Theatre 2025: Cabaret @ Al Green Theatre

With music and lyrics by John Kandar and Fred Ebb, the 1966 musical Cabaret is about the decline of the decadent Weimar era and the rise of Nazism in Germany. We watched an excellent version of this musical at the Al Green Theatre which was made all the more poignant given its subject matter, since the theatre is situated inside the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.  It was a fascinating exercise to trace the history of the musical, from its source material, the various adaptations in different formats that preceded and followed it, and the various changes made to the musical itself in each subsequent revival through the decades.  Its relevance is distressingly prevalent in our current troubled political times.  Just in case you didn’t catch the significance from the story itself, this rendition of the show added a chilling addendum at the end to hammer home the point.  But more on that later.

The genesis for Cabaret stems from the life of Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood, a gay Anglo-American writer who briefly relocated to Berlin during the final months of the “Golden Twenties” to partake in the city’s colourful nightlife, jazz scene and the availability of young male prostitutes.  During his stay, he befriended and shared a room with 19-year-old British flapper Jean Ross, helping her procure an abortion when she became pregnant from one of her various affairs.  Both Isherwood and Ross became sexually involved with wealthy American playboy John Blomshield before he abruptly abandoned them. Their wild days ended once Hitler came into power and the pair fled Germany along with other bohemian friends.

Isherwood wrote several semi-autobiographical novels about his escapades in Berlin.  In Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935), William Bradshaw meets a mysterious stranger on a train who turns out to be a spy.  In Goodbye Berlin (1939), English expatriate Christopher Isherwood rents a room in a boarding house and encounters a diverse group of residents including the owner Fräulein Schroeder, British good-time girl and cabaret singer Sally Bowles (obviously based on Jean Ross), prostitute Fräulein Kost and Nazi sympathizer Fräulein Mayr.  At a nightclub, Christopher and Sally meet a rich playboy named Clive (inspired by Blomshield), who wines and dines them, funding their lavish lifestyles before abruptly disappearing.  Goodbye Berlin depicts the hedonic times of Weimar Germany that slowly dissipates as poverty, unemployment and political unrest takes hold, leading to the Nazis coming into power. 

Goodbye Berlin opened with the line “I am a camera with a shutter open, passive, recording, not thinking”.  Using the beginning of that line for his title, in 1951 John Van Druten adapted Isherwood’s novel into a play called “I Am A Camera” which ran on Broadway for 214 shows.  In addition to the characters from Goodbye Berlin, the play added two extra roles.  Fritz, a poor young German Jew passing himself off as a Christian, falls in love with wealthy Jewish heiress Natalia. Their romance highlights the rise of antisemitism as Fritz struggles to conceal his Jewish identity for safety reasons before finally confessing to it so that he can marry Natalia.  Their traditional romance offers contrast to the platonic relationship between Christopher and Sally. To escape the increasingly oppressive situation in Germany, Natalia and Fritz emigrate to Switzerland while Sally departs for Paris to pursue an acting career and Christopher returns to London.  

Filmed during the Hayes Code era, the 1955 movie version of “I Am A Camera” was still based on Isherwood’s novel and Van Druten’s play, but what had previously been a serious drama was now presented as a romantic comedy with significant changes forced by the censors and the Hayes Code.  Sally no longer had an abortion but only had a pregnancy scare that turned out to be a false alarm.  The depiction of sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, morally controversial themes and social-political issues were also toned down or eliminated.

By the time Cabaret, the musical version of Isherwood’s stories opened on Broadway in 1966, it was the decade of “free love” and societal norms had changed.  As a result, the show was much grittier and more salacious than the previous adaptations, adding back depictions of decadence and sexual depravity, as well as providing scathing commentary about the political situation.  Much of this was conveyed by adding the complex character of “The Emcee” and creating the cabaret setting of the Kit Kat Club where he, Sally Bowles and other cabaret performers work.  In the opening number “Wilkommen”, the Emcee makes bawdy jokes about his skimpily clad cabaret girls while the sexually explicit song “Two Ladies” depicts the sexual freedom and debauchery of 1930s Berlin as the Emcee and two Kit Kat girls act out a threesome.  Sally continues the raunchiness with her flirty number “Don’t Tell Mama”.

