Life is a ‘Cabaret’
Last seen in San Francisco in 2001, Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall’s Tony Awardwinning version of the Kander and Ebb musical “Cabaret” was famous for its sexy, raw take on Weimar-era Berlin. For this Roundabout Theatre Company revival, Randy Harrison, of “Queer as Folk” fame, essays the role Joel Grey and Alan Cumming made famous — that of the smarmy Kit Kat Klub emcee who explains, “Money makes the world go round.”
But it’s not just money and sex that drive this musical; it’s the very real, and very relatable, fear of facing facts, even deadly ones. When Sally Bowles (Andrea Goss) sings “Life is a cabaret, old chum,” it’s no breezy maxim but an ironic paean to ignorant bliss in a malevolent political climate — one chillingly similar to our own.
Cabaret: 8 p.m. Thursday, June 23; 2 and 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, June 24-25. Through July 17. $50-$212, subject to change. Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., S.F. www.shnsf.com