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Regional Reviews: St. Louis Cabaret Also see Richard's reviews of The Wash and The Beauty Queen of Leenane
Then just as quickly it all feels like home. And then like a deeply compromised German apartment building on the eve of all chaos. Thanks to the down-to-the-marrow-of-her-bones humane direction of Rebekah Scallet, the NJT's artistic director. It's humanity at full-blast, though, in a world that becomes ridiculous, where nearly everyone is insisting that life–and Germany's post-World War I Weimar Republic–could go on forever, even as the Nazis have begun their rise to power in Berlin of 1929. John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the songs for Joe Masteroff's script, winning eight Tony Awards, after opening at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway in October of 1966. It went on to become a classic, running for 1,166 performances, directed by Harold Prince, with iconic choreography by Ron Fields. Biting and hopeful by turns, the musical was inspired by John Van Druten's play I Am A Camera from 1951, which in turn sprang from the memoir "Goodbye to Berlin" by Christopher Isherwood and his novella "Sally Bowles." And it was made into a big splashy movie in 1972, with very substantial alterations wrought by director Bob Fosse. This Cabaret is told in a series of searing solos, mainly by the fabulous Hailey Medrano as Sally, set against the rise of totalitarianism. Is it the "get out while you still can" musical that's crept out from under the shadow of a genocidal monster? Or is it secretly A Doll's House, reverse-imaged, with great songs? They josh around a lot, but a panicked uncertainty hunts them down. Tomorrow, most assuredly, belongs to somebody. But whoever it is, they're equally afraid to show their true faces, at first. Funnily enough, the show's familiar songs sound almost like strange, grown-up lullabies here, under the musical direction of Carter Haney. It's nostalgic for the audience. And, nearly 60 years after the Broadway debut, the initial, happy air of contentment turns any revival of Cabaret into the perfect sentimental trap. "Maybe this time, they'll win!,"we blankly tell ourselves, of the young lovers. And like the nightclub denizens on this very plush set by David Blake (including a handful of audience members at small tables), we soon become boozily inured to a very much alive Cabaret for lo, this ten billionth time (counting my own attendance at showtunes nights at the bars, of course). On top of that, nowadays we're even more acutely aware of Kander & Ebb's signature style and how it's carried over into later works like Chicago. It almost makes you feel like an historian caught in a hall of mirrors, in more ways than one. Spencer Davis Milford is great as the Emcee, tirelessly dropping to the boards to dry-hump the club floor, but with one arm pushing him back up again and again. And I know that what I'm about to say is too fancy by half, but he ornately maintains the toxic illusion of nasty bonhomie with his Kit Kat girls and boys. And thus, (normally in full lighting) with lots of 1920s monochromatic spangles, enters the soprano. Except that the introduction to Ms. Medrano's first musical number took place more or less in the dark on opening night. I wondered if they'd originally planned a spotlight there, as she made the decision to continue down-center after the light went kerflooey. There was another little blackout again an hour later, and a couple of micro-blackouts here and there, in what resembled a glitchy computer gone momentarily haywire. And yet, the star of the show went roaring ahead like gangbusters. But those blackouts are not the reason it's so hard to tell where the stage direction leaves off and the dance takes over, once the lights do actually come up. The seamless physical action on stage comes from the hands (and feet) of choreographer Ellen Isom, who is wonderfully meticulous throughout. Book scenes and famed musical theatre numbers flow in and out of one another with astonishing ease, at exact-right pacing. Ms. Isom electrifies her dance chorus with tremendous discipline on stage at the New Jewish Theatre. Ms. Medrano is (alternately) sly and bubbly as Sally Bowles. She's flirty and urgent as a cosmopolite running out of moves on the checkerboard beneath her own two feet. And in the end, her rendition of the title number builds to a vicious, grueling gut punch at the edge of some invisible, personal cliff. The heritage of the show is fully honored, but this one's also visibly provoked, thanks to dialect coach and violence and intimacy director John Wilson. Even coming to the stage from the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Cabaret is still the kind of musical Ernest Hemingway might have written, under the sound of distant gunfire, thanks to director Scallet. In the acting department