Date/Time
Date(s) - 16 Sep 2011
8:00 PM - 10:30 PM

Location
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, Sydney

The Threepenny Opera

Captioned Performances: Friday, 16 September at 8pm and Wednesday, 21 September at 1pm at Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay

Sydney Theatre Company and Asteron present a Malthouse Melbourne and Victorian Opera production:

Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera

Text by Raimondo Cortese

Lyrics by Jeremy Sams

The most notorious anti-hero to storm a stage, Macheath – or Mack The Knife as he’s known on the streets – is the original city crim who’s never met a law, a woman or a cop he couldn’t break. That is until he challenges the supremacy of the Beggar King Peachum and his empire of manufactured woes.

With Peachum and cunning cop Tiger Brown on his case the last thing Mack needs is a couple of molls competing for ownership of him. But when it comes to the ladies, this Lothario throws caution to the wind and leaps in head first. Even with two wives and a warrant out for him, Mac will always make time for a jaunt to the whore house. But he’d better watch out… as all smart philanderers know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!

Honouring Brecht’s radical vision for an epic theatre, Raimondo Cortese’s vivid adaptation captures the spirit of 1930’s Berlin but superimposes it on to instantly recognisable local streets. Here moralities are gambled by the powerful, and corruption is code for survival among the downtrodden. At the savage heart of Michael Kantor and Richard Gill’s production is Kurt Weill’s raw, jazzy and intensely beautiful music, including the chilling classic, Mack The Knife.

In this major collaboration between Malthouse Melbourne and Victorian Opera, Richard Gill conducts an ensemble of 19 thieves, whores and tramps drawn from the hot and dangerous firmaments of opera, music theatre, cabaret and every pe in between. Heading up this debaucherous rabble will be the ever-fabulous Paul Capsis and Eddie Perfect.

A raucous comedy, bawdy musical and acerbic political satire, this production imperiously shoves aside the pretentions of modern world civility to revel in all that is corrupt and squirming beneath. Dare to imagine a Brechtian Underbelly with songs…

Duration: 2 Hours 40 Minutes, including interval

Venue: Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay