In a corrupt Chicago, Lieutenant Lilian Holiday leads a Salvation Army group that aims to confront the sin of a criminal gang. Her goal is to convert Bill Cracker, leader of the organization. To do so, Lilian will use unorthodox methods that will put her promising religious career at risk while at the same time getting her romantically entangled with the gangster. But behind the candidness of the argument the humor and irony of a criticism of what is understood as happy end shines through, redefining this apparent struggle between good and evil as a functional articulation of capitalism.
The premiere occurs in the year that commemorates 60 years of Brecht's death and long after the fate of the text changed. In the 1950s it was remounted in Germany, in the 1960s it reached the West End, in the 1970s it debuted and triumphed on Broadway with Meryl Streep in the cast and three Tony Award nominations. And two of the thirteen themes of the work, Surabaya Johnny and The song of Bilbao, make up the most popular repertoire of the Brecht-Weill duo.
“It is not a minor work, it is an unknown work,” says Álvaro Viguera, director of the production, who took on the challenge of removing the German playwright from the restricted and moralizing reading in which he believes he has pigeonholed himself. And it does so while maintaining the period, the text and the original scores. Gabriel Urzúa and Geraldine Neary lead the cast of 14 actors that shares the stage with eight musicians and a two-story set that shows the bar and the religious headquarters where, as the text says, “it can only be normal that everything has a good ending.”
Happy End is the first musical comedy co-produced by GAM and LA SANTA Producciones and professional premiere in Latin America.
Artistic File
Text*: Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann
Song text*: Bertolt Brecht
Music*: Kurt Weill
Translation: Omar Saavedra Santis
DirectorÁlvaro Viguera
Director MusicalMarcelo Vergara
General ProducerAntonia Santa María
Assistant DirectorAna Corbalán
Production AssistantAlessandra Massardo
ChoreographerGonzalo Beltrán
Set Design and LightingRodrigo Ruiz
Costume DesignAndrea Carolina Contreras
Sound DesignRoberto Contreras
Vocal CoachElvira López
Co ProductionGAM and La SANTA Producciones
