I’m
putting “1966” on this because that’s when the musical first came out, although
I’m most familiar with my cast recording of the 1998 revival with Alan Cumming
and Natasha Richardson. There’s also the movie, which I’ve seen as well,
Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories
that inspired the show (particularly Sally
Bowles,) and Isherwood’s memoir of his experiences that inspired the
stories, Christopher and His Kind
(although the memoir doesn’t lean as heavily on the people who inspired the Berlin Stories characters as the BBC
adaptation of it does.) What I’m saying is, I have a lot of exposure to the
various permutations of this material.
The
American writer Cliff Bradshaw comes to Berlin in the 1930s, where he takes a
flat and begins the quintessential starving-artist lifestyle in a city where
the coming rumble of thunder is drowned out by the nightlife. Cliff becomes
entangled with Sally Bowles, an English dancer at the seedy Kit Kat Club. As
Cliff and Sally get caught up in their own lives, which bring equal parts
elation and heartbreak, the specter of the approaching war becomes harder and
harder to ignore.
Cabaret is such an interesting show, probably my
favorite of Kander & Ebb’s. I love the juxtaposition between the
decadence/debauchery of the Kit Kat Club and the building Nazi presence in the
city, as fascism/anti-Semitism roots deeper and deeper while everyone is
dancing. Isherwood’s characters, like the stoic landlady Fräulein Schneider and
the inimitable Sally, are brought to life on the stage with as much individual
immediacy as they bear on the page. Cliff, I think, feels a little more
Standard-Issue Protagonist (he’s the character that acquires a new
mostly-interchangable identity in every permutation of the story,) but then,
he’s a straightwashed stand-in for Isherwood himself, who wrote The Berlin Stories with a much more
outward focus – “I am a camera,” he famously said.
Then
there’s the music, which brings the story across and pulls out the themes in
such an effective way. It knows when to shift from bright to dark, when to be
flippant and irreverent, and when to get real. The opening number,
“Willkommen,” is a classic, as is the showstopping “Cabaret” (I love it when
upbeat music is used during sad/dark moments – what a treat for the actress who
plays Sally.) I also adore slower numbers like “Maybe This Time” (added for the
film and incorporated into subsequent productions) and “I Don’t Care Much”
(also a later addition,) and I’m really enamored with the peppy-but-twisted “If
You Could See Her.”
Overall,
an engrossing show that I’ve only come to appreciate more as its own invention
since digging into more of the source material. I saw a regional production of
it a few years ago and greatly enjoyed seeing it onstage (if “enjoyed” is the
right word – it’s a fine show, but in an unsettling way.)
Warnings
Strong
thematic elements, language (including anti-Semitic slurs,) sexual content,
drinking/smoking, and violence (including hate crimes.)
