“Threepenny Opera” as an epic Brecht festival at Theater Basel
Published: Thursday, Jan 11th 2024, 06:10
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After "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Antigone", Basel co-artistic director Antú Romero Nunes is once again tackling an icon of theater literature with Brecht's "Threepenny Opera". Once again, he will be able to defy the audience's expectations in a subtly original way.
Antú Romero Nunes is 40 years old, the son of a Chilean mother and a Portuguese father, has worked for many years as a sought-after director at numerous renowned theaters in German-speaking countries and has been co-director of the Basel Schauspiel since the 2020/2021 season.
Nunes is a busy and sought-after theater maker who tackles even the most difficult material with playful verve. For example, Herman Melville's novel of the century "Moby Dick" (as a one-person play) or Ovid's sprawling twilight of myths "Metamorphoses".
Man for difficult fabrics
Nunes also counts Brecht's legendary "Threepenny Opera" - a work that has long since been staged to death, as he says, and which is reminiscent of an oldie hit parade with its famous popular songs - among the very difficult things.
"I didn't want to do the play for that reason," Nunes recalls in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. That wasn't now, but eight and a half years ago at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. However, the Hamburg dramaturges persisted and pursued him to his guest directing venues until he could no longer say no.
Spurred on by the idea of mercilessly getting to the bottom of Brecht's epic theater practice, he finally agreed. "In the directing class at the Ernst Busch drama college in East Berlin, I was really geared up for Brecht and his alienation effect," he says. Nunes and his ensemble now want to celebrate this alienation effect, question it and even make fun of it a little.
Nunes will therefore bring his eight-and-a-half-year-old production back to the stage - "in a mature form", as he says. Including Jörg Pohl and Sven Schelker, who are now members of the Basel ensemble and are now slipping back into their roles after many years: as the beggar king Peachum and Mackie Messer.
"Breaking down to the core"
Pohl also changes his role from Peachum to Bertolt Brecht with horn-rimmed glasses, working-class clothes, cigar and slouch hat as his identifying features. Nunes thus resorts to a double alienation effect: on stage, an alienated Brecht triggers a discussion about how to play Brecht.
"I want to break the material down to its core," he says. Just as he recently did with Sophocles' "Antigone", which he staged as a two-person play in Swiss dialect. And as he did last season with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which he staged as an ode to amateur theater and thus secured himself an invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen.
With Brecht's "Threepenny Opera", Nunes will once again break with conventional expectations in a way that is as subversive as it is meticulously thought out - without violating the strict guidelines of Brecht's heirs, which are notorious among theater professionals. "With me, you never really know what's going to come out," he says with a broad smile. This has the advantage that you always have to come back to get to know his theater.
Antú Romero Nunes' production of Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera" premieres at Theater Basel on Saturday.
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