“Cabaret” at Buell is just a tad too slick
The national tour of Kander and Ebb’s powerful “Cabaret” landed in Denver this week sounding a bit too pretty and looking a tad too slick.
To do it justice, this show should feel less like musical theater and more like a slap in the face.
musical
Beautiful voices and handsome/cute leads smooth over what are meant to be rough edges in this ever-relevant work.
The seedy, druggy side of 1929 Berlin is muted in this production; the Kit Kat Klub’s boys and girls appear more athletic than dissolute. They’re tarted up but not so washed out.
The Emcee, meant to be a seductive/scary figure welcoming us to the sleazy nightclub, looks like a cover boy fresh from the gym as played by Randy Harrison (Showtime’s “Queer As Folk”). And Sally Bowles, meant to be a lost soul and faded singer past her prime, is instead pert and pixieish as played by Andrea Goss. While Goss’ vocals approach the Liza Minnelli range, and her second act rendition of the title song is a stunner, her vibe seems a misfit.
The debauchery of Weimar-era Berlin is suggested, but the casting takes away a layer of grime and replaces it with spunk. Some in the audience laughed at particularly difficult moments — either missing the point or fighting the discomfort? While there are comedic moments throughout, the danger should be visceral. We’re supposed to be unsettled by the spectacle and aware of its reverberations in modern times.
This revival of a revival may be too clean, but it still packs a punch. The Kit Kat Band is terrific, and the interplay of dancers, musicians and actors is cleverly staged. Benjamin Eakeley is credible as bisexual American writer Clifford Bradshaw, newly arrived in Berlin and dazzled by Sally. Patrick Vaill is suitably creepy as Ernst Ludwig, a man with mysterious business contacts who befriends the writer.
Mary Gordon Murray as landlady Fraulein Schneider and Scott Robertson as grocer Herr Schultz are the sweet soul of the show. They are effective as the middle-aged lovers wrenched apart because he is a Jew; it’s tragic, yet she doesn’t quite bring us to tears with her heartbreaking number (“With the clock running down, what would you do?”).
Generally, the end-of-era decadence the play requires is eclipsed by the shiny showbiz elements (not least the dreaded bit of audience participation as the Emcee dances with patrons in the aisles.) The production pushes the sexuality and slams home the messages but lacks the darkness an era of a rising demagogue deserves.