hanging 9 to stand the test of time (stand-stood-stood) – continue to be popular 10 nonetheless – despite this, even so

Real-Life Rogues11

John Gay (1685-1732) based Peachum on Jonathan Wild (1683-1725), a real-life fence-cum-thief-taker12.

Between 1712 and 1725 Wild amassed a fortune by returning stolen goods13 to their owners (for a commission) and by informing on14 rival criminals15. He sent over 60 thieves16 to the gallows9 during this period, before ending up17 there himself.

Wild was known to be a meticulous accounts keeper.

Macheath represents Jack Sheppard, a gallant burglar18 condemned by Wild, who escaped from prison a couple of times before being finally hanged.

At the same time he also represents the chief officers of the South-Sea Company19, who were ‘sacrificed’ by the Whig20 Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole.

John Gay had lost the money he had earned from his collected poems when the South-Sea Bubble21 burst22.

The play is also an attack on the royal court:- for 14 years Gay tried to earn a place at the court first of George I and then of George II.- Finally, in 1727 Gay was offered the post of Gentleman-Usher to Princess Louisa. Given that the girl was two years old at the time, Gay took this as an insult and turned the post down.

The Beggar’s Opera reflects Gay’s belief that the royal court rewarded hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy rather than virtue and talent.

11 rogue – villain, criminal 12 fence-cum-thief-taker – sb. who is both a fence4 and a thief-taker5

13 goods – belongings, possessions, property 14 to inform on sb. – report sb. to the police 15 criminal – (false friend) delinquent 16 thief (plural ‘thieves’) – robber 17 to end up – (in this case) be executed 18 burglar – sb. who robs from homes and offices 19 a speculative venture (= business) which went bankrupt in 1720, seriously debilitating the British economy. 20 the Whigs (who in the end became the Liberal Party) represented business and commercial interests21 bubble – (in this case) cycle of speculatively inflated prices 22 to burst (burst-burst-burst) – collapse

Satirizing Opera & Politics

The Beggar’s Opera (1728) was part of a great wave of satire in Britain in the 1720s and it is no coincidence that it appeared almost simultaneously with

Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Pope’s The Dunciad (1728).

The three friends – and literary giants of their age – were all Tories23 under a Whig Government that was to continue well after all of them were dead (1745, 1744 and 1732).

Gay, Swift, Pope and others formed The Scriblerus Club in 1714.The name refers to Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus (published 1741), mostly by Dr John Arbuthnot, a satire on literary incompetence. Gay was also friends with Richard Steele.

Indeed24, the original idea for the play came from Swift’s suggestion to Pope that one of them should write a ‘Newgate Pastoral25’. In 1726 Gay shared his home in Whitehall (London) with Swift.

There is, in fact, a direct reference to Walpole:- one of Peachum’s gang26 is names as ‘Bob Booty’, which was Walpole’s nickname.

Walpole went to see the play and – either because he didn’t get the satire or because he didn’t want to lose face – called for an encore at the end of the play.

At the time the English theatre was dominated by revivals of the plays of previous generations and literally nobody was making a living from27 writing new plays in the mid-1720s.

This was because it was cheaper to revive an old play than to pay for a new one.plays with an established reputation were almost guaranteed to succeed.an established play wouldn’t be censured, a new one might be.theatre managers were more interested in new staging techniques and new methods of acting.

So, it was almost insane28 that Gay chose this moment to write one of the most original plays in the whole of English drama as a way out of29 his own bankruptcy30.

However, he had the insight31 to see that Italian operas were ripe to be satirized32

because they were:

23 the Tories (who became the Conservative Party) represented the Anglican Church hierarchy and the aristocracy24 indeed – (emphatic) in fact 25 i.e. an idyllic poem about the innocent occupants of Newgate Prison 26 it is useful to note that the word ‘gang’ was used in Gay’s time to denote groups of both lowlifes and courtiers.27 to make a living from (make-made-made) – earn enough to survive 28 insane – mad, crazy 29 a way out of – a way to escape from 30 bankruptcy – financial difficulties 31 insight – perspicacity, intelligence 32 X was ripe to be satirized – it was the perfect moment to satirize X

plays which were so simplistic that they could be understood in a foreign language; productions that were so artificial that they starred33 castrati34

The fight scene between Polly and Lucy mocks Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, the two leading prima donnas at the time in London.Their rivalry was such that in 1727 they had a cat fight (scratching and pulling hair) on stage in front of the audience!

Gay ingeniously took the tunes of popular – often bawdy – songs and gave them sugary-sweet lyrics- creating the effect of the implications of the music contradicting the lyrics.

Gay also focused on a class that had been largely ignored by dramatists up to that time, though he knew the bourgeois audience were just as fascinated by villains as they were by aristocrats.

The newspapers of the 1710s and 1720s were full of stories about rogues.

