Review: “Cabaret” At Barrington Stage Company Is A Triumph
The theater's new artistic director introduces himself to audiences with this bold (and satisfying) production.
Photos: Daniel Rader
For his directorial debut on the Boyd-Quinson Stage, Barrington Stage Company’s new artistic director, Alan Paul, bet the house. He chose Kander and Ebb’s 1966 musical "Cabaret," sparing no expense on a snazzy set, elaborate costumes, a 20-member cast, and a spirited 9-piece band. And if “everybody loves a winner,” then Paul’s gamble paid off, endearing himself to Berkshires theatergoers with his glorious production of “Cabaret.”
As the audience files into the auditorium, some of the actors are already lolling about on the stepped risers that extend beyond the proscenium so the audience feels part of Berlin’s Kit Kat Club. Cut glass chandeliers and disco balls hang over the orchestra. The Art Deco-ish bandstand is center stage, which suggests that the musicians are going to be the linchpin of this production and under musical director Angela Steiner’s baton the score soars. This 15 minutes of foreplay gets you in the mood for a show with a pansexual eroticism that is thoroughly contemporary despite its being set in 1930s Germany.
When the Emcee (played intriguingly by Nic Alexander) takes the stage and begins singing “Willkommen,” it’s hard to know what to make of their accent and gender but the medium is the message — isn’t everyone’s life fluid in their own way? The Emcee introduces us to the demimonde in which chanteuse Sally Bowles (the fetching Krysta Rodriguez) makes her living as a cabaret performer. In need of a place to crash, Sally ends up sharing a bed in a rooming house with a bisexual Pennsylvanian named Cliff Bradshaw (a perfectly cast Dan Amboyer) who has come to Berlin to write the great American novel.
To make ends meet, the upright Cliff agrees to be a courier for a German businessman who sends him on regular trips to France to retrieve briefcases — no questions asked! When it’s revealed at the end of Act One that the German wears an armband with a swastika under his overcoat, Cliff is aghast and so was the stunned audience at the performance I attended; their silence was deafening.
After intermission, members of the ensemble dance in the aisle during the “Entr’Acte,” restoring some of the gaiety that had reigned for most of the first act. But now there was tension on stage and in the auditorium; there was no going back.
The tender heart of “Cabaret” is not the relationship between Sally and Cliff, but the heartbreaking romance between their elderly landlady, Fraulein Schneider (Candy Buckley), who is courted by the elderly Herr Schultz (Richard Kline) who woos her with fresh fruit. They are set to get married, but then there’s a problem: Herr Schultz is a Jew, and Fraulein Schneider is warned that being his wife would be a grave mistake, and the wedding is called off. Sally and Cliff don’t fare any better for their own disturbing reasons.
The elephant in the theater (at least for me) was the shadow of Liza Minnelli who starred in the movie version of “Cabaret” and made more than a few of the show’s songs part of her lifelong repertoire. It would be difficult to find an actress who can belt out the title song like Minnelli can, but Rodriguez makes Cabaret her own poignant torch song.
For my money, it is the ten beguiling actors in the Kit Kat Ensemble (under choreographer Katie Spelman and Paul’s confident direction) who steal the show with their ebullient, character-driven singing and dancing .
After the finale, I was slow to rise to my feet. I wanted to stay in my seat and sit quietly with my thoughts, mostly about the Holocaust. But the actors, the band, and the director deserved a standing ovation because, to borrow the title of one of the show’s songs, “Cabaret” is “Perfectly Marvelous.”
“Cabaret” at Barrington Stage Company runs through July 8.
