Portland’s own Beggar’s Opera

Portland is a city where many different facets of culture exist side by side. Strip clubs stand mere blocks from city hall and the auditorium where the state ballet performs. Musical adaptations of Star Trek sell out theaters days after David Byrne performances. In a city full of theater groups and nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, it’s no surprise that Portland is home to Opera Theater Oregon, a nonprofit devoted to making opera accessible by performing affordable, contemporary versions in relatively intimate spaces.

Opera Theater Oregon’s current production, The Beggar’s Opera, promises to be another welcome addition to their 2009–10 season (which includes one of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen operas re-scripted as a Baywatch episode, and a new live score accompanying Mario Bava’s 1961 film Hercules Vs. Vampires).
Based on John Gay’s landmark 1728 opera of the same title, The Beggar’s Opera mocks local politicians and celebrities.

Local writer Stephen Marc Beaudoin collaborated with musician Michael Herrman on this Portland version of Beggar’s Opera. Herrman fronts Buoy LaRue, a local rock band heavily influenced by chamber music. The show will be performed this weekend at the Someday Lounge, and next weekend at The Woods in Sellwood—a new performance space housed inside a renovated funeral parlor that Beaudoin claims “still smells like formaldehyde.”

The Beggar’s Opera, according to Beaudoin, is a “show within a show.”

The cast plays a group of homeless characters who put on The Beggar’s Opera. They’ve taken over the theater space as a way to get the message out, so they perform the show as sort of a ritual.”

The play follows its hero, Mack “The Guitar,” a rising Portland pop star. Mack is dating Polly Peachum, a Reed College freshman with a fondness for hallucinogenic drugs, whose mother runs a series of porn stores called “Peachum’s and Cream.” Mrs. Peachum is having an affair with Randy Lockett, a policeman modeled after Randy Leonard. Lockett’s daughter, Lucy, is based on local pop star Storm Large—she has ascended to Portland stardom after an early life on the streets.

“I’m just so sick of hearing Storm Large’s name every five minutes,” Beaudoin said of his choice to base a character on the singer.

“Plus, she’s an easy target, because she’s, like, a cult figure. What John Gay did in the original was send up sort of cult figures of society, and say, ‘You know what, although we idolize these people and although we’ve developed this cult of personality around them, they’re just human, and as messy and disgusting as everyone else,'” Beaudoin said.

Beaudoin’s decision to include Randy Leonard has a similar explanation.

“Of all the politicians on city council right now, he’s the easiest to lampoon,” said Beaudoin, citing Leonard’s accessibility, working-class background and “genuinely dumb” decisions during his time on city council.

Beaudoin worked with Herrman to select songs from Gay’s original Beggar’s Opera, which contains over 70 pieces of music.

“We went through and chose about 20 of our individual favorites. My job was to not only rearrange the airs of the original that we decided to keep, but also write wholly new pieces for the show based on Stephen’s lyrics,” Herrman said.

“Opera Theater Oregon and Stephen both wanted the sound of my band, which is a six-piece chamber-pop band with violin, piano, viola, upright bass and guitars. The concept for the music was to kind of follow that instrumentation, and write Buoy LaRue-style songs, but with the lyrics that were part of the story,” Herrman said.

The Beggar’s Opera promises to be a uniquely Portland take on a classic work.