Even so, Gay did have some precedents to base his work on, especially the lowlife scenes from Jacobethan drama:

Shakespeare’s 1 and 2 Henry IV (the scenes with Mrs Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, Pistol and Nym)Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling (the madhouse scenes)

The tradition could even be traced back to the fabliaux.

In any case the gamble paid off35; The Beggar’s Opera was the most successful British play up to that time36 and it earned Gay the enormous sum of ₤800. The play’s producer John Rich earned even more. Indeed26, it was said that The Beggar’s Opera made Rich gay37, and Gay rich.

Conventionally, opera focuses on high society. By centring his musical on the criminal38 classes Gay comments that the sins39 of the upper class40 and those of the lower classes are similar.

The difference is that the poor are punished41 for their sins.

33 to star – have in central roles, feature 34 castrati – singers who had been castrated before adolescence to ‘preserve’ their voices 35 the gamble paid off – the risk was well rewarded (= compensated)36 up to that time – so far, until that time 37 gay – (in this case) happy38 criminal (adj.) – (false friend) delinquent39 sins – immoral acts, (in this case) illegal acts 40 the upper class – the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, the rich 41 to punish – discipline, penalize

Topsy-Turvy Values

The conventional assumption in moralistic drama is that the good end happily and the bad end unhappily42.

Gay turns all such assumptions on their head43. The criteria44 for the play’s ironic morality are those of

the thieves’ den45, the brothel46 and the prison.

The rogues11 argue, convincingly, that the rich steal to hoard47 money; rogues do so to spend it, which is its natural purpose.

Brilliantly, Mrs Peachum (who is not officially married) chides48 her daughter for marrying MacHeath, and so bringing public dishonour on the family, when she could have just49 slept with him in secret!

The play brilliantly shows how society ascribes values to people according to their gender or class, irrespective of their actions:

So, the (young) women are insistently defined as ‘whore’, ‘hussy’, ‘strumpet’ and ‘slut’ in direct contradiction to all the evidence that they are constant and the men are promiscuous.

Similarly, the poor are defined as ‘rogues’ and ‘villains’ when we see that the authorities (Peachum, Locket and those they work for) are much more villainous and corrupt.

Matt of the Mint metaphorically states that, “As a bawd to a whore, I grant you, he [= Peachum] is to us of great convenience” (71).

Hence, here a comparison is drawn that equates the industry of thievery to that of prostitution.

Sexual relations are parasitic:Men like MacHeath get women pregnant by sweet-talking them, then abandon them to their only option: prostitution.

At the same time, prostitutes can financially ruin men, thus condemning them to transportation. Mrs Vixen boasts that she has sent some 30 men to the plantations (as indentured labour) [Act II, Scene III, line 77].

42 as Miss Prism says in The Importance of Being Earnest43 to turn sth. on its head – reverse sth. 44 criterion (plural ‘criteria’) – basis45 den – (in this case) hideout, safe house 46 brothel – house of prostitution 47 to hoard – collect, accumulate, amass, (opposite of ‘use’)48 to chide – scold, reprimand 49 just – (in this case) simply

The only characters who evolve are the two young women:Polly learns to be less credulous and Lucy less furious. Notice that the two young women are the only likeable characters in the play (though Lucy does try to poison Polly).

Though there are more synonyms for ‘whore’ in this play that practically any other, Gay does not paint a negative picture of women (or, if you prefer, he paints a much more negative one of men).

Meanwhile, the prostitutes affect the manners of high-born ladies.

Capitalism = Reification

All relations in Gay’s play are reified.

Peachum sees his associates in financial terms; he also says that wives should see husbands in terms of their ‘widow value’.

MacHeath accumulates women as others accumulate money.

Locket turns the job of gaoler into that of hotelier.

The ‘shackles scene’ (Act 2, Scene 7) in which Gaoler Locket ‘sells’ Macheath his shackles is a wonderful parody of a tailor/shopkeeper selling clothes and complements.However, it also highlights the fact that it is only the poor who go to prison, not the rich.“If I had the best gentleman in the land in my custody, I could not equip him more handsomely.”

Prisoners with sufficient finances can pay for their ‘escape’, or have the cases against them run aground when a witness changes his/her recollection.

“Money well timed, and properly applied, will do anything.” (Macheath)

Criminality and the courts are simply different aspects of the same corrupt system.

The prostitutes obviously turn sex into a financial exchange.

Life has a price.

Jemmy Twitcher is even paid to get arrested prostitutes pregnant so that they can escape from deportation.

The system, which leads to an overpopulation of unwanted prostitutes’ children, is self-perpetuating.

Name Games

Captain MacHeath is the womanizing1 anti-hero of the piece. A ‘heath’ is an area of wild countryside where the soil50 is too poor for crops51. This type of place was the preferred area of operation for highwaymen2.