there is, in each of them, including Dustin Lane Petrillo as Clifford Bradshaw (Sally's novelist roommate), a spark of immediacy that's always darting out ahead of us and taunting each one's own deeper "singing selves" in and out of their rebellious musical reverie. Jane Paradise is fiercely Germanic as Fraulein Schneider. And by the end of her grimly ironic song, "What Would You Do?," about the landlady's painful choice, Ms. Paradise, Ms. Medrano and Mr. Petrillo have all become so utterly steeped in the moment they've frozen into Hirschfeld caricatures. The theatre devours itself. Ms. Medrano's Sally lilts from one charming prevarication to the next, in and out of dance, regardless of the lighting, with one eye open to the fact that all her plans are doomed to be temporary. Sardonically, I'd say that problematic lighting on opening night came as the "surprise biggest concession" to the seediness we've come to expect from our Cabarets. Otherwise, it's all almost suspiciously fabulous, thanks to grants from the Siteman Foundation and from Mary Strauss, who's given most of her life to presiding over the Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis. Mr. Milford, as the Emcee, swivels toward Ms. Medrano's same sense of musical realism, but from the other end of the spectrum of authenticity: quietly turning his sneering patter into an invasive, psychological predation. The chorus around him is relentlessly razzle-dazzle, with an unbreakable two-faced attitude. The two and a half hour show (with a 15-minute intermission, after a ninety-minute first act) begins with a Fellini-esque parade of characters and uses songs from both the stage and movie musicals. The dialog scenes feel amazingly fresh. Aaron Fischer is shockingly clear and articulated as the charming smuggler Ernst Ludwig. Warm and whimsical Dave Cooperstein is perfectly cast as Herr Schultz, Ms. Paradise's love interest. Caroline Pillow is very fine as the young Fraulein Kost, every bit as sexually liberated and unrepentant as this Sally Bowles. In a series of supporting roles, Otto Klemp, Jayson Heil, Amarachi Kalu, and Lillian Cooper (remarkably graceful in a gorilla costume) all do exceptional work. The members of the chorus also play musical instruments during the show (see the cast list) though the focus is always tight on the singers. And this magnificent Kit Kat Klub features miles of red curtain hanging from great bronze arches, in Blake's scenic design. To my memory, it is his grandest set ever. Although the very fine costumes by Michele Friedman Siler remind us that we are, in fact, in the time of the Great Depression. The almost entirely flawless lighting is by Denisse Chavez. I guess everyone has a blind spot to themselves that becomes their undoing, orchestrated by natural human doubt. And, to us, those blind spots are cataclysmically clear in Ms. Medrano's and Mr. Petrillo's outstanding performances. In their final scenes the two lovers reveal great psychological vistas and crevasses that neither Sally nor Cliff might ever fully appreciate on their own. Their characters aspire to a youthful world-weariness. And by the end they're a thousand times more weary–and bitterly wise. Closing all my circles, I've finally started reading a used book I bought several years ago, published in 1964, Robert Brustein's "The Theatre of Revolt." It goes all over our shared history, but mainly the 100 or so years beginning with Ibsen and Strindberg. There are lots of revolutionary quotes, showing how the personal nature of contemporary theatre can change the world through performance, relying on the constant tension between the individual and society. But Brustein shows how Modern drama, evolving (in his eyes) from Romanticism, replaced Traditional theatre, which he calls the "Theater of communion," though that too ends in disorder. The point is, today's dominant stage form catches on to the freakish game of civilization and overthrows it again and again, though it always begins and ends in some form of ruination. And though in this particular, great musical, it also looks like the freakish game's won out. Still, this Cabaret goes a long way toward proving some of the most impossible theories of Modern theatre. First, that you must always be carving away at the insides of your own personal world, fanatically making more space for some unique, invisible ideal to carry around inside of you, is perhaps the more important of these lessons. But also this: that everyone plays the lowly fool (at least in part) to reach their highest form of art. Cabaret has been extended through April 13, 2025, at New Jewish Theatre, Jewish Community Center, #2 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis MO. For tickets and information, please visit www.newjewishtheatre.org. Cast: The Band: Production Staff: New Jewish Theatre Staff: * Denotes Member, Actors' Equity Association |