For a more forceful critique of antisemitism and the threat of the Nazi regime, the characters of Natalia and Fritz are replaced by elderly, openly Jewish fruit seller Herr Schultz who romances and becomes engaged to the boarding house proprietor, now renamed Fräulein Schneider.  In an incredibly satirical routine titled “If You Could See Her Through My Eyes” the Emcee dances with a gorilla who he vehemently defends and declares his love for, with the final whispered words “If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewish at all”.  The analogy to the doomed relationship between Schneider and Schultz is so impactful.  When she breaks off their engagement, succumbing to threats and the danger that their union would bring, her mournful song “What Would You Do?” is heartbreaking.  The rise of Nazism is first hinted at early on in the musical and then depicted in full force later on in the show.  The first singing of the song “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” comes across as a sweet, tender patriotic melody.  By the time it is reprised, the tune has transformed into a darker, Nazi marching song with the performers displaying their Nazi arm bands while gesturing with the Hitler salute.

Surprisingly, what is not depicted in this original rendition of the musical is homosexuality, often referred to in the entertainment industry as “The Last Taboo”.  The male protagonist, now renamed Cliff Bradshaw, is heterosexual and enters into a sexual relationship with Sally, making it a possibility that he might be the father when she becomes pregnant.  This puts a different spin on her abortion which she procures unilaterally without informing him.  This shatters his dreams of moving to England with her and the baby as a family.  The wealthy playboy from previous adaptations is no longer in the plot, but elements of Isherwood’s first novel Mr. Norris Rides the Train are added.  Cliff arrives in Berlin by train and during the trip, he meets Ernst Ludwig who turns out to be a German smuggler and Nazi sympathizer.  Ernst offers Cliff work as a “carrier” which he initially accepts.  But once Cliff realizes Ernst’s political affiliations, he refuses further jobs and ends up being attacked by Ernst and his goons.  All this makes for a much darker, more serious show despite being a musical.

In 1972, a movie version of Cabaret was released as a star vehicle for Liza Minelli as Sally Bowles with Michael York playing the male lead, now named Brian Roberts, and Joel Grey playing the role of the Emcee.  Significant changes were made relative to the musical and some elements from “I Am A Camera” were resurrected.  For this movie, Brian once again prefers men, but ends up in a sexual relationship with Sally anyways, thus making him bisexual. The subplot with the wealthy playboy (now named Max von Heune), is back as Max courts and has sex with both Brian and Sally before leaving them 300 marks and disappearing.  When Sally becomes pregnant, she is not sure which man is the father.  Herr Schultz and his romance with Fraulein Schneider are cut and the subplot with the younger Jewish couple Fritz and Natalia is reinstated.  In my mind, these changes dilute the impact of the Nazi plotline, making this a weaker story from that perspective.

The portrayal of Sally Bowles changes between the musical and the movie.  In the musical, Sally is a mediocre singer with limited options, making her vulnerable, but also reckless and impulsive.  She chooses to stay in Berlin and at the Kit Kat Club since it is the only place she knows and feels wanted. Perhaps to appease Liza Minelli, the film portrays Sally as an extremely talented performer who could find work anywhere.  Thus, her need to stay in Berlin despite the growing danger makes less sense, although it highlights the self-imposed obliviousness and denial that permeated through much of the German population.

The reveal of the Nazis is also handled differently.  In the musical, most of the first act is devoted to showing the fun-filled, carefree Weimar days and it is not until the end of that act that the threat of Nazism is portrayed.  This stark change in tone makes the reveal hit harder.  The movie shows men wearing Nazi arm bands right from the beginning, depicting their rise in power by their degree of access to the Kit Kat Club.  At the start, Nazis are not allowed in the club but by the end of the movie, they are sitting in the front row.

