The Threepenny Opera
Directed by Kay Matschullat
Kupferberg Center for the Arts, Queens College
A production by Queens College’s Drama, Theatre & Dance department has captured the uproarious fun of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s work, “The Threepenny Opera,” written in 1928 Germany, just as fascism was starting to bear its teeth. Famously, it challenged the definition of opera.
This production, directed by Kay Matschullat, grabs hold of the musical’s gritty spirit and adds a dash of the vice-riddled wickedness of the ’80s, when “society’s safety nets had holes as big as today’s ozone layer,” Matschullat writes.
During the show’s opening rendition of the classic “Mack the Knife,” the whole cast, a mishmash of those draped in Victorian-era garb and punks littered with tattoos and cocaine residue, comes on stage. The juxtaposition is fascinating. The decision to re-examine “Threepenny” in this way presents how strife among lower classes has reoccurred throughout history.
-Cristina Schreil , Queen’s Chronicle
