I watched "Cabaret" two days after the 2024 election.
Let me start with this. I've done some research since seeing the musical and the author who wrote the book on which the musical was based was ... not a good dude. According to Howard Moss in his biography of Christopher Isherwood (the author), he came to Berlin to frequent, "...the boy-bars in Berlin in the late years of the Weimar Republic...". Not cool. I'll make reference to this later.
Ok, some context. The Sunday before the election, my wife and I drove to NC so she could vote (as NC neglected to send her requested absentee ballot). Directly after voting, we drove to NYC so I could attend a veterinary conference. As I drove, I got regular updates from my sister about the election results. We arrived right before midnight and things weren't looking good.
I wasn't able to sleep, so I kept watching the results come in (skipping back and forth between "The Return of the King") until it was clear that ... what to call him ... let's say SCROTUS ... that the once and future SCROTUS had won the election. I was appalled. Absolutely shocked. And I remained numb for the next days.
Several days later, we went to see "Cabaret" on Broadway. When we bought the tickets, Biden was still the Democratic nominee. We were deciding between "Cabaret" and several other musicals but picked it because Adam Lambert, Bebe Neuwirth and the voice of Moana were in it. Had to be good, right? I didn't know the story and, in a weird move for me, didn't look it up before watching it. I assumed it was something akin to "Chicago" or "Moulin Rouge."
When we arrived, I was filled with a kind of dread. The cast were cavorting around the theatre in their skivvies being all Fosse-esque and provocative. In spite of loving musical theatre, I really hate that shit. I dislike spectacle for the sake of spectacle. For example, I've been to Hooters once (not my choice) and it made my skin crawl a bit. It was partially due to the exploitative nature of the venue, but even more because of the in your face manner of ... everything. I have no desire to go to a strip club for the same reason. I assumed the whole musical was going to be pretty much just that with a flimsy story attached.
Adam Lambert, who was the Master of Ceremonies, helped tremendously from the jump. Although he was the most spectacle-y of all, he started by saying, "The world is ... disappointing, ja?" To which everyone, including me, cheered, certain that we were disappointed by the same thing. He continued, "Well, forget about it while you are in Cabaret!" And I thought, "Ok, ok, a bit of distraction is good and everyone needs it." I will speak more about the part Adam Lambert played, but he himself was an absolute revelation, to me at least. I saw him years ago on American Idol and thought he was great, but everything he did in "Cabaret" was magical. I cannot praise him enough.
The musical continued and I found myself uninterested in the main "love" story. I disliked the character of Cliff Bradshaw, partly because the actor was a little lackluster, but mostly because the character himself just annoyed me. Sally was funny and the woman who played her was great. It was supposed to be the voice of Moana but it was an understudy. Her rendering of "Maybe This Time," the only song I knew from the musical, was underwhelming, but not from lack of talent. I think she was trying to do something with it which just didn't hit. More about that later as well.
Then the focus shifts to a B story about the budding romance between Fräulein Schneider (Bebe Neuwirth) and Herr Schultz, a boarder in her house. There's a delightful, fun, sweet song about a pineapple and it's just great. Bebe Neuwirth was every bit as excellent as you would expect, understated and frail ... just amazing.
It was at this point that a sense of dread began to mount. Not sure what triggered it ... nothing overt at least. Remember that I didn't know the story. I leaned over to my wife to ask her when "Cabaret" takes place and she kind of waved me off.
The dread gained a face during the engagement party for Schneider and Schultz when one of the characters, associated with Cliff, reveals that he is a Nazi. Another character throws both Schneider and Shultz under the bus by revealing that Shultz is Jewish in order to protect herself. They sing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" which was clearly (probably) inspired by the Hitler Youth song "The Frail Bones Tremble." It contains the line, "Today, Germany belongs to us and tomorrow the whole world."
Then, intermission. I took the time to post the following:
I am currently watching "Cabaret" on Broadway. First act just ended. I didn't know the story. This is waaaaaay to prescient for me to enjoy fully.
Things just got worse when Act II began. Upon returning, the Master of Ceremonies and the dancers performed a can-can that turned into a goose-step. The Master of Ceremonies also did a song and dance with a someone in a gorilla suit about his love for her that ended with the line, "If you could see her like I see her, she wouldn't look Jewish at all."
Quick aside, here. More and more often, highly entertaining songs that were performed flawlessly were met with silence. But it was a silence of horror. I could tell that, just the previous month, the same songs would have garnered applause and raucous laughter. Not now. I ran into two elderly women in the hotel where I was staying and we started talking about the election. I told them I'd been to see "Cabaret" for the first time the previous night and, as it turned out, they'd seen it the night before. They confirmed what I was saying. In previous years, the response wasn't the dead silence that it was post-election. Now ... it was just too horribly real to be funny.
