Review: ASF stages brilliant production of ‘Cabaret’
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s adaptation of “Cabaret” is a total triumph.
The cast, the music, the choreography, the costumes, the staging are superb. Musical performances range from very good to sublime. Perhaps most importantly, as entertaining as the musical is, director Rick Dildine never allows it to overshadow the play’s message.
“Cabaret” has always been a dance-band-on-the-Titanic sort of musical, where the gorgeous music, even performed with exuberance, isn’t quite enough to drown out the sense of impending disaster.
The musical begins in the early 1930s as American writer Clifford Bradshaw (Max Wolkowitz) is on a train to Berlin, where he knows no one. That situation is soon rectified.
After helping Ernst Ludwig (Andrew Foote), a friendly man he meets on the train, smuggle a package in, Ernst introduces him to a warm-hearted landlady Fraulein Schneider (Stacia Fernandez), who rents him a room. Ernst even gets him tickets to Berlin’s best cabaret, where Clifford meets cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Crystal Kellogg), who quickly moves in with him.
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Romance, non-stop partying and one superb cabaret number after another ensue. Clifford and Sally, at first together out of fun and convenience, begin to fall in love. Fraulein Schneider falls in love with Herr Shultz, a German-born Jew who sells fruit.
Good people, good times, but little do they know they are just a few steps — in this case goosesteps — away from Adolf Hitler and a totalitarian nightmare.
The music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb feature one infectious song after another with tunes such as “Maybe This Time,” “I Don’t Care Much,” “Money,” “Willkommen,” “Perfectly Marvelous,” and, of course, “Cabaret.”
They are great songs and ASF has the perfect cast to sing them. Stacia Fernandez gives a beautiful and heartrending performance of “What Would You Do?” Kellogg’s rendition of Cabaret is a showstopper, and Pierre Marais comes close to stealing the show as the hypnotic and somewhat creepy cabaret emcee — the role Joel Grey won an Oscar and a Tony for playing.
Marais, seen on Broadway in the title role of “Aladdin,” makes the role his own. Donald Corren as Herr Schultz and Carlyn Connolly as the patriotic German prostitute Fraulein Kost also have excellent numbers.
Making the songs and performances even better are how they are flavored by Joe Masteroff’s book, which is based on Christopher Isherwood’s somewhat autobiographical novel “Goodbye to Berlin.” At first, songs such as “Don’t Tell Mama,” “Perfectly Marvelous” and “Two Ladies” are light, carefree and sometimes humorously risqué. But the songs become first more reflective as the plot progresses and finally with songs such as “What Would You Do?” and “Cabaret” turn bittersweet, almost tragic.
There are constant pleas from the emcee to leave your troubles outside, and pleas from Sally not to worry about the future but to live for today, but with swastika’s appearing and bricks being thrown through windows, it becomes clear to the audience this is not only bad, but suicidal, advice.
Sally has just given up the man who loves her to stay in a country where the first dangerous winds of a maelstrom of hate are beginning to surround her. So when she sings “What good's permitting some prophet of doom to wipe every smile away, Life is a cabaret, old chum, so come to the Cabaret,” we know the joyous song to hedonism is in fact a sad song of heartbreak and denial.
ASF has given us a stunningly beautiful production of “Cabaret,” and it’s kept the message intact that when people are too apathetic, too self-involved or too afraid to act, freedom is a fleeting beauty, the beauty of a wilting rose.
The Kit Kat ensemble is composed of Leigh Scheffler (dance captain), Ally Carr, Nicholas Cooper, Cameron Kuhn, Pablo Pernia, Sierra Pilkington, Cassie Maurer, Victor Carillo Tracey, and Ahren Victory.
The production team bringing the show to the stage includes choreographer Christopher Windom, music director Mark Hartman, associate music director Joel Jones, scenic and lighting designer Jeff Behm, costume designer Alexa Behm, co-sound designers Alex Neumann and Nathan Rubio, stage manager Caskey Hunsader, assistant stage manager Brenna Bishop, and production assistant Brooke Morgan.
Two other notes: The orchestra is excellent, and there is a very creative promotion where people can buy VIP tickets, sit at cabaret-style tables in the front and drink champagne.
WANT TO GO?
- WHAT: “Cabaret”
- WHERE: Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Festival Stage
- WHEN: Performances through Aug. 6
- TICKETS: Log on to www.asf.net