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While the
latest New York incarnation of The
Threepenny Opera, now playing at Studio 54,
threatens at times to become a pastiche of
the best of the Ziegfeld Follies rather than
to coalesce into a cohesive whole, there’s
still reason to seek a seat at this nearly
sold-out run. And primarily, that reason is
Kurt Weill’s magnificently haunting score.
And particularly when sung by Nellie McKay.
And also Cyndi Lauper. And Jim Dale. And Ana
Gasteyer. And, yes, Alan Cumming too.
There’s no question that the five leads have
charisma and lung power and interpretive
skills – and nearly all of their solos
resonate, and more than a few of their duets
as well. And to see Jim Dale’s rubber-faced
and slithery-graceful performance is to have
some idea of what Weill and Bertolt Brecht
were intending in writing their caustic
cautionary tale about the underbelly of
capitalism.
Written during the Weimar period, and first
performend in Germany between the two World
Wars, Weill and Brecht’s brittle and
sardonic masterpiece might seem to have
particular relevance during this moment in
American history when the US Express train
seems to have slipped the tracks. The story
of Macheath and the characters who populate
his underworld heralds a dystopic society
where bitterness and betrayal is the legal
tender and honor has lost all value. And
rarely has the loss of what was once good
been more heartbreakingly articulated than
when Macheath and Jenny sing “The Ballad of
the Pimp.” An ode to lost happiness, and to
what might have been, except now it’s too
late – and instead, fate has had its way,
numbing each of the characters and leaving
them nearly disembodied.
Only Polly Peachum exudes a kind of youthful
hope, and as played by Nellie McKay, she’s a
revelation in understanding how it is that
the young maintain resilience in the face of
adversity: blind faith a part of it, and the
will to achieve another – and McKay makes
the hunger of the young – for success, for
domestic bliss – reason enough to go on
loving, even if cynically. Polly Peachum’s
no dummy, not in this production. Neither
blinded by love, nor an innocent, Polly’s a
mistress of feminine wiles and confident
enough in her machinations to get the
results she desires. She is the future: the
offspring of greed and corruption made
presentable in the next generation.
And whether one leaves Studio 54 with the
image of a neon horse and gold-lamé cowboy
descending from that fabled ceiling (thereby
evoking memories of the moon and the coke
spoon) or of Cyndi Lauper’s rueful rendition
of “Solomon Song,” there’s enough of
interest in this production to remind one
that as long as money, sex, and corruption
exist, Weill and Brecht’s satire of the
human condition will never go out of style.
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