The Threepenny Opera, Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s bawdy satirical cabaret, opened this week at the Sydney Theatre, with Paul Capsis in the roles of Jenny (prostitute ex-girlfriend of Macheath, or Mac the Knife, the central character), Archbishop Kimball and the narrator. Eddie Perfect plays Macheath. The show has been brought to the Sydney Theatre from the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne where it played in mid-2010.

Paul Capsis was a member of the original cast and is relishing the opportunity to revive his roles. He’d been invited to play Jenny in the Melbourne production by director Michael Kantor with whom he’d worked previously on The Caucasian Chalk Circle, another seminal Brecht piece which they did at Belvoir Street in 1998. The Threepenny Opera played in Melbourne to full houses and good reviews.

“The Malthouse show was fantastic. It sold out before we even opened,” he said. “I’m very proud of it. Eddie Perfect is, well, he’s perfect.”

It is rare in Australia for a production such as this to be picked up and moved to another city, in fact, it is literally a transplant. When writer Raymondo Cortese was originally adapting the work for the Malthouse, he shifted the play’s action to the seamy side of gangland Melbourne, filling it with contemporary references that local audiences would recognise.

Upon moving the show to Sydney, it has again been tweaked to make the setting more relevant to its harbour-side audience. It was an unusual progression of incidents that brought the play to Sydney. Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett, the artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company, had been approached by the Art Gallery of New South Wales to see if there were any dramatic works in the offing that might complement the gallery’s major winter show for 2011, The Mad Square. Then last year Upton managed to catch a performance of The Threepenny Opera at the Malthouse before the season ended. “I think he saw the very last show,” Capsis says, with a hint of relief. Upton realised it would be perfect for a revival in Sydney in 2011, to participate in Berlin Sydney, the broader arts programme that had, by then, evolved around the exhibition.

The Threepenny Opera will stand transmutation; Brecht himself acknowledged as much. It’s a world of rogues and crooked cops, pimps and prostitutes, where the moral high ground is up for grabs, and its themes of greed, corruption and hypocrisy are no less compelling in contemporary Australia than they were in Weimar Berlin.

This production, while re-contextualised, nevertheless remains conscious of Brecht’s belief in epic theatre. Born in Sydney of Greek and Maltese parents, who immigrated to Australia after World War II, Capsis has worked long and hard for his success. His parents were dismayed at his determination to follow his passion for the stage, such an uncertain profession, but his single-mindedness and commitment have paid off, particularly over the last few years, and he has been incredibly busy as a result. His success is clearly well deserved, and is a testament to his dedication.

The Threepenny Opera will run until Saturday 24 September. For tickets, go to www.sydneytheatre.com.au