Come to The Dio’s “Cabaret”
PINCKNEY – Cabaret is one of the most iconic and familiar shows and soundtracks in theatre history. Fortunately, the Dio – Dining and Entertainment theatre, when they decided to take it on, chose their cast extremely well to bring the Nazi-era musical to their stage.
The first thing to note is that the version that Dio artistic director Steve DeBruyne (who also plays the Emcee) chose to bring to his stage is the script of the 1998 revival, not the original 1966; there are different plot twists and changes of songs from the original.
Liz Jaffe in Cabaret
The story takes place in 1931 Berlin Germany as the Nazis are rising to power. The story focuses on an American writer, Clifford Bradshaw (Peter Crist) who arrives and meets shady German Ernst Ludwig (Jared Schneider) who puts him on to a cheap boarding house run by Fraulein Schneider (Olive Hayden-Moore).
Bradshaw falls into the culture and red-light scene of the Kit-Kat Club, and into a relationship with Cabaret performer Sally Bowles (Elizabeth Jaffe).
The core of the show is the Emcee who performs, lurks, and narrates the show, as well as the show within the show. DeBruyne, once again, shows his elastic range for acting and singing. The same actor who has played Bobby in Company and Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees, dons the white-face makeup and bawdy attire, and delivers on the Emcee’s sarcastic, over-sexualized humor that made the original Cabaret seem so naughty for the time. He’s funny and sardonic, and DeBruyne’s pipes are in fine form. Jaffe delivers her most complete performance to date. Often seen in comedic character roles, Jