The Threepenny Opera Lesson Plan

How does the Prologue in the recording change the way that you view the play?

The impact of the Prologue is in a way to distance the audience further from the piece, to make them aware that they are watching a play, and to make them aware that the play is connected to ideas of poverty and class. Students should consider how the Alienation Effect applies to that particular passage—what does it mean that they start the play thinking about those subjects? (Some students may also have wondered why the play was called The Threepenny Opera, and may have been interested in the logic.)

Bea Arthur played the role of Lucy, not Polly, and yet she sings the song that Blitzstein calls...