The Beggar's Opera Live
Well-known television host Pamela Parker reports live from the Lincoln Fields Correctional Insitute, a medium-security prison for men and women in present-day Toronto. She's researching a story on the workings of the criminal justice system – in particular, the effectiveness of incarceration and the programs available to inmates to help them reintegrate into society once they are released.
The correctional facility is run by the socially progressive prison warden Beckett Benjamin Graff, a lover of theatre who believes in the therapeutic power of the arts. Graff decides that the gang members, prostitutes, con artists and thieves held in his institution will benefit from the opportunity to put on a play that mirrors their plight: a play about the social ills, societal inequality, human failings and moral choices they made that put them behind bars. The inmates have volunteered to design and perform a production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.
The Beggar's Opera tells the story of a love triangle between the thief Macheath, Polly Peachum, the sheltered daughter of Macheath's fence, Mr. Peachum, and the jailer's daughter Lucy Lockit, who is pregnant with Macheath's child.
Upon discovering Macheath and Polly have secretly married, Mr. Peachum is determined to have Macheath put behind bars. Polly warns him, but Macheath is betrayed by the prostitutes he frolics with and is caught and imprisoned. Lucy finds him in jail and Macheath convinces her it's not true that he's married to Polly, so Lucy helps him to escape.
Recaptured, Macheath is sentenced to be hanged. At the last moment, the jailer brings in four other pregnant “wives”. Macheath pronounces it all too much and claims he’d rather be hanged than deal with all these demanding women!
At this point, the news reporter Pamela Parker steps in, and pleads with the Warden to give the play a happy ending, with Macheath reprieved but forced to settle on one wife only.
Warden Graff hopes that enacting the 18th century Beggar's Opera will give 21st century inmates the self-knowledge that will help them on their path to rehabilitation.
But will it?
finearts.yorku.ca/beggarsopera
Photos by: Judy Karacs
The Beggar's Opera Live
Well-known television host Pamela Parker reports live from the Lincoln Fields Correctional Insitute, a medium-security prison for men and women in present-day Toronto. She's researching a story on the workings of the criminal justice system – in particular, the effectiveness of incarceration and the programs available to inmates to help them reintegrate into society once they are released.
The correctional facility is run by the socially progressive prison warden Beckett Benjamin Graff, a lover of theatre who believes in the therapeutic power of the arts. Graff decides that the gang members, prostitutes, con artists and thieves held in his institution will benefit from the opportunity to put on a play that mirrors their plight: a play about the social ills, societal inequality, human failings and moral choices they made that put them behind bars. The inmates have volunteered to design and perform a production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.
The Beggar's Opera tells the story of a love triangle between the thief Macheath, Polly Peachum, the sheltered daughter of Macheath's fence, Mr. Peachum, and the jailer's daughter Lucy Lockit, who is pregnant with Macheath's child.
Upon discovering Macheath and Polly have secretly married, Mr. Peachum is determined to have Macheath put behind bars. Polly warns him, but Macheath is betrayed by the prostitutes he frolics with and is caught and imprisoned. Lucy finds him in jail and Macheath convinces her it's not true that he's married to Polly, so Lucy helps him to escape.
Recaptured, Macheath is sentenced to be hanged. At the last moment, the jailer brings in four other pregnant “wives”. Macheath pronounces it all too much and claims he’d rather be hanged than deal with all these demanding women!
At this point, the news reporter Pamela Parker steps in, and pleads with the Warden to give the play a happy ending, with Macheath reprieved but forced to settle on one wife only.
Warden Graff hopes that enacting the 18th century Beggar's Opera will give 21st century inmates the self-knowledge that will help them on their path to rehabilitation.
But will it?
finearts.yorku.ca/beggarsopera
Photos by: Judy Karacs