It’s not hard to find parallels between modern-day America and Germany between the World Wars. The era’s sexual freedom, flirtations with fascism and general sense of unease all feel eerily contemporary. 

Arguably the most vivid artistic depiction of that time and place is “The Threepenny Opera” by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill. Nearly a century old — it premiered in 1928 — its hard-edged cynicism and brilliantly brittle score keep it remarkably fresh and bracing.

Equally entertaining and disquieting, it provides a disturbing depiction of a cynical, corrupt society that at times hits uncomfortably close to home. 

“I love theater that picks up the rock and looks at what’s crawling underneath,” said Professor Annie Torsiglieri, who is directing the UC Santa Barbara theater and dance department’s new production of the show. “I feel this play — and particularly, this version of the play — really does that.”

“The Threepenny Opera,” which runs Nov. 15-23 in the Performing Arts Theater on campus, has never lost its ability to shock. A loose adaptation of John Gay’s 1728 “The Beggar’s Opera,” it centers on an utterly amoral criminal named Macheath. (He got his famous nickname when the opening song was adapted into the 1960s pop hit “Mack the Knife.”)

A successful thief and serial bigamist, Macheath finds himself in trouble when the father of his fifth wife, who is a criminal himself, plots with a crooked police official to have him arrested and hung. But in this world, corruption is everywhere, and justice exists only in parody form.