The Beggar's Opera

In the transition from the Adams House Dining Hall to the Loeb Main Stage, The Beggar's Opera both gained and lost something, which means it's still a great show.

It should be great, for it has to represent Harvard drama to all the old grads and old undergrads blanketing Cambridge this week. It has something for everyone--lively acting, sharp singing, and lots of healthy lust.

"Ah, women! I love the sex," sighs Macheath the Highwayman. "I must have 'em." But they have him, for when Macheath promises marriage to Polly Peachum, Polly's Parents bribe the gentleman robber's other bawds to turn him in for the reward. Mac's other love, Lucy Lockit, frees him, only to have him recaptured. And he would hang, were it not for every opera's prescribed happy ending. Macheath escapes from Tyburn and rejoins Polly in a fullthroated choral finale.

In the plush importance of the Loeb, with its cushioned seats instead of the wooden dining hall chairs, John Lithgow's freewheeling staging seems more careful and reserved. He has polished off his actors' rough spots and kept up a smooth and brisk pace, letting his fine performers show off without overshadowing the weaker ones.

No doubt about it, The Beggar's Opera has arrived. But I think it left behind the spontaneous surprise, the wonderful moments in which a House production, saying faster and faster "I think I can," succeeds through sheer effort. Moments like Joel Martin's sly, smiling entrance were lost last night.

Instead of moments of ecstasy, last night's show contained careful stagework and musicianship. Isiah Jackson conducted with his usual controlled excellence, and Lithgow's farcical staging was broad and bouncy. Hi show, though it seemed more at home in Adams House, certainly fits the Loeb's main stage in size and sound.