Cabaret: Nazis and Strippers and Ed Easton─Oh my!
Thomas Adamo
Content warning: nudity, pornography, anti-semitism. This review contains spoilers.
In premise, Cabaret was the most controversial of all productions in the last few years—the tale of an American Gentleman visiting the infamous ‘Kit Kat Klub’ in Berlin, and the events surrounding him and the people he interacts with. Readers may recall the latest issue of Pink’s coverage of Cabaret. However the reputation the play had in the months running up to the performance was, to some extent, undeserved. It was not an erotic strip-tease bordering pornography, but rather, a harrowing view of the human condition through the lens of the world of Berlin nightlife and the Nazi uprising, sprinkled with hilariously executed innuendo and superbly choreographed dance sequences, which at worst were moderately raunchy, achieving desired effect without taking it too far. The play was very self aware of the dangers that such a production could create and was careful not to over step the limit.
There was clearly a great effort (budgetary and otherwise) in set design. The words Kit Kat Klub were lit by large light bulbs above the stage, and the first row was made up of velvet covered tables, with fans and bottles and German marks, I was lucky enough to get one of these tables, as much of the audience seemed too ashamed to be sitting in the front row, especially the more nervous among them. The live orchestra in the back was also very well managed and never missed a beat. The singing was some of the best the school has had in the the last few years, especially from Darcy Dixon and Louisa Stuart-Smith, although the accents at times were a bit iffy; most noticeably, some of the German Accents came and went.
Cliff Bradshaw (Alex Fleming-Brown), a novelist, tired of his usual haunts of Paris, Rome and Vienna, searches for inspiration. He finds it in an invitation from Ernst Ludwig (Charlie Howe) on a train to the Kit Kat Klub. Frau Schneider (Darcy Dixon) shows him a place to stay. Cliff visits the club and meets Sally Bowles, a performing girl. Sally becomes pregnant after they fall in love; they nevertheless stay together, with Cliff finding work as a smuggler for Ernst. On finding that this smuggling is for the Nazi Party, he refuses to continue. At the same time, Frau Schneider and Herr Schultz (Parth Agarwal), a Jewish fruit shop owner, become engaged, but postpone the marriage due to the rise of the Nazis. There is a certain cruel irony in the line ‘After all what would they do to me? I am a German!’ Cliff, after confronting Ernst, is restrained by other Nazis; on returning to Sally, he discovers that she has decided to abort their baby after all; she returns to work at the club, whilst Cliff leaves Germany. The song concludes with the master of ceremonies, sitting alone in a concentration camp, singing ‘Life’s a Cabaret old chum, Life’s a Cabaret!’
The two worlds created in this play, that of the outside world and that of the Club, provide an excellent contrast. The club and the master of ceremonies, who I can only describe as a transient mime on every side of the fourth wall, played impossibly well by part time Joker impersonator Ed Easton (more on him later) , portray the raunchy, fun aspect of life, full of pleasure and good times; the high life life can also be seen in the blossoming of Schneider and Schultz’s relationship. However, both are torn down by the cruel reality of the outside world, and as the play progresses, the club becomes more sinister as the outside world does, creating a veritable Rocky Horror Picture Show, featuring a song about a Gorilla, who is then described as looking Jewish, a more distorted and sinister Cabaret line up, and finally in the most harrowing final moment, the master of ceremonies in striped attire sitting in a concentration camp with neon swastikas in the background.
Ed Easton completely steals the show, from the moment his overly made up face appears from behind the curtains; his slightly creepy, yet downright hilarious delivery became the focus of every scene he was in, his songs were the most enjoyable, his jokes, the funniest, and his physical acting was in a league of its own. The highlight of my experience was when he awkwardly fondled my hair during one of the sequences. It was incredible that he never broke character, even for a second, despite everything that was going on, and seeing him in fishnet stockings and high heels just added to the icing on the cake. His singing too, was of very high standard and he remained the star of the show throughout.
There is also the excellent chemistry between Alex Fleming Brown and Louisa Stuart Smith, who both give a great performance and sing perfectly well. However the impression was given at some points in the first half that they were just reading from a script, and it did not feel as natural as it could have been. That being said, in the second act, there was a lot more feeling put into each word and it generally felt more believable. However, the best couple chemistry had to go to Parth Agarwal and Darcy Dixon—their song about how he gives her a pineapple is both sweet and hilarious: Parth plays the goofy, well meaning Schultz very well, and the scene that got the most suggestive ‘Ooooo’ from the audience, in a play replete with innuendos, was when Schneider told Schultz that she was to consider his offer of marriage, but that he has reason to be optimistic, which epitomised the connexion between them.
Cabaret was nevertheless imperfect; some songs went too far, the most prominent of these was ‘Two Ladies’, in which Ed Easton describes his living arrangement with two of the girls from the Cabaret, (Mina Polo and Clara Falkowska). The song was no doubt hilarious, with the constant appearance of Luke Buckley Harris generating laugh after laugh. But at times the casual misogyny was too much—the line ‘I do the cooking, she does the cleaning’ for example sent palpable waves of discomfort throughout the audience, as did Ed Easton piping at the very start—‘[a]nd each of them a virgin!’ Though these problems were caused by the script, not the actors, it was still uncomfortable to hear, given the age of those on the stage. The first half was a little too long, though the second half was better done.
Despite its flaws Cabaret was a fittingly bizarre ride down the velvet staircase into darkness full of hilarious songs, excellent acting, and ultimately harrowingly concluded by an ending which shows us what really happens once the party has ended.