Cabaret
By Kander and Ebb
Produced by McCallum Fine
Arts Academy, Royale Court Players
McCallum Arts Center, Austin
March 4, 2012
Macademy produced Kander and
Ebb’s renowned “Cabaret” in their new arts center and made of it a giant party,
a song festival, a design exhibition and homage to the powerful artists who
staged this show in the past.
Perhaps the essential stroke of genius in this play is Kander and Ebb’s
setting of it in Berlin, 1931/1932, drawn from Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin
Stories. The potential themes on which a production could touch in
“Cabaret” range from libertinism, to sexual and religious liberation/oppression
to the rise of fascism. Touching
on too many of them, depending on one’s resources, can give a production of
“Cabaret” the feeling of a play at war with itself (What are you,
“Cabaret?” Are you a historical
romance, an anthology piece on club life, a musical revue, a screed on Nazis or
all of these?) The Royale Court
Players in their youthful enthusiasm succumbed to the play’s temptations and
tried a little too much, giving us a two hour and forty minute show with one
15-minute intermission. The
attempt, however, was laudable, verging on glorious. At the end, the audience was happy and cheering as it rushed
out to the restrooms.
The show was well designed
from top to bottom, and primary credit for its success starts with directors
Courtney Wissinger and M. Scott Tatum.
All of the design elements seemed well coordinated. Mr. Tatum’s scenic design was
especially facilitating. To depict
the famous Kit-Kat Club in Berlin, Tatum built two wide pillars upstage. Between them stretched a curtain for
center entrances and behind which the club band performed all the musical
numbers. A low platform for all
the dances and singing extended center stage in front of the curtain and
pillars. Stage left and stage
right held the club seating and dining tables. Cast members depicting patrons and staff remained there
throughout the play, performing and creating tableaux vivant. These
human forms, in concert with costumes, styling and lighting, formed images
strikingly similar to photographs of European clubs of the 1930s. This aspect was perhaps the most
spectacular element in evoking the excitement of the setting and time. The highly textured pillar surfaces
caught and interacted with the various lighting sets to harmonize and in part
control the emotionality of each scene.
The only notable flaw in the design was the second story windows, which
were openings on a dressing room and the Master of Ceremonies’ garrett, stage
right and stage left, respectively.
The windows were frontally angled to the stage below them, but acutely
angled to the house. I sat on the
aisle seat house left (the theater has two aisles dividing the house in thirds
and no aisles on the row ends at the walls) and I saw the stage right window
scene at an extremely acute angle.
No one to my left saw the scene at all. I estimate a quarter of the audience had no sight line at
all on this scene. The
corresponding situation pertained in the stage left window scene. The design staff had months to address
this elementary, glaring problem.
‘Nuff said.
The action of the play roared
across this set. The story of the
Kit-Kat Club on New Year’s Eve 1931 and into 1932 is familiar to theatre- and
movie-goers alike. The story
dances through its many themes, all in lace and feathers, and easily escapes
becoming merely the story of the romance between club singer Sally Bowles,
played by Annamarie Kasper, and American writer Clifford Bradshaw, played by
Connor Barr. The dynamo of the
show is actually the Master of Ceremonies, played by John James Busa in the
role immortalized by Joel Grey.
Director Wissinger and Mr. Busa addressed the high standard and
dominating image of Grey’s characterization wisely by seeking another
dynamic. Their efforts were
successful. Busa’s Master of
Ceremonies combined the punk and goth esthetics, with a flavor of the
vampiric. Busa’s Master of
Ceremonies was snide, dominating, darkly threatening, seductive and
sarcastic. In the end, too, he was
tragic and suffering. He borrowed
nothing from and owed nothing to Joel Grey. Delightful work, Mr. Busa.
Driving the action of the
play in dance were the Kit-Kat Girls.
The choreography was inventive, the credit given to Bazie Adamez, but it
had the look of collaboration. It
did not fail to excite. The
Kit-Kat Girls are minor gems in musical theatre. Their heraldic colors are red, black and sequins. They all have back-stories, especially
Rosie, Frenchy and Texas, and this gives them a whiff of mystery. Brennan Martinez as Texas conveyed by
her immense stage presence both the naughty-naughty boldness and the mystery.
Well into Act II most of the
tears have fallen to the stage and washed away the blood. The reprise of the title song is a solo
by Sally Bowles, and as written it is a testament of irony that will stand the
test of time. Sally takes the stage
in a floor-length gown, still sequined, but this time instead of sparkling red
or black, it has only the cool gray tones of black-and-white television
static. As she sings, the patrons
and staff leave the club one-by-one until it is empty; leaving Sally with the
loneliness she fears most. And
although the voice still releases the power of the song, the singer does not
quite achieve the irony expressible by a worldly wise character just beginning
to feel the corrosion of too much gin and repeated self-destructive
choices. I wanted to sense the
tears forming inside Sally Bowles, but I could not. Someday this performer, Annamarie Kasper, will convey such
feelings with ease, and her career is to be followed with anticipation (she has
been cast in Tutto Theatre Co.’s production of The Twelfth Labor, slated for
August, 2012). For now, the song
symbolizes clearly Germany’s own headlong pitch into the abyss.
Clifford Bradshaw seems to
have stepped out of the play with no worse than two black eyes and saddening
experience. The last lines of the
play are his, and they keep the tone of tragic romance and ruin built
throughout the play. The lines as
written seem peculiarly awkward, but as Connor Barr delivers them flat and
straight they gain immense impact:
“There was a Cabaret, and there was a Master of Ceremonies…and there was
a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany…and it was the end of the
world….and I was dancing with Sally Bowles. And we were both fast asleep.”*
*Quote drawn from Dir.
Wissinger’s Director’s Notes.
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