Cabaret opened on Broadway in November, 1966, and went on to win eight Tonys
including Best Musical (book by Joe Masteroff,) Best Original Score (John Kander) and
Best Lyrics (Fred Ebb.) It also brought Joel Grey stardom for his iconic role as the
Emcee. After fifty-seven years the creative staff including Director/Producer Harold
Prince would not recognize the production currently at Barrington Stage Company.

Using the 1998 script for the Roundabout Theatre’s revival, which featured a
star-making performance by Alan Cumming, director and BSC artistic director Alan
Paul has taken great liberties with the script. The play takes place in Berlin in 1929-
1930 during the dying years of the Weimar Republic and as Hitler’s Nazi Party is
ascending to power. The plot focuses on the relationship between Cliff Bradshaw (Dan
Amboyer) a budding novelist from Philadelphia, and Sally Bowles (Krysta Rodriguez) a
singer at the seedy Kit Kat Club which serves as a metaphor for what is occurring in
Berlin. A subplot involves an aging couple – Fraulein Schneider (Candy Buckley) who
runs a boarding house and a suitor, Herr Schultz (Richard Kline) a Jewish produce
storeowner.

In the original there was no overture as there is here and “Wilkommen” took the
stage led by the sly, coy and almost lovable Joel Grey’s Emcee who charmingly invited
us into the sleazy Kit Kat Club. This set is a little too elegant to fit the idea of a
starving, embattled Berlin prior to World War Two. The production’s Emcee, Nik
Alexander, (a very energetic performer) sings the opening in a sexually perverse,
bizarre style setting the tone for the rest of the show. The Kit Kat Ensemble is made up
of trans and non-binary performers which probably fits the tenor of the historical
setting. Virtually every number except the duets between Fraulein Schneider and Herr
Schultz, is big, blatant and very sexual with grinds and pelvic thrusts. Our eyes and
ears are assaulted. There is an intensity to the production that is often jarring. Even in
the straight scenes the production lacks subtlety and nuance.

Scenic Designer Wilson Chin has surrounded the nine-member orchestra that is
onstage with mylar drapes and a gigantic mirror above. Set pieces are brought
onstage as needed directly in front of the orchestra while several audience members
are seated on either side of the stage. All of this and the performances compromise
the realistic nature of the show which has stood the test of time in previous
productions.

Some of the staging of the musical numbers is awkward. Sally sings “Don’t Tell
Mama” with the chorus that occasionally moves in front of her. In “Mein Herr” she is
upstage and is blocked by the ensemble accompanying her who are downstage. The
opening of act two has dancers in the aisles. If seated in the first two or three rows,
the audience has to crane their necks to enjoy the number.\

Amboyer and Rodriguez as Cliff and Sally create believable characters, but they
some times become as over-heated as the musical numbers. This undermines the
empathy we should have for them. They are two youngish people from different
worlds who fall in love and are being victimized by the political and social ugliness
around them. Cliff realizes this more than Sally who prefers to ignore the oncoming
danger. Their “Perfectly Marvelous” duet is one of the lightest and simplest songs in the show. Conversely, Ms. Rodriguez’s rendition of “Cabaret” is very angry, which fits
the production, while other more effective versions are wistful and introspective.

The scenes between Schneider and Schultz are sweet with moments of humor
while their duets, “It Couldn’t Please Me More” and “Married,” are very touching. Their
last scene together elicits our sympathy. Ms. Buckley also has a solo “What Would
You Do?” that starts as a slow, methodical series of questions, but turns into a high-
pitched rant which is contrary to the Fraulein Schneider we have come to know.

The costumes designed by Rodrigo Munoz are visually pleasing but too refined
for the Kit Kat Club. They are tacky but not really tattered with a great deal of skin
showing sometimes too much, more to shock than entertain,. But they add to the
turbulence of the time and the city. Philip S. Rosenberg’s lighting complements the
various scenes. The Kit Kat is garish, the boarding house subdued.

The dancing is a mainstay of the Kit Kat scenes; Katie Spelman’s choreography
is more-than-energetic and in many instances sexually bold.

There is the possibility that Director Paul made all these choices to recreate the
hedonistic fervor of the time period, which may be a valid approach. However, a
production company should respect the writer’s intentions until the show goes into
public domain, which is seventy years after the last original member of the creative
staff has died.

This Cabaret is frightening, especially today when anti-semitism and
authoritarianism is again on the rise throughout the world. Perhaps the extremity of
the production is a response to the threats perceived by all sides in the current
atmosphere of anger and mistrust which attack our sensibilities. This Cabaret is
extreme, overwhelming and fearsome, as are our times. It’s not the show we remember
of sly innuendo with a wink and a smile. It is, rather, a challenge to what was once
acceptable.

Cabaret: Book by Joe Masteroff; Based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by
Christopher Isherwood; Music by John Kander; lLryics by Fred Ebb; Director: Alan
Paul; Choreographer: Katie Spelman; Music direction by Angela Steiner; Cast: Nik
Alexander (Emcee) Krysta Rodriguez (Sally Bowles) Dan Amboyer (Clifford “Cliff”
Bradshaw) Tom Story (Ernst Ludwig) Freddie Odgaard (Customs Officer) Candy
Buckley (Fraulein Schneider) Alyssha Umphress (Fraulein Kost) Charles Mayhew Miller
(Rudy) Richard Kline (Herr Schultz) Max Antonio Gonzalez (Max) Charles Mayhew
Miller, Lina Lee, Tiffany Topol, Alysha Umphress, Kim Hudman, Freddie Odgaard,
Ryland Marbutt, Julia Harnett, Max Antonio Gonzales (The Kit Kat Ensemble); Scenic
Designer: Wilson Chin; Costume Designer: Rodrigo Munoz; Lighting Designer: Philip
Rosenberg; Sound Designer: Ken Travis; Wig Designer; Mary Schilling Martin; Makeup
Designer: Hannah Chalman; Production Stage Manager: Jason Bouillard; Running
time: 2 hours 45 minutes, one intermission; 6/14/22 – 7/8/23; Boyd-Quinson Stage at
Barrington Stage Company, 30 Union Street, Pittsfield,MA. For information and tickets
go to their website at www.barringtonstageco.org or call 413-236-8888.