But the biggest change that the film makes is the way that the songs are presented.  The musical Cabaret is a typical book musical where songs are sung spontaneously to advance the plot.  While some of the songs are performances sung at the Kit Kat Club by the Emcee or Sally and cabaret girls as dictated by the storyline, other songs take place wherever the action is happening, such as at the boarding house.  In a good book musical, the songs replace dialogue in order to express larger emotions.  Wanting to create a more “realistic” story, the film is no longer a book musical.  Instead, all the songs are “diegetic” meaning they are sung as “performance numbers” at the Kit Kat Club, which takes some of the songs totally out of context and in my opinion, makes no sense in the overall plot.

As I am a huge proponent of the book musical, this artistic choice alone made me not enjoy the movie.  But the interpretation of the big finale number made it even worse for me.  Sally Bowles sings the eponymous 11 O’Clock number “Cabaret” with a big smile and jazz hands, belting it out as if she were Ethel Merman.  She does not show any remorse about her abortion or Brian leaving, nor any horror about the numerous Nazi soldiers who are sitting in the front row of the audience.  There is no irony, regret, pain or pathos in her voice as she cheerily sings “Life is a Cabaret old chum.  Come to the Cabaret”.  This highlights her self-delusion that everything will be OK, ignoring the evidence right in front of her.

Since the 1972 movie was initially my only frame of reference for Cabaret, I was totally unprepared for the experience of watching the stage musical for the first time, when in 1999, a touring version of the 1998 Broadway revival arrived in Toronto.  I was blown away by the completely different, gut-wrenching interpretation of the song “Cabaret” as sung by Joely Fisher playing Sally Bowles.  In this version, Sally is heartbroken at losing Cliff and possibly starting to realize the horrors happening outside of the Kit Kat Club.  She sings at first somberly, then with increasing fear and sorrow, breaking down at the end as she is overwhelmed by her situation. Seeing the sub-plot of Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz for the first time also tugged at my heart strings and the song with the Gorilla finally made sense!  Director Bob Fosse strove to remove the sentimentality of the musical from his movie.  But in doing so, he also took away its emotional core, heart and pathos.

The movie did have one redeeming quality for me, in that it added three songs written by Kander and Ebb which were so iconic that they were added to most subsequent revivals of the musical.  “Money (makes the world go round)” perfectly describes the greed, power and corruption of the times.  The song “Mein Herr” gives Sally another big Cabaret number and further illustrates her free spirit and need for control with lines like “A tiger is a tiger, not a lamb, Mein Herr”. And finally, the torch song “Maybe This Time” allows Sally to show her vulnerability and hope for a real relationship with my favourite line “Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loves me”.  Once again, the lines of this song make much more sense for the musical’s more vulnerable version of Sally.

Since the 1980s, the musical version of Cabaret has had at least one revival every decade, either on Broadway and/or London’s West End.  Each new version may make some modifications to better reflect the current day’s tastes, tolerances and socio-political climate.  In the 1987 Broadway revival, a song by Kandar and Ebb called “I Don’t Care Much” that was cut from the original production was reinstated.   Sung by the Emcee towards the end of the show, this haunting number exposes his pain, growing desperation and fear of the Nazi regime while feigning indifference and apathy.  This reflects on the general population who dealt with the growing issues by ignoring or downplaying them.  This song has since become an integral part of future revivals.

Significant changes came in the 1993 London production directed by Sam Mendes.  This was the first time that a theatre was reconfigured to include Cabaret table seating in front of the stage, to augment the experience for some theatregoers.  The Emcee was reimagined to be more sexualized, seedy and overtly queer, physically groping, kissing and humping the Cabaret girls and male members of the orchestra.  While previous versions including the 1966 musical and 1972 movie saw the Emcee dressed in a tuxedo, Alan Cumming’s character came out in a black leather trench coat which he removed striptease-style to reveal that he is topless except for suspenders and a bowtie.  In the final number of the show, the Emcee appears again in his trench coat to reprise the opening number “Willkommen” but this time when he removes the coat, shockingly he is wearing the striped concentration camp uniform with the yellow Star of David in a much more overt reminder of tragedies that occurred.  The Emcee becomes a proxy for all the victims of the Holocaust.

