Peachum goes on to claim that crime is as honest a job as any other:Ī Lawyer is an honest Employment, so is mine. The first Air consists of a condemnation of normal professions, portraying them as crimes in their own right. This is clear very early on in the play, which opens with a justification by Mr. This thwarts the expectations of both audience and other characters within the play, who have learned from experience that crime is filled with one-sided individuals. Macheath is often honest, considered, and likeable. Macheath operates as a criminal in a world that is filled with criminals, but his portrayal leaves some question as to whether his crimes are indeed as sinful as those of the lowlifes that surround him. Macheath is the only character who possesses any moral aptitude in a town full of villains. Finally, the impresario of the opera, the Beggar, is prevailed upon to grant a reprieve.The Beggar’s Opera is a political satire set in a society which is primarily motivated by financial gain. Having failed to poison Polly, Lucy and her former rival plead with their fathers to get their husband off, but to no avail. Eventually, Lucy manages to free Macheath with some spare keys, but he is later recaptured and sentenced to death. The arrival of Polly with her alternative marital claims confuses the issue further: the two women come close to blows.Īct 3.

In Newgate, Macheath offers to marry the jailer’s pregnant daughter, Lucy Lockit, but her father and Peachum have already hatched a scheme to share the reward due on his execution. With the others gone, a bevy of loose women enters to entertain him though, primed by Peachum, they are actually there to betray Macheath, who is handed over to the constables as the act ends.Īct 2. Macheath warms them he must lie low for a while. At a tavern near Newgate Prison, a criminal gang assembles with a view to hijacking a coach on Hampstead Heath. She, however, is horrified, and confesses all to the Captain: they decide to part temporarily for safety’s sake. They console themselves with the prospect that he is likely to be impeached soon for his activities (by them, if no-one else) and Polly left a wealthy widow. WHen Mrs Peachum and her husband charge her with having married Macheath she is forced to admit it. At the den of Peachum, a receiver of stolen goods, he and his wife ponder the value of various rogues in their employ before turning their attention to the highwayman Captain Macheath, on whom their daughter Polly dotes. Time and Place: London, early 18th centuryĪct 1.

The Beggar's Opera by John Gay