Doing a bit of website attic clean-up here, so this will be brief: Alisa and I saw The Threepenny Opera at Studio 54 back in June. It starred Alan Cumming, Nellie McKay, and Jim Dale, and featured Cyndi Lauper. It was a hell of a show. It had teeth, humor, and a strong message delivered through gritted teeth.
Lauper was actually a smaller part of the show than I anticipated, but she wasn’t the most interesting member of the cast. Cummings, Dale, and McKay were the real shining jewels in the cast. Cummings was, of course, a pleasure to watch. Dale’s wonderful take on the sleezy business man almost stole the show. McKay, who I’d never seen before, delivered her character with a sly, multi-layered flair, and she kept pace with Cummings and Dale with what looked like no effort. Even though the plot lost me at a few points, Threepenny Opera was a lot of fun.
The set, interestingly enough, was almost entirely typographic (as seen above). Without droning on about Brechtian techniques, I can sum it up as funny and effective, but a little lacking from a type design perspective (“No! Don’t squash the type and then immortalize it in neon!”). But other than that, good stuff.