No. 5. “Cabaret”

CABARET (1966). By John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics), and Joe Masteroff (book). Based on the play I AM A CAMERA by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood

December 1966. You’re seated and waiting for a performance of Cabaret to begin. Instead of a curtain in front of the stage, there’s a large mirror, reflecting the audience back on itself. The stage goes dark and a neon sign lights up, letter by letter, spelling “Cabaret.” The mirror tilts up creating a distorted reflection of an enigmatic Emcee who welcomes you to the Kit Kat Club. The stage is surrounded by a horseshoe of streetlights, windows, and signs creating a “Limbo” area that is the physically embodies Berlin. The story focuses on two couples. First is Sally Bowles (the Club’s star performer, a British expat) and Cliff (an idealistic if listless writer who moves into Sally’s boarding house). An older couple contrasts these young lovers—Fraulein Schneider (gentile owner of Sally-Cliff’s boarding house) and Herr Shultz (a Jewish grocer). The doomed Schneider-Schultz romance plays out fairly traditionally, with scenes in realistic settings and songs that arise from the action. But most of the other action (Sally-Cliff and the steady rise of the Nazi party) juxtaposes scenes with Emcee-led Kit Kat Club numbers commenting on what happened. And while some of these numbers are presented in a fully realized Club, with a stage-on-the-stage and patrons at tables, others are staged within the Limbo, as if they are presented only for the 1966 audience’s benefit and aren’t happening in 1929 Germany at all. Late in Act 2, Cliff confronts a newly pregnant Sally at the Club, urging her to run away with him. Sally avoids the discussion, and Cliff gets beaten unconscious by Nazis in front of the Club patrons. The Emcee passes the assault off as an intentional act before introducing Sally, who sings “Cabaret,” a cynical-hopeful ode to living fully and without regret no matter the circumstances. By song’s end, it is clear she is not leaving with Cliff to start a conventional life.

Hal Prince had already established himself as a producer of innovative—and successful—musicals by the time he started directing them as well. His first few outings were somewhat traditional, until he decided to bring about a musical version of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin. After a trip to Germany, he realized the a show about the decadent night-life scene in 1930s Berlin needed a different sort of theatrical vocabulary than the typical Broadway musical could afford. Cabaret introduced the idea of a “limbo” where a scene could happen more in the idea of a place than a concrete depiction of one. A song could be taken as a night club performance while also served as a commentary and furthering the character development of the more traditional “book scenes.” Set designer Boris Aronson worked closely with Prince to create this ambiguous world, continuing the emerging idea of designers as an integral part of the creative process from the earliest stages. Cabaret translated experimental theatrical techniques for the mainstream Broadway stage and opened the door for non-literal story telling and dark themes. As audiences became more comfortable with these ideas, Cabaret continued to evolve in subsequent revivals with increased theatrical (and sexual and moral) ambiguity.

Recommended Recording: ”Cabaret,” Cabaret (1968 Original London Cast)

Poor Jill Haworth, the original Broadway Sally Bowles, was consistently cited as the production’s weak link. When the production transferred to London, Judi Dench—who was already building an impressive resume of Shakespearean roles—played Sally. Dench wasn’t a stronger singer than Haworth was, but as superlative actress Dench used the song’s surface-level cheer as a mask while expertly allowing hints of her inner conflict to slip through. You really feel like you can pinpoint the moment her Sally chooses to stay in Berlin.

Alternate Performances

Cabaret has received ~31 Cast Recordings, including two Broadway productions, several London productions, and many international casts. A new, fully immersive, production is currently running in London and on Broadway.

• 1972 Film: Bob Fosse’s screen adaptation permanently altered Cabaret’s legacy. They cut the Schneider-Schultz romance in favor of a younger, non-musical couple, along with any song not performed in the Kit Kat Club, and then made cuts, swaps, and additions to that collection of songs. (All subsequent revivals have integrated at least some of these new numbers.) Despite cutting all the mimetic singing, Fosse’s Cabaret is still undeniably a musical, with a theatrical intentionality and sensibility. Frequent intercuts (and many haunting glares from Joel Grey, reprising his Broadway triumph as the Emcee) create the same sense of ambiguity about the Club that Prince-Aronson created on stage. Liza Minnelli is sensational as Sally Bowles. She has performed “Cabaret” on 8 albums, countless TV specials, and probably at a grocery store opening or two.

• 1993 Studio Cast: This comprehensive recording captures all of music from the original production (some of which didn’t appear on the original Broadway or London recordings and was cut from subsequent productions). It also features an appendix of songs, and alternate versions of songs, as heard in the 1972 film and a 1987 Broadway revival that went unrecorded. Judi Dench returns to the show as Fraulein Schneider with Jonathan Pryce as the Emcee and Maria Friedman as Sally.

• 1998 Broadway Revival: Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall directed this smash hit revival, based on an earlier London production. It redefined the show for a new generation and made a star out of its Emcee, Alan Cumming. The queer and sexual subtext (completely missing from the original but more directly integrated into the film and ’87 revival) became more explicit, and the distinction between the Club and the “real” world blurred to the point of extinction. Natasha Richardson is a wonderful Sally—definitely an “actress who sings,” but with lively and moving performances of all her songs. This iteration of the script and score has since become the edition that you are most likely to see performed. It ran for nearly six years with a parade of interesting cast replacements. This revival was remounted in 2014 with Cumming reprising his Emcee and Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creekversion) as Sally. (Williams would later win an Emmy for playing Gwen Vernon, Fosse’s wife, in the aptly named miniseries about their marriage and careers, Fosse/Verdon.)

Is it Covered by The Rat Pack, Audra McDonald, or Glee?

• Rat Pack Frank Sinatra has recorded “Maybe This Time,” (a Sally song added for the movie). Frank and fellow Rat Pack-er Sammy Davis Jr. appear with Liza Minelli in a 1989 concert documentary, Frank, Liza & Sammy: The Ultimate Event (1989), that features a Liza rendition of “Cabaret.”

• Audra McDonald sings “Cabaret” as the finale of her 2024 special Audra McDonald at the London Palladium. She introduces it by mentioning that the song intimidated her and she had avoiding performing it until Anna Wintour requested she sing it at the first Met Gala following Covid lockdowns. Thanks, Anna Wintour!

• Glee: In season 1 episode 5 (“The Rhodes Not Taken”), Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) is in her high school’s production of Cabaret and sings the title song in rehearsal. She also sings “Maybe this Time” as an unintentional duet with April Rhodes (Kristin Chenoweth). Rhodes sings it for the glee club as Rachel sings it in rehearsal.

In the Wings

While you wait for Song No. 6 to drop, you may want to check out Christopher and His Kind. Cabaret’s source material, Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin was a fictionalized (and sanitized) account of the author’s time in Weimar Germany. His 1976 memoir Christopher and His Kind is a more factually accurate account of that time. It’s the inspiration for the inspiration for Cabaret! It was adapted into a 2011 TV movie starring Matt Smith as Isherwood.