By Jonathan Kirkham
?Gangs, deceit, scandal, violence, thievery, basic debauchery, and so much more,? read the posters.
Students of German 310 (Phonetics and Pronunciation) performed Monday, April 8, a raw and raucous version of Bertolt Brecht?s ?Three-Penny Opera? in the most extreme of conditions, and it worked.
The lowest floor of the Tanner Building atrium was the best stage the group could come up with on short notice when the power went out Monday night.
?I finished printing out the last program at 4:58 and the power was gone at 5:02,? said Robert McFarland, teacher and director of the play.
McFarland scheduled room 251 for the night, but he discovered the only light they had was from the exit signs. People had already started gathering for the performance at 6:45.
?Do we call it off, do we do it anyway?? McFarland asked the cast shortly before show time.
They took an informal vote, and decided they?d go for it. They found a piano in an empty classroom, carried it up five steps, loaded it into a dark elevator?which was still working?and rolled it into the atrium at the bottom of the Tanner Building.
The setting sun provided light through the glass doors until it hid behind the mountains in the west. A couple students then shined their cars? headlights through the doors to provide additional lighting.
David Bateman, 24, a senior from American Fork, majoring in German, played Mr. Peachum. Be-tween scenes he pulled his pickup truck onto the sidewalk and turned on his high beams to provide a sort of spotlight. The cars, with the help of the building?s emergency lights, which turned on shortly thereaf-ter, lit the last 30 minutes of the production.
?It was amazing how the cast pulled together and made it happen through sheer force of will,? said Bateman.
Just before the start of the show, another cast member ran to get batteries for Bateman?s boom box, which was used in one scene.
The multimedia scenery for the show was to be projected onto a screen but, because they had no power, the cast had to settle for the business competition banner hanging above them in the atrium.
?It was theater at its rawest,? said McFarland. ?After it got going, we sat in amazement that it all worked, and that the audience stayed with us.?
McFarland also noted it was a weird post-modern juxtaposition, performing a Marxist musical directly below the BYU business competition banner.
Micheline Jarvis, 26, a senior from M?nster, Germany, majoring in German, played Polly Peachum. She also spearheaded the project at the beginning of the semester, and was encouraged with the outcome.
?Brecht is more like modern theater anyway. The whole improvisation, being on a different stage, worked well,? she said.
Between the amateur actors and singers, horrendous acoustics, no power, costumes from Deseret In-dustries and the improvised stage, the cast pulled off a hilarious, if at times inaudible, performance.
The musical seemed to be an odd mix of Monty Python, the ?Rocky Horror Picture Show? and ?Who let the dogs out??
For those who missed the first show, it is being performed again tonight, free of charge, in room 251 of the Tanner Building.