The story started moving rapidly at this point. Schneider and Shultz meet in his fruit shop and she expressed her fears. He tried to convince her it would be fine! He knows his neighbors! They wouldn't ... but then the Master of Ceremonies shows up with a glass something in a bag and steps on it which, I think, was meant to show the window being broken. Not Kristallnacht, which came several years later, but clearly meant to evoke that.
This prompts Schneider to call off the wedding because she will not be able to survive if she gets looped into the anti-Semitism in Germany. She sings, "What Would You Do?" to Sally and Clifton (who try to talk her out of breaking the engagement) and it's absolutely heartbreaking. This was Neuwirth's big moment and she proved why she's so beloved on Broadway.
With a storm in the wind
What would you do?
Suppose you're one frightened voice
Being told what the choice must be
Go on, tell me
I will listen
What would you do
If you were me?
Then, we return to the Sally and Cliff story and ... I mostly didn't care about their relationship. But I did care about their dynamic. Cliff is trying to get Sally to leave with him to come to America, but Sally ... she loves Berlin and the cabaret. She just wants to ignore what's going on in Germany and live the life of distraction she's always loved. Interestingly, in real life, the woman who inspired the character of Sally left first and Cliff/Isherwood didn't leave until the very last moment he could.
Ernst, the Nazi character, tries to get Cliff to do a job and Cliff punches him leading to Cliff getting his ass handed to him. Meanwhile, in the cabaret, Sally sings "Life Is A Cabaret" and oh my God. She was amazing. I don't know how the song is normally performed, but she sang it with a manic desperation trying to thrust away the outside world, what was happening in Berlin, and each line was like an assault. Amazing.
There's a part I forgot. During one song, the Master of Ceremonies appears dressed like a bedazzled German soldier, a black leather uniform and rhinestones and a helmet and spiked fingers .... I wish I could remember where or why. And when he later introduces Sally, using the same words he did at the beginning of the show, he was wearing a tan suit (as was Sally). No makeup. Just the most proper looking, blonde Aryan you could hope for.
A battered Cliff says goodbye to Shultz as the former is leaving for America and the latter is moving to another boarding house. This exchange was possibly the most devastating in the show. Cliff tries to get Shultz to come with him, but Shultz declines saying that he knows the German people and this will soon pass. "After all," he cries, "aren't I German, too!" I think I actually cried out, "Oh no!" without being able to control myself.
Cliff, as he leaves, starts composing his novel and singing the opening number, "Wilkommen." But then the Master of Ceremonies takes over, everyone lines up like they might be either getting in line with the party or being led to a concentration camp, then he sings, "Auf Wiedersehen!" followed by a drum roll and a cymbal crash and then darkness.
I should note that, in some productions, the Master of Ceremonies steps out of his tan suit and he's in a uniform from a concentration camp with a pink triangle (homosexual). That's not in the original and, while I get what that is meant to convey, I don't think it's right. It seems clear to me that the Master of Ceremonies isn't a "real" person in the context of the play. He's meant to be kind of the spirit of Berlin, changing from the libertine that he is as it starts to the Nazi that he is at the end.
It's also clear that the spectacle on display at the beginning served a purpose. It was meant to juxtapose with what it becomes at the end. One thing that bugs me is that there were things that needed to change, apparently, in the Berlin that Isherwood first encountered. But, just as here, the answer is not Fascism. You know how MAGAts say they're trying to stop sex trafficking and that's why they want border security. No, they're not. There is sex trafficking and it's a problem ... a BIG problem, but that's not why they want border security. They, or at least a good portion of "they," are trying to prevent black and brown and non-English speaking people from coming to this country. They want it Hwite.
It's the same with abortion. There are some in MAGA who are truly anti-abortion (they are rarely pro-life), but for the most part it's just a convenient cause to rally support and, for what appears to be a disturbing amount, a means to control women.
What was more devastating about "Cabaret," though, was the way that almost every character showed a different aspect of how SCROTUS won again. The dedicated supporters (Ernst, the Nazi). The soon-to-be-oppressed who thinks that it just can't get that bad. The head-in-the-sand libertine who just wants to ignore it all. The one who is just trying to survive and unwittingly participates. And the traitor ... the one who is willing to step on the ones on the bottom as long as it's not her there.
I'm glad that I saw it and I'm glad it was this week. It was actually cathartic to see a representation of what's happening in this country on that stage with a lot of (I assume) like-minded folks. I don't know about them, but for me, it galvanized me to resist.
Walking back to the hotel, I noticed something. All the "I Love NYC" stores and kiosks (owned and/or operated almost exclusively by Middle Eastern and Latino persons) had divested themselves of anything relating to Harris/Walz and had giant displays of MAGA stuff. I'd seen Harris stuff just the previous evening.
As an aside, today (November 10th) is the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Check out the smiling, happy people looking at the destruction of Jewish businesses. Reminds me of those picnic photos of lynchings from the American South.
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