Really, it shouldn't be so hard to make Brechtian detachment work on Broadway. Many of the late German playwright's infamous "distancing" techniques, in which seams are exposed and actors present as well as inhabit their characters, are now the stuff of mainstream stagecraft, from Rent to Chicago. And playwrights like Tony Kushner, David Hare, and, yes, even Wally Shawn on a good day owe a large debt to Brecht's boldness in form and content. But this Threepenny isn't just delivered with neon-sign quotation marks, as actors dress and put on make-up onstage and opera supertitles publish the names of scenes and songs; Elliott's production is nothing but a series of quotation marks—presentation ideas minus any compelling notion of what's being presented, how the ideas might fit together or spark some illuminating friction from their contrast.

The way the show handles its one chart-topping hit, the opening number about the notorious cutthroat Mac the Knife, inspires some hope: The first few verses are delivered a cappella by Cyndi Lauper, whose crackling rasp of a voice, not to mention her heavy eyeshadow, seem a perfect fit for the world-weary Brecht/Weill milieu. After trading off subsequent verses, the number reaches a chilling anti-climax with a silent, dispirited kick line. Later full-cast chorales, delivered stock-still from platforms in Jason Lyons' oven-baking lights, pack some of the intended punch.