Suky’s Tale

Suky Tawdry was but a passing reference in a familiar lyric of the ’60s, and from a lesser known reference in the Three Penny Opera of the 1920’s. But few know her real story.

Suky was born out of wedlock and left at the doorstep of the local convent. Sister Agnes found the baby nestled in a worn, straw basket, wrapped in what was left of a tattered pink blanket. For weeks, the sisters tried in vain to locate the mother. Failing that, they agreed to raise the child in the abbey rather than subject her to the horrid and abusive conditions of the town’s orphanage. They named her Susanna Theresa after their two favorite saints.

It seemed like no time had passed before Susanna was taking the terrible twos to an unheard of level, which threw the convent’s spiritual atmosphere into complete disarray. It was equally ill equipped to handle the mischievous child as she grew older. She often skipped out of daily vespers in favor of climbing to the bell tower to pester the resident pigeons. As a teenager, Susanna would skip out on her chores to hand out with the locals, who introduced her to cigarettes and warm ale. Caught smoking in the vestry – the last straw in a haystack of misdemeanors and sins – the sisters unceremoniously ushered the girl out the door.

Susanna landed on her feet, so to speak, with a job washing dishes at the local pub. Her meager pay was deducted for the ramshackle room she rented three flights up from the pub. At least she got free ale and some leftovers from the kitchen – that is, if she beat the rats and cockroaches to them. Time passed and Susanna was promoted to serving drinks and eventually tending bar. As the pub’s bar maid, she encountered more than her fare share of drunken sots who could barely balance on their bar stools as they poured their hearts out to her. Those thoroughly inebriated locals would constantly slur her name, typically starting with a long “Suuu” before swallowing the rest in a belch or a hiccup. Thus her name often came out as something akin to “Suky.” And that name soon stuck.

In the convent, Suky had never been given – nor had she needed – a last name. So she used the second name the sisters had given her, Theresa, as her last name. The change to “Tawdry” came about a year later when Suky was fired for dipping into the pub’s till. To survive, she was forced to join a new group of sisters who displayed their feminine wares outside the pub. Most of what Suky earned from selling her body went to a nasty pimp named MacHeath. It wasn’t long before the elements and quickies in dark alleys rendered her clothes tattered and soiled and her hair a straggled mat. The more successful sisters and refined locals turned up their noses at her tawdry appearance. The name “Tawdry” was soon added, and “Suky Tawdry” became the final moniker for an unnamed foundling, ironically christened to honor Saint Susanna and Saint Theresa.

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Background:
The song is from the German “The Threepenny Opera” and refers to MacHeath (or Mackie Messer), who was a violent pimp. Jenny Diver. Lucy Brown and Suky Tawdry are other characters in the opera, all prostitutes. Lotte Lenya was in reality the wife of the composer of the opera, Kurt Weill and her name was attached to a character in an off-Broadway production. Louie Miller represents a would-be client of one of the prostitutes, who is murdered by MacHeath after drawing out money.

Die Dreigroschenoper is a reworking of a much earlier work, The Beggar’s Opera, by John Gay (which ran for 62 performances when first launched in 1728, and when revived in 1920 for 1,463 more…). The character of Mack was ‘Captain’ Macheath – a highwayman (amongst other things…) Jenny Diver and Sukey Tawdry come from Gay’s work originally.

Saint Susanna, virgin and martyr, is said to have been the daughter of Saint Gabinus of Rome. The lengthy account given of her in mediaeval legend is very unreliable. It appears that on her refusal to marry a pagan relative of the Emperor Diocletian, she was arrested as a Christian.  According to her Acts, she was beheaded about the year 295, at the command of Diocletian, in her father’s house, which was turned into a church, together with the adjoining one belonging to her uncle, the prefect Caius or, according to other accounts, Pope Caius. The church became known as Sancta Susanna ad duas domos.

Susanna is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology for 11 August in the following terms: “At Rome, commemoration of Saint Susanna, in whose name, which was mentioned among the martyrs in ancient lists, the basilica of the titular church of Gaius at the Baths of Diocletian was dedicated to God in the sixth century.”  The commemoration of her that was included in the General Roman Calendar was removed in 1969 because of the legendary character of the Acts of her martyrdom.

Note: There are no fewer than three Saints named Theresa.