Читать книгу Why we should read - S. P. B. Mais - Страница 14

"O Polly, you might have toy'd and kist.

By keeping Men off, you keep them on.

Polly

But he so teaz'd me,

And he so pleas'd me,

What I did, you must have done."

Her father then suggests that Polly has Macheath "peach'd" at the next Sessions, so that she can become a rich widow, and leaves her to digest the unpalatable idea. Macheath comes in and Polly urges him to fly, which he does.

Act II. opens with one of the finest choruses imaginable, sung by a gang of pickpockets in a tavern near Newgate:

"Fill every glass, for wine inspires us,

And fires us

With Courage, Love and Joy.

Women and wine should Life employ.

Is there ought else on Earth desirous?"

Macheath comes in and announces to the gang that he must go into hiding for a week or two and is left alone to ruminate upon life:

"A Man who loves Money, might as well be contented with one Guinea, as I with one Woman … " and is immediately joined by a gang of lovely ladies, by far the most attractive of whom is Jenny Diver.

"As prim and demure as ever! There is not any Prude, though ever so high bred, hath a more sanctify'd Look, with a more mischievous Heart. Ah! thou art a dear artful Hypocrite. … " Jenny, who never drinks "Strong-Waters" but when she has "the Cholic," who never goes "to the Tavern with a Man, but in the View of Business." "I have other Hours, and other sort of Men for my Pleasure." It is Jenny who sings one of the sweetest songs in the play:

"Before the Barn-door crowing,

The Cock by Hens attended,

His Eyes around him throwing,

Stands for a while suspended.

Then One he singles from the Crew,

And cheers the happy Hen;

With how do you do, and how do you do,

And how do you do again."

It is Jenny who then blindfolds him and betrays him to Peachum and the constables.

We accompany, loath as Macheath to part company with Jenny, the Captain to Newgate, where Lucy Lockit appears to add to his discomfiture by wishing to "be made an honest woman of."

The two jailers then come in and fight over a point of honour and depart. Meanwhile Macheath endeavours to make Lucy free him and is on the point of succeeding when Polly appears and the fat is properly in the fire. The situation gives rise to the most famous song in the play:

"How happy I could be with either,

Were t'other dear charmer away!

But while you thus teaze me together,

To neither a word will I say:

But tol de rol. … "

As a result of which the two girls turn on each other and Peachum enters, giving Macheath a chance to reassure Lucy of his love for her, so she gets the keys and lets him escape.

We then have an exquisite passage between Peachum and Mrs. Trapes, beginning in an inimitable vein:

Peachum. One may know by your Kiss, that your Ginn is excellent.

Trapes. I was always very curious in my Liquors. … Fill it up—I take as large Draughts of Liquor, as I did of Love. … I hate a Flincher in either.

Lucy, finding that she has released Macheath, only to let him fly to Polly, resolves to poison her with rat's-bane mixed in her gin, which Polly refuses: "Brandy and men (though women love them ever so well) are always taken by us with some Reluctance—unless 'tis in private."

Macheath is again captured, this time in a gaming-house, and sings a great number of songs (one to the tune of Sally in our Alley) in the "Condemn'd Hold" while he drowns his sorrows in drink. To send the audience away in a good humour he is reprieved at the last moment and rejoins his doxie in a dance.

Such is the substance of a play which few people took the trouble to read before they were unexpectedly given the chance of seeing it acted at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

But whether we read it or see it, there are certain points about it which make it perennially worth reading and worth seeing.

It is free from sentimentality, it is full of robust sense, and clears the air once and for all from the taint of prurience that has fallen upon us. The irony of it is mirth-provoking and delicious. It is a racy and true picture of human nature stripped naked. There is no savagery, only rascally good humour, true gaiety and buoyant vitality. As an antidote to depression or bad temper it would be hard to think of any quicker cut back to the joy of life.

And the best of it is that there are dozens of other plays equally enjoyable hidden away in the treasure-house of old English plays, waiting for you to unearth and rediscover them.