Shock Opera; A veteran actor steals the 'Threepenny' show.

Byline: Nicki Gostin

Jim Dale's doberman, Georgie, enthusiastically greets every visitor to her master's cozy dressing room, begging all who enter to partake in a game of fetch. She accompanies Dale every Wednesday and Saturday and, to his delight, has become the mascot of his new show, a bracing revival of the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht classic "The Threepenny Opera" at New York's Studio 54. The disco that epitomized the height of '70s decadence and bacchanalia is an apt setting for the controversial libretto about criminals and class that has scandalized audiences since 1928. This new production, with costumes by Isaac Mizrahi, will no doubt go on provoking audiences: Wallace Shawn, who wrote the adaptation, has included much of the bawdy language that was originally censored. "I think we're shocking certain people in the way the original shocked certain people," says Dale in his soft English lilt. "The original story is still there, about those that have and those who have not."

For Dale, the 70-year-old theater vet who has been nominated for four Tonys (he won for "Barnum"), "Threepenny" marks a welcome return to Broadway. As the delightfully seedy Mr. Peachum, he essentially steals the show with his lecherous yet seductive rendition of "The Song of Inadequacy of Human Striving"--pretty impressive, considering his costars include Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper. Dale also does some old-time music-hall shuffles with a deft flick of the hand that has the audiences in stitches. "I'm very lucky that the choreographer has allowed me to do my own choreography," he says. "I was taught by a dancer whose grandfather taught him, so that takes ...