UC Santa Barbara Theater Department Brings its Two Cents to Threepenny

‘The Threepenny Opera’ Production is an Adaptation by Simon Stephens, Directed by Annie Torsiglieri

Vivian Oxley as Macheath | Photo: Jeff Liang/UCSB

The Threepenny Opera, Bertold Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s musical saga of tension between two arms of disenfranchised citizens, pits Macheath “The Knife,” king of the criminals, against Jonathan Peachum, the sultan of beggars and scroungers. A feud between the two camps sees mounting demonstrations of power as each uses contacts and allegiances within the city to destroy the other. These players are the cast-offs of the capitalist system, but the play still asks, through this hobo revolution, who actually wields the power in any social dynamic? And why do we always forget the dangerous potential of those who have nothing left to lose?

The UCSB Theater department’s upcoming production of The Threepenny Opera, directed by Annie Torsiglieri, aims to maintain the threatening tone of the original work. “The underpinnings of this are rooted in desperation,” Torsiglieri says, “and what length desperate people will go to survive.”

Aivarey Sala as Robert “The Iceman,” Vivian Oxley as Macheath, and Sara Sadjadi as Walter “The Scholar” in ‘The Threepenny Opera’ | Photo: Jeff Liang/UCSB

Of the many adaptations of this play from the original German, Torsiglieri has chosen Simon Stephens’s (writer of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) version. “So many translations, but some are softballs,” Torsiglieri says. “I want to keep the weird, subversive characteristics. It’s nasty and hilarious and disturbing and dangerous.”

In the show, Mack “The Knife’s” underworld ruffians are squatting in a rundown East London theater space. Music by Kurt Weill layers a sinister playfulness into the show, a dark-humor soundtrack that defies traditional musical expectations.

“It’s a play about power,” says Torsiglieri. “Brecht was a communist and a Marxist, so it was about the inherent flaws of the capitalist system. That’s not the framework our audience will bring to their seats, but they will recognize the cult of personality, the desperation, and the idea of power.”

The Threepenny Opera runs November 15-23 at the Performing Arts Theatre on the UCSB campus.

Performance Dates and Times: November 15, 16, 21, 22, 23 | 7:30 p.m. & November 16, 17, 23 | 2 p.m. Tickets are available here or at the UCSB Theater box office. For more ticketing information, call (805) 893-2064.