Kurt Weill and Robert Wilson Have Major Success at BAM

Bang for your (threepenny) buck at BAM
(Photo: Stephanie Berger)

"'Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts,' sings the chorus during the first act's finale in Robert Wilson's new production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera with the Berliner Ensemble at BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House, as part of the Next Wave Festival (through Saturday). This is a fact borne out at every turn in the text, music, and Wilson's silent cinema grotesque character and costume design, all thrown into sharp, sensuous relief by exquisitely minimalist stage and lighting design. That contrast plays out most powerfully in the disjuncture between this spectacular production's slick visuals and guttural, grating sounds." [Source]