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Good evening and wilkommen
Cabaret Wolverhampton Grand ***** WHEN it comes to musicals the honour for the darkest and most deeply disturbing has to go to Cabaret with its song, dance, sex and showgirls all wrapped around a hard, brutal core. The 1966 musical, with
music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, is based on John Van
Druten’s even darker play I Am A Camera
from 1951 which in turn was based on British author Christopher
Isherwood’s short 1939 autobiographical novel
Farewell to Berlin. Ishwerwood was a homosexual drawn to Berlin by
its sexual freedom where he indulged his tastes in “pretty young men”;
Berlin of the 1920s and 30s was not only Sodom and Gomorrah but Sodom
and Gomorrah walking on the wild side, the hedonistic capital of the
world. Every fetish, every perversion, every imagined sexual fantasy was
available or for sale. Germany was bankrupt from the cost of the
reparations from the First World War, hyper inflation had made currency
and savings worthless for many – 4,210,500,000,000 German marks
were worth just one US dollar in late 1923 – a near civil war between
the right and communists had overturned the old order of Imperial
Government, while black markets and profiteering had made some very
rich. And it is in that turmoil of the Wehrmacht
Republic that Cabaret is set. The evening was greeted with groans and
some boos when it was announced that the billed star, Will Young was
ill, which, was unfair on the understudy Simon Jaymes – at least give
the lad a chance to see what he can do – and in this case the boy done
good. He was elevated to the role of Emcee which is a
difficult role.
Star of the club’s cabaret is English artiste
Sally Bowles, played with a mix of sexuality and vulnerability by
Siobhan Dillon. She is based on Jean Ross, an actress and nightclub
singer, who shared lodgings with Isherwood for a while in Berlin in 1931
and who later was to marry Claude Cockburn.
The musical opens on New Year’s Eve 1930 and
into Sally’s life comes the American writer Clifford Bradshaw, played by
Birmingham born Matt Rawle, who finds working for jovial German
businessman Ernst Ludwig, played by Nicholas Tizzard, most profitable,
until he discovers the real profit from his smuggling and black market
enterprise is going to the Nazi party, of which he is a leading light. This is the time of the rise of Adolf Hitler and
the National Socialists who promised employment, stable currency and a
solution to the problem of Jews. To be added to that list would be
communists, homosexuals, the disabled, Romanis and all manner of
political opponents – and prostitutes. The Nazis were puritanical in
their perversions. Bradshaw lives in the boarding house of Fraulein
Schneider, a widow, played by Lyn Paul, who has standards and rules
- which are negotiable if enough marks are involved. Her guests include the careworn Fraulein Kost, a
lady of the night, or indeed anytime, played by Valerie Cutko, who seems
to have cornered the market in sailors including one who seems to have
lost his unifom - and his inhibitions – as he wanders over to
shake hands. All hands on d . . . well you know what we mean. More conventional is another guest Herr Schultz,
who runs a fruit stall, played sympathetically by Lionel Haft. While the bisexual Cliff and Sarah have a
tempestuous affair, our landlady and greengrocer have a gentle growing
relationship, harmless and touching as a widow and widower find soul
mates for their autumn years. Except this was Germany in the 1930s where
autumn was short and a dark, cold winter was fast approaching. The
pair’s engagement party shows the ghosts of the future when Fraulein
Kost scornfully mentions to Ernst that Herr Schultz is a despised and
rich Jew - setting in train a course of events that is to affect all the
characters. Her rendition of Tomorrow Belongs to Me
has a hollow ring to it. We have Cliff as the American with a conscience,
willing to defy Nazism, Fraulein Schneider who is a realist who has
overcome everything life has thrown at her and takes the only course
open to her to ensure she can continue to rent rooms to make a living;
then there is
Director Rufus Norris has kept up a good pace
and cleverly unfolds the layers of a complex story and set of events
while Katrina Lindsay’s set is masterful with the gaudy lights of a 1930
nightclub, sliding walls for Cliff’s apartment for rapid scene changes,
gliding ladders and a band in their own gallery high above the stage
revealed only when the cabaret plays to the audience. The band, large by
touring standards, under musical director James McCullagh are just
excellent. There is also some excellent choreography from
Javier de Frutos with a brilliant ensemble of dancers and singers who
just ooze sexuality with women in basques and suspenders and largely
bare chested men providing some exciting and spectacular dance routines. There are some fine vocal performances such as
the hopeful Maybe This Time and the soulful final
Cabaret from Sally, Cliff’s Why Should I Wake Up, and the
gentle duets It Couldn’t Please Me More and Married
from Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz the plaintive What Would You
Do? From Fraulein Schneider. Emcee gives us Wilkomen, Money, with
Sally, the strangely disturbing If You Could See Her as the show
gains an even harder edge taking us towards the final brutal scene, a
cluster of six naked men and women huddled together in a dark, grey
industrial setting as the showers open and rain down upon them. If that needs explaining our education system
has failed. Cabaret is one of the landmark musicals, perhaps
recognised as such more now than in 1966 when its shock value maybe
drowned out its message. This Bill Kenwright production a simply a
sensational revival with or without Will Young. Thankfully the boos had
turned to cheers when Simon Jaymes took his final bow – and he, along
with the entire cst, deserved them. To 30-11-13. Roger Clarke And from a table near the band **** A BRIEF chorus of boos greeted the
announcement that the star of this show, singer-songwriter Will Young,
would be missing from the opening night performance through illness. But the disappointment didn't last long when
understudy Simon Jaymes proved that he's got talent too and went on to
give a sparkling performance as Emcee, the quirky Master of Ceremonies
at the seedy Kit-Kat Club in 1930s Berlin. Jaymes earned warm applause at the end of the
slick musical having proved that he could handle the difficult role
which is so important, particularly in songs like Money Makes the World
Go Round, Two Ladies and If You Could See Her Through My Eyes. And surely anyone's attention would be quickly
switched from the absence of the star to what was happening on stage in
the startling opening scenes when shapely dancers in basques, stockings
and suspenders went through brilliant choreography....and a sailor
walked across stage wearing only his hat after visiting a lady of the
night! Added to all that came a double triumph for two
Midlanders playing lead roles - Lichfield's Siobhan Dillon, playing the
sexy night club singer-dancer Sally Bowles, and Birmingham-born Matt
Rawle as the struggling American author Clifford Bradshaw, a bi-sexual
who befriends the mixed-up girl. Both were excellent. Fine performances, too, from Lyn Paul (Fraulein
Schneider) and Linal Haft (Herr Schultz) whose blossoming love is ended
by the rise of the anti-Jewish element, touchingly emphasised as the
show closed by the rear view of six naked men and women clinging
together in semi-darkness at the rear of the stage. Directed by Rufus Norris with James McCullagh's
musical direction, Cabaret runs to 30.11.13 Paul Marston
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He
is of indeterminate sexuality, equally at ease with men or women, and a
character who personifies unfettered sexuality and decadent fun. He
seems to hang around every scene, after all he is your emcee of the
evening and of the Kit-Kat club, one of the most debauched dives of a
debauched city.
Sally, who either cannot see what is happening, or refuses to
acknowledge it, who drifts back to her career as a nightclub singer,
Herr Schultz who does what he does for love, Ernst, the black marketer,
who believes the Nazis will create a better Germany and then there is
Emcee and we are never quite sure where he stands on anything.