The 1998 Broadway revival, with Alan Cummings reprising his role, incorporated the changes from 1993 London and added some of its own by ramping up the sexuality and queerness even more.  The lyrics of the song Willkommen were updated to add more lewd innuendos about lesbians, sexual acts (describing one girl as a very “cunning linguist”), and explicitly calling out the Cabaret Boys Bobby and Victor, who later out Cliff as a bisexual who had an encounter with one of them in the past.  This version also added the song Maybe This Time, which was missing from the 1993 production.  This extremely well-received show ran for 2377 performances and won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical.

Since 1998, each subsequent version has leaned further into darker, more explicit portrayals of Berlin’s decadence in the Weimar era and the impact of the rise of Nazism.  In what might seem like stunt casting, or just the trend for more TV and movie stars to perform on stage, Sally Bowles has been played by celebrity actresses including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Molly Ringwald, Terry Hatcher, Michelle Williams, Emma Stone, Sienna Miller and Jessie Buckley.

What seems to be most tinkered with in each iteration of Cabaret is the ending.  In the most recent 2024 Broadway revival where the Emcee was played by Eddie Redmayne and now, Adam Lambert, instead of portraying him as a victim in concentration camp garb, they show him as a collaborator dressed in a bland gray suit.  This signifies conformity and loss of individuality brought about by fascism.  By the end of the show, the entire cast is dressed uniformly in grey.

The production that we watched at the Al Green Theatre seems to have taken notes from all the previous versions of Cabaret and then added its own spin as well.  When we entered the space, it felt like we were in the Kit Kat Club with cabaret tables surrounding the base of the stage.  Tickets for table seating included a free cocktail with a choice of whiskey sour, hard iced tea, gin smash or margarita which you could sip during the show.  We had bought tickets for a table right in front of the stage next to a few steps where the performers would descend, sometimes to use the telephones that were placed around us.  During the show, Cliff sat at the table behind us and was propositioned over the phone by first Bobby and Victor, and then Sally.  The immersive feeling of being in the middle of the action was so much fun.  During the “Money” number, the cast tossed fake Deutschmarks all over the stage before fighting to scoop them up.  One bill slipped and landed at our feet so we got a good look at it during intermission before returning it.

This was a great production with stellar acting, singing and dancing by the entire cast, effective staging and fabulous costumes.  The Emcee and Cabaret girls and boys came out for the opening number in Lederhosen, wearing not much else underneath. Nathaniel Bacon who played the Emcee is tall, muscular and bald with a powerful voice and an extremely expressive face that can change from playfully grinning to frightfully menacing in a flash, which he does again and again during one of the songs.  Several of the Cabaret dancers could do full side splits on demand.  The choreography was wonderful and acrobatic.  During the scene where Cliff gets beaten up by the Nazis, even though we were sitting very close to the stage, it still looked and sounded like he was being smacked.  After one punch, he even did a bit of a flip as he crashed to the ground.

Again, the biggest and most impactful changes to this rendition came towards the end of the show.  Amanda Milligan, who plays Sally Bowles, leans into the angst, turmoil and sorrow right from the start when she sings Cabaret, so that every word sounds insincere and ironic.  There is no gentle start building up to a breakdown at the end.  This Sally cracks right from the beginning of the song and continues to fall apart (even downing a bottle of champagne mid lyric) before imploding by the last note.  It was quite the performance to witness.  Then the final scene is reinterpreted again with the big, tall Emcee coming out dressed fully as a Nazi commandant.  He towers over the rest of the chorus plus Herr Schultz who are all dressed in the striped concentration camp uniforms.  Visually this makes much more sense than trying to make the enormous actor appear as the victim. A gun is pressed against Schultz’s head and the stage fades to black as the sound of a gun shot rings out.

But we were not done yet.  While sitting in the dark, we hear the voice of US President Donald Trump spewing his much-quoted rants about the need for a wall and that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation.  Just in case the parallels between the musical’s dark themes with what is happening today were not clear enough, these words left no room for doubt. The famous saying goes that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.  Sadly, and alarmingly, this appears to be our current reality.  The audience left the theatre a bit shell-shocked.

Cabaret is playing at the Al Green Theatre until Sunday April 27, 2025.  Whether you have already watched a version of this musical before or not, it is worth seeing now.  Never has this show been more relevant or its message more important than it is today.