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The Beggar
The Player is an actor who appears alongside the Beggar in the first and second-to-last scenes of The Beggar’s Opera. He is probably supposed to represent the play’s director. Together, the Beggar and the Player represent the two worlds that come together in this work: the Beggar represents London’s seedy criminal underworld, and the Player represents the refined world of London high culture and Italian opera. Just before the end of the play, the Player enforces this serious artistic world’s rules by telling the Beggar to give his opera a happy ending. Of course, this ironically makes the play look far less serious, because its new concluding scene is obviously out-of-place. In this way, John Gay uses the Player to mock opera’s snobbishness and rigid conventions.
The Player Quotes in The Beggar’s Opera
The The Beggar’s Opera quotes below are all either spoken by The Player or refer to The Player. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Introduction Quotes
If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure No-body can dispute mine. I own myself of the Company of Beggars; and I make one at their Weekly Festivals at St. Giles’s.
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Act 3, Scene 16 Quotes
PLAYER. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
BEGGAR. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
PLAYER. Why then, Friend, this is a down-right deep Tragedy. The Catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an Opera must end happily.
BEGGAR. Your Objection, Sir, is very just; and is easily remov’d. For you must allow, that in this kind of Drama, ’tis no matter how absurdly things are brought about.—So—you Rabble there—run and cry a Reprieve—let the Prisoner be brought back to his Wives in Triumph.
PLAYER. All this we must do, to comply with the Taste of the Town.
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The Player Character Timeline in The Beggar’s Opera
The timeline below shows where the character The Player appears in The Beggar’s Opera. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Introduction
In front of the lowered curtain, a ragged Beggar tells a Player (actor) that he writes poetry and songs for a troupe of actors in seedy St....
(full context)
Act 3, Scene 16
The Player and the Beggar enter the scene. The Player says he hopes the play doesn’t actually...
(full context)
