KEY POINTS:
Michael Hurst, Jennifer Ward-Lealand and The Threepenny Opera have a lengthy history together.
The couple has appeared in three versions of the legendary musical - 1983, 1988 and 1992 - with Ward-Lealand mud wrestling in the last production.
Silo Theatre artistic director Shane Bosher describes this astonishing performance as one of the most memorable pieces of theatre he has ever seen - and not for the reasons one imagines may have captivated a then teenage boy.
The singing was what enchanted Bosher. "I couldn't believe how anyone could produce this amazingly physical performance and look up from the mud wrestling ring, picking and pulling bits of mud from their face, and still sing like an angel."
Long wanting to produce, direct or appear in a version of the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill musical, Bosher put it on the bill for the Silo's 2008 season which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the once-fringe theatrical production.
It makes sense for Silo to stage a musical famously described as being by beggars for beggars. After all, the company doesn't go for easy and safe.
With a cast of 27, it is Silo's biggest production ever and seems like an audacious move given that it is in a re-building phase. It is all the more daring given that Threepenny will compete against Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and the opera La Boheme up the road at The Edge.
If Bosher is concerned about the competition, he isn't showing it.
"We're not trying to compete. This is something completely different. With our musicals, like Jacques Brel and Berlin, we have built an audience literate in this type of theatre."
While it may turn 60 this year, Threepenny has all the elements modern theatre-goers seem to demand from contemporary work: it is overtly political, the characters are complex rather than comfortable and it engages as much as it entertains.
Hurst, who directs, and Ward-Lealand, who plays the traitorous prostitute Jenny, enjoy Threepenny so much they immediately signed up for a fourth round. In fact, their Large Company co-produces the show.
There will be no mud wrestling this time but all involved promise a theatrical experience unlike anything Auckland has seen before.
Hurst aims to take the show away from the mainstream, where it has drifted to in recent decades, and recognise more fully its pioneering roots as a provocative social critique.
Anyone doubting that has always been Threepenny's thrust need only consider the lyrics to its signature tune, Mack the Knife, more closely.
It may have morphed into a finger-snapping, toe-tapping jazz standard, but consider a selection of words: "On a beautiful blue Sunday lies a dead man on the Strand", or "Jenny Towler was found with a knife in her chest", or "and the minor-aged widow whose name everyone knows woke up and was violated".
It's hardly cheery stuff.
But Threepenny is no lecture. Hurst wants to capture its savagery, tawdry razzle dazzle and hit tunes to challenge audience expectations of what should unfold on stage.
Not that he is revealing much about how the cast (which includes a live band) and crew will do that. Designer John Verryt is sworn to secrecy about what he has devised for the set other than to say it will strip any pretence from the production.
"It's raw and will expose aspects of the theatre craft that audiences may not normally see."
Bosher says when word got out that Threepenny was on, actors and musicians alike put their hands up to be involved. While they may not be especially likeable, its rag-bag collection of randy whores and rapacious thugs are delicious character roles.
The central protagonist Macheath (Roy Snow) is a smooth criminal who leads a band of thieves lacking in honour. He marries the tawdry Polly Peachum (Amanda Billing) more to spite her father (Peter Elliott), the king of the beggars, and alcoholic mother (Delia Hannah) then carries on affairs with prostitute girlfriends. Eventually betrayed and captured by a corrupt police chief, Macheath is sentenced to death.
It is the first musical theatre role for Shortland Street's Billing while Hannah returns to the stage after a six-year absence spent raising her daughter. Hannah's previous roles include Fantine in Les Miserables, Eva Peron in Evita and Florence Vassey in Chess.
The cast also includes Keith Adams, Paul Barrett, Waimihi Hotere, Charlie McDermott, Cameron Rhodes, Esther Stephens and Elizabeth Tierney.
ON STAGE
What: The Threepenny Opera
Where: Maidment Theatre
When: May 30 to June 21
