Arts Listings

The Shotgun Players Present Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Threepenny Opera’

By Wendel Brunner and Ruth Rosen
Wednesday December 30, 2009 - 09:21:00 AM

For those of you who are Brecht fans, or might be Brecht fans if you knew more about his work, the Shotgun Players in Berkeley are presenting an outstanding production of Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera through Jan. 31. As befitting a piece that is topical as well as timeless (at least timeless so far, but we can always hope), the frame of this 70-year-old play has been updated to include 1970s punk as well as Victorian England. A new translation involves rewriting some of the dialogue and song lyrics, but the effect works even for this fanatic Brecht fan. The classic music by Kurt Weill is well performed by the band, The Weillolators, and the slightly modified lyrics are even darker than the pre-Nazi Berlin original ones, leaving listeners nearly on their own to supply whatever dialectical counterpoint of hope they might be able to muster from their own minds. 

As they did in the play Meyerhoff, the Shotgun Players havecreated a world-class interpretation of the Threepenny Opera. With amazing physicality, unexpected choreography, marvelous musicians and a “Polly” who sings as though she were trained for the London stage, they reinforced our collective joy that we are lucky to have such a world-class community theatre in Berkeley. Bravo! 

And so cheap, even a beggar can afford it. Tickets are $15–$35.