Peachum is a brilliant pun52. Peachum sounds like “peach ’em” (= them). In the case of Polly’s father, Thomas Peachum, ‘to peach’ means ‘to accuse’ (from an aphetic abbreviation of ‘impeach53’). Thomas Peachum is the least attractive person in a play full of villains. He is a lawyer who fences54 stolen goods15. Moreover, he incriminates his associates when it suits55 him. His cynicism is of epic proportions.

He compares himself to a great statesman and the audience is meant to56 see Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole reflected in him.

Thomas Peachum’s sidekick57 is Lockit the Jailor. The pun here is more obvious: ‘lock it’. Lockit represents Walpole’s associate Lord Townsend. His daughter, Lucy (‘loose58-y’?) is Polly’s rival for MacHeath’s love.

Ironically, however, the gaoler’s daughter’s name is based on that of a real person: Lucy Lockit, a famous courtesan at the time of Charles II.

50 soil – land, earth, terrain 51 crops – growing grain, agrarian production 52 pun – piece of wordplay, play on words 53 to impeach – indict, prosecute 54 to fence – illegally sell (stolen goods)55 to suit sb. – be convenient/opportune for sb.56 is meant to – is supposed to 57 sidekick – associate, subordinate 58 loose – (in this case) promiscuous

The Evolution of Musicals

Under the puritanical laws of Oliver Cromwell drama was theoretically banned. However, the ban could be circumvented if the plays

were staged in private houses, andall their words were set to music

making theatrical productions into essentially musical events.

This created a taste for musical drama which continued after the reopening of the theatres in 1660.

Gay enjoyed Italian opera and even wrote librettos for Handel’s Acis and Galatea (performed 1732) and Achilles (performed (1733)

Gay answered the Italian opera, which was fashionable up to the opening of The Beggar’s Opera, with traditional English pop(ular) songs.

Moreover, Gay disposed of recitative altogether in favour of spoken dialogue. In this way he instantly invented the musical.

Beggar’s Trivia

► Actress Lavinia Fenton was so popular as Polly that she had to be escorted home every night by a considerable group of friends to prevent59 her being kidnapped60.

► Gay’s sequel to The Beggar’s Opera was Polly, a more openly satirical but much less worthy play, as Gay knew. Even here his luck held because Polly was banned by the Lord Chamberlain (under pressure from Walpole) as seditious. As a result, according to his own calculations, Gay earned four times as much from its publication as he would have done from its performance.

► The authorities responded to the success of The Beggar’s Opera and subsequent plays of political satire with the 1737 Licencing Act, which re-imposed censorship.

► The Beggar’s Opera prompted a surge of imitative ‘ballad opera’s to be written over the next decade. The great Handel suddenly found that the English had lost interest in his operas. He remained out in the cold after a series of failures until he finally gave up operas in 1741 and reinvented himself through his oratorio masterpiece Messiah (1742).

► The Beggar’s Opera was produced every year in London from 1728 until 1800 and it is still regularly revived.

► One Wednesday night in April 1782 a lady called Mrs Fitzherbert went to a performance of Gay’s play at the Drury Lane Theatre. When the man playing Lucy Locket appeared she started laughing. She continued throughout the performance and all the next day. Early on Friday Mrs Fitzherbert died from her laughing fit61.

► In Bretholt Brecht’s adaptation of Gay’s play, The Threepenny Opera (1928) MacHeath is called ‘Mack the Knife’ most of the time. Versions of the song, ‘Mack the Knife’, from Brecht’s musical were recorded by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Bill Haley, Ella Fitzgerald, The Doors, Frank Sinatra, Sting, The Psychedelic Furs, Nick Cave and Robbie Williams.

► There are two versions of The Beggar’s Opera available on DVD. One stars Laurence Olivier (1954), the other stars Roger Daltrey62 and Bob Hoskins (1983).

59 to prevent – stop 60 to kidnap – abduct, rapt 61 fit (n.) – attack 62 singer from The Who

Major Themes

Equality

Gay's exploration of equality has an inherent irony to it, and understanding this irony is essential to appreciating the sharpness of his satire. Both explicitly through dialogue and implicitly through the story, Gay critiques the outright inequality between the rich and poor. However, what makes the work unique is that he makes incessant comparisons between the powerful rich and the desperate poor. His basic idea is that despite social class, all men are naturally self-interested and corrupt. The text is rife with humorous equivalencies drawn between statesmen and criminals, lawyers and impeachers, highwaymen and courtiers, all to suggest that inequality is due as much to how hypocritical a man is willing to be, and not to his virtue.

Marriage

In the world of The Beggar’s Opera, marriage bears no resemblance to the romantic notion of a holy union between two soulmates. Instead, Gay continually mocks this notion, suggesting that love is more closely aligned with lust and self-interest than with selflessness. The closest Gay comes to representing the idealized conception is in the profuse professions Polly and Lucy make for Macheath. However, both women are as focused on physical intimacy as upon a transcendent union. Polly’s marriage ultimately means little to Macheath, and most characters think of it is in terms of its financial benefits, with little thought of her emotions. The girls’ notion of romantic love, so misplaced upon an obvious cad, renders the romantic ideal ludicrous.For the rest of the characters, a woman’s only use for marriage is financial security -resting on the hotly-anticipated death of the male spouse, from whom she might inherit. Freedom of sexual expression is also put forward as a potential benefit of marriage, far different again from the romantic notion of monogamy. Once married, a wife’s reputation is vouchsafed by her husband. She may thus act with impunity, according to her whim. All of these representations were unique in the time period, and helped to make Gay’s work so transgressive.

Friendship

There are myriad instances of friendship in the opera, although none of them conform to the ideal notion of a selfless affection for another. Instead, most characters are quick to betray even the most seemingly profound of relationships. As a virtue, friendship is espoused by:

Peachum for Lockit (and vice versa); the highwaymen for each other; the harem of prostitutes for one other; Mrs. Peachum for her favorite gang members; and even Lucy for Polly.

In each case, though, the affection proves at best a transitory kind of fidelity, dictated utterly by self-interest. The highwaymen congratulate themselves on their valiant allegiance and dedication to one another, but in the next moment conspire to ‘befriend’ unsuspecting victims about the town in order to rob them. Mrs. Peachum inquires after the wellbeing of her favorite gang members, extolling their virtues, but quickly drops her concern upon discovering that her husband has chosen them for the current session’s impeachment. For Peachum and Lockit, as for Lucy and Polly, friendship is a self-consciously insincere tool. Peachum and Lockit are business partners and self-proclaimed friends, yet each man seeks to cheat the other. Lucy offers a conciliatory glass of cordial to Polly in seeking to forgive the past and forge a future friendship... and the cordial is poisoned.

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is arguably Gay’s most significant target in the opera. Both implicitly and explicitly, he mocks the way that statesmen reach great heights not through virtue, but through their hypocrisy. In fact, hypocrisy defines each and every character, action and employment, suggesting it is an inherent, inescapable human quality. Gay’s lyrics are the best place to find witty articulations of his time’s hypocrisy. When Peachum expresses the view that it might be reasonable to consider their line of work dishonest, Lockit responds with a display of indignation, singing:When you censure the ageBe cautious and sage,Lest the courtiers offended should be;If you mention vice or bribe,’Tis so pat to all the tribe;Each cries—That was levell’d at me. (p. 42)Lockit’s sentiment encapsulates the simple truth that there is falseness in every heart, verified by the indignation of its denial.

Live for Today

The criminal mindset is greatly bolstered by the view that tomorrow may never come. It is not just criminals who use such reasoning to justify morally ambiguous actions, of course. Instead, Gay suggests that we all encounter situations where we compromise ourselves for the sake of momentary gratification. (Consider the scene between Lucy and Polly.) The morally bankrupt characters of The Beggar’s Opera, however, take a sanguine view of the matter: The noose is in everyone’s future.

Thus, let us live for today. While Gay does not explicitly comment on living one’s life through this philosophy, he does implicitly suggest that it is a natural human rationalization.

In any case the rogues are not immoral, simply amoral.For instance, Peachum does not betray his employees out of cruelty, but simply as a matter of mathematics.Morality is a luxury available only to those that can afford it.

The Law

There is no question that the profession receiving the worst review in The Beggar’s Opera is law enforcement. The officers of the Court are bribable men who regularly suppress evidence in criminal prosecution for the right price. Quite explicitly, justice is for sale, and a malleable concept at best. Worst of all are the lawyers, repeatedly invoked throughout the play as the prime example of those who profit by the vice of others. One day they protect the unsavory; the next, they prosecute them. It all depends on the price. If anything serves as an immovable law in The Beggar's Opera, is the natural law of human selfishness.

Self-Awareness

The characters in The Beggar’s Opera are prone to a philosophical defensiveness against their own dishonesty. It is as though they are aware of and armed against the audience’s gaze. This defensiveness utilizes deflection: the characters often confess their own moral failings or treachery, but then divert the attack to their social betters. If murder is wrong, for example, then look to the ‘gentlemen’ who have the money to employ assassins or pay off the police. If Macheath has a gambling problem, blame the gentlemen at the same table, whose educations prepare them more properly for the games and whose pocketbooks may more easily take a hit. Gay implicitly suggests in his play that we would all do better to look closely at ourselves, rather than to define ourselves by others - since others will naturally and regularly give us much occasion to defend our own vices and failures.