OnStage Blog: Cabaret by John Kander and Fred Ebb, with a book by Joe Masteroff, has some of the most iconic songs in musical theatre. Premiering in 1966, it went to to win 8 TONY Awards, including Best Musical. It then went on to become a hit film in 1972. It has been revived twice on Broadway, once in 1998 (winning 4 TONYA) and then again in 2014. It has been revived 3 times on London's West End, in 1993, 2006 and 2012. Last year, it celebrated its 50th anniversary.
3 comments:
Honestly, I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done before! It seems like such an obvious show to be done in a night club because a good part of the action takes place in a night club. I can imagine many scenes taking place between tables, but what about the intimate scenes that take place at home? The last time I saw it, the best scenes were between the old neighbor and the butcher and her deciding to side with the Nazis instead of marrying him. I’m trying to imagine that scene in a bar. Would it loose some of its poignancy?
I really liked the discussion on sound in a bar. I bet most bars try to muffle as much sound as possible so as the patrons get more drunk, the sound doesn’t echo. Theatres are usually built to let sound carry. Figuring out how to combat the space in terms of sound must have been difficult.
While this idea is super cool, it's not all the innovative. The past two Broadway revivals of Cabaret have taken place in theatre whose house was transformed to look like a casual nightclub, with small round tables with three people seated at each. The performers would also come offstage and move around the audience throughout the show, adding to the immersive qualities. It sounds like this production is going for a bit of a more realistic and trashier aesthetic, by being inside an actual club, which I think could be very cool. I'm honestly not 100% sure how much it would add to the experience for me, since the show bounces back and forth between this seedy club narration and the actual story, which is not really very club-like at all. That all being said, I do think it is a very brave and risky artistic move to move into a space that is not at all suited to handle a large scale theatrical production, and it will absolutely be very interesting to see how this team handles all of the problems with lighting, sound, etc. that they are sure to run into.
I completely agree with the previous comments addressing its innovation. It's simply not innovative. The idea of setting Cabaret in a, surprise, cabaret club is something that we've seen done time and time again. The production sells itself on being immersive and new but its hardly something that people weren't expecting. In addition the director talks about how his vision brings out the darker aspects of Cabaret and really comments on Germany. I think he's really missing the fact that Cabaret is incredibly dark as is and it really doesn't take an innovative genius to see that it an incredibly politically dark show. The ideas presented in this article are all similar to the approach that most high school production could focus on. I'd recommend that he directs find aspects of the show that go beyond the obvious and beyond the text, rather than simply trying to make something political and dark even more political and dark. It's either that, or they should pick a show the already lacks those two things and somehow make it politically depressing.
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