For a show about whores, beggars and thieves, this new revival of “The Threepenny Opera” is amazingly clean-cut.
Oh sure, there’s a bit of tasteful nudity and a touch of artistic simulated sex, but they feel like empty gestures. Mostly, this Atlantic Theater production leaves out the dark danger and satirical bite that have made Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s 1928 musical a classic.
Misguided as the 2006 Broadway revival with Alan Cumming was, at least it had some memorable nuggets. Here, the mood is tepid: There’s nothing downright atrocious, but there’s nothing exciting either. Which is nuts considering “The Threepenny Opera” boasts such standards as “Ballad of Mack the Knife” and “Pirate Jenny,” and that it’s about the thin line between business and crime.
A big part of the problem is that the mouthwatering cast doesn’t come to life. That’s obvious as soon as we meet F. Murray Abraham and Mary Beth Peil, who are completely defanged as the cunning Mr. and Mrs. Peachum. He seems to be holding back and she’s too elegant to play a low-rent schemer.
We’re in 19th-century London and Peachum is the overlord of the underworld, pimping beggars for a cut of their take. He fiercely protects his turf, including his virginal daughter, Polly (Laura Osnes, fresh from “Cinderella”).
Sadly for Peachum, Polly’s fallen in love with suave hoodlum Macheath, a k a Mackie (Michael Park). He wants a new life, though: “I’m thinking of going into banking,” Mackie says. “It’s safe and the takes are bigger.”
In the meantime, Mackie keeps other women in his life, including the prostitute Jenny (Sally Murphy).
Steering this ship of lost souls — and by that, I mean the cast — is choreographer/director Martha Clarke. A pioneer of dance theater, she misses out on the musical’s vital energy and its relevance to our times — after all, this is a story of greed, hypocrisy and meaningless respectability.
In the single most memorable scene, a bulldog (Romeo) appears as a cross-dressing, cross-species Queen Victoria, dragged along in a chariot. It’s a surreal visual that underlines the ridiculousness of pomp and circumstance.
Nothing else in the show is half as subversive.