If you “come to the ”Cabaret” at Asolo Rep, you won’t find it the seedy spot usually depicted in stagings of the musical. You will be in the full-theater cabaret that extends from a two-level main mid-stage down to dining tables and seating in what’s usually the orchestra pit. Further out to a main center and side seats with aisles, performers will sometimes pass you from or en route up to the main stage. You will be in Berlin in 1931 with thriving new arts and culture trying to lead Germans out of post-WWI depression.
Director Josh Rhodes insists “cabarets were the height of entertainment” showcasing great performers. But instead of fostering truly democratic means of political and social advancement without racial, sexual—even LGBTQ—barriers, economic and governmental factors kept threatening enlightened progress. Set designer Tijana Bjelajac has captured Rhodes’s vision with a Kit Kat Club that’s not yet seen the best of its condition disappear. (In fact, the stage contains several different styles and works on as many levels.) Elejo Vietti’s costumes remain provocative but not cheap, even though the smiles on those who wear them disappear when they’re offstage, trying to eke out a better living than their salaries allow.
Keys to having you engage in the atmosphere are a hearty “Wilkommen” by the KIt Kat Club singer-dancers and a solo “Welcome” by Lincoln Clauss as the Emcee. He’s not only young enough not to come over as decadent but he’s vigorous, appearing to guide you at important junctures throughout. He heartily promotes lead performer Sally Bowles’ warning (Iris Beaumie’s outstanding introduction) about things you “Don’t Tell Mama” that’s followed by a flirty “Mein Herr.”
Sally’s also the lead in the play’s love story, featuring a stalwart Alan Chandler as an American author and teacher, Clifford Bradshaw. He’s met the German Ernst Ludwig (Blake Price, affable) on the train into Berlin who recommends his becoming a boarder at the home of Fraulein Schneider. As a romantic subplot, she and greengrocer Herr Schultz are so attracted to each other, she accepts his proposal of “Marriage.*
Kelly Lester subtly conveys Schneider’s love but qualms and Phillip Hoffman may well make older women of the audience wish for an offstage replica of his endearing Schultz.
The main love plot begins on Cliff’s first visit to the Kit Kat Club, as he sees Sally and she finds him “Perfectly Marvelous”—so much so that she ditches her current lover to go move in with Cliff. She fervently hopes “Maybe This Time” their bonding will be more than an affair. To be able to afford all, Cliff accepts a lucrative deal from Ernst Ludwig to pick up packages from Paris and deliver them to him in Berlin.
It turns out eventually that Ernst, an early Nazi, becomes more powerful. This affects the Schneider-Schultz relationship because he is a Jew. She is afraid of what that might mean to her after insinuations from her roomer Helga Kost (Corinne Munsch, properly brash). Helga’s a prostitute and friend of Ernst. Others may think “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” but not in the way Ernst and Helga do.
When Sally finds herself pregnant, Cliff is happy to think they can go to America and live a decent family life. He can work on his writing after hours on a regular job. But is Sally positive about leaving hers and the life she knows? You may wonder with her or just suspect what she’ll do about her pregnancy now and how it figures in her future. No matter how many times you have heard the musical’s title song, you should be bowled over by Iris Beaumier’s touching, strongly voiced interpretation of it.
Be assured that you won’t find a more interesting take on Cabaret than at Asolo Rep, where Director and Choreographer Josh Rhodes has pulled out all possible stops on its historical scene depiction and contemporary performance elements. His choreography combines elements of both eras. Asolo Rep’s Cabaret is an outstanding way of beginning the last season presided over by long-time producing artistic director Michael Douglas Edwards and even longer-time managing director Linda DiGabriel. They will be missed.
