The Three Penny Opera

The Three Penny Opera is skewered by Ben Brantley who came to the performance expecting Lotte Lenya and Bertolt Brecht to be in the audience. He may be correct in his review of the Studio 54 production - "the shrill numbing revival" with "crossed-dressed men and women writhing in sexual pretzels; leather boys and glitter queens vacuuming up piles of snow with their nostrils; strobe lights, neon lights and, yes, disco-ball lights " " a cast packed with misused talent"" calling "sexual organs by their most common names, loudly and repeatedly" with acting "bereft of character- defining purpose" " a brave carefully thought- out performance" but fails "to sustain an intellectual distance, to allow audiences to see their own reflections in vicious thugs, whores, beggers, and policeman motiviated by the same primal needs and instincts as themselves." This review is certain to attract a different kind of audience. PS: Cindy Lauper in the show "looking like Dietrich and singing like a Brooklyn Piaf."