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The Roundabout Theatre Company’s 50th Anniversary celebration tour of “Cabaret” stops at Dallas’ Winspear Opera House through June 25th. This production follows Rob Marshall and Sam Mendes’ darker take on the classic musical which drives home the play’s themes of self identity, dread of the future and the influence of politics on the individual. It’s all fun and games till the Nazis show up. The dreary second act makes its point with devastating poignancy.
For those unfamiliar with the storyline, it begins in a steamy burlesque club, The Kit Kat, in the heart of Pre-World War II Berlin’s red light district. Young Sally Bowles (Andrea Goss), the star of the club’s show, finds herself out of a job. Meanwhile, American novelist Clifford Bradshaw (Lee Aaron Rosen), a bi-sexual struggling writer, arrives in Berlin in search of a subject for his next novel. He’s befriended by the affable Ernst Ludwig (Ned Noyes), who gives him jobs as a smuggler or English teacher so Bradshaw can make ends meet. Needless to say, Cliff and Sally meet accidentally in her dressing room (Cliff was in fact looking for a former male lover who also works at the club), and she runs directly to him when she’s fired. The entire affair is overseen and narrated by the Emcee (Randy Harrison), a flamboyant and sexually ambiguous character who fully embraces the Bohemian lifestyle embodied in the club itself. Along the way, we meet prostitute Frauline Kost and a host of other interesting characters. Lending the musical much of its emotional weight is the ill-fated love between Frauline Schneider, the elderly landlady of Cliff’s apartment building and Herr Schultz, a grocer who happens to be Jewish.
This production seemed almost like two plays in one. Act 1 follows Cliff as he arrives, meets Ludwig, falls in love with Sally and deals with the complications which begin to swirl around him. Harrison plays Emcee with an unfettered joy, providing equal parts raunchiness and levity. His performance gives the play its greatest energy, which he sustains throughout the storyline. He reflects the tone of story and in many ways personifies the tragic consequences these characters face in a Nazi controlled Germany. His character gives Harrison ample room for unrelenting flamboyance, and he throws himself fully into the opportunity. He truly was a joy to witness. Goss’s Sally Bowles also hit close to home as she ably portrayed the young dancer as a woman desperately trying to find love, and whose happy facade covered pain she didn’t even realize existed. One dim note on the acting front came from Rosen’s portrayal of Cliff. He’s not bad, but he’s not really that good in this role. While Cliff will always carry some naïveté in his characterization, Rosen doesn’t give him the energy required to handle the weighty issues he faces and discusses. In a play filled with energetic, buoyant characters, Rosen plays Cliff as little more than an overwrought American.
“Cabaret” is as much about the spectacle of living as it is about its underlying political themes. On this front, the cast and crew are nearly perfect. Alison Ewing displays an extraordinarily vibrant voice in her few moments. Goss gives Sally the youth and verve needed to completely engage the audience in her tragic adventure. Her energy on “Don’t Tell Momma” and “Mein Herr” provide excellent balance to the wistful “Maybe This Time” and the laconic desperation in the last turn of “Cabaret.” Shannon Cochrane and Evan D. Siegel match the chemistry of the rest of the cast well as an older couple ripped apart by heritage. They give us simple, yet powerful, moments on both “It Couldn’t Please Me More” and “Married.” Siegal’s vocals on “Married (Reprise)” fill with loss and sadness, breaking hearts across the theater. The real star here is Harrison, who never loses energy or expressiveness from start to finish. Emcee is a role demanding resilience and versatility from moment to moment. Harrison never disappoints.
The orchestral arrangements stuck to the original for the most part. While the plentiful talent supported its cast well, sound issues seemed to plague it at times, especially at the beginning of Act 2. The saxophone and other solos were drowned out by the orchestra as mixing seemed to be a real issue here. However, the orchestra set the stage well throughout the play.
Acts one and two were in such heavy contrast that it was hard to realize the tragedy at play until after intermission. The tone drops quickly and jolts the audience back to reality before ending with a somber warning.
I sensed the cast and crew really left it all “on the field,” to borrow a familiar cliché. There was nothing cliché in the performance, however. It remained true to its original, while reminding us why “Cabaret” was so popular in the first place.
Now playing at the Winspear Opera House May 25th – June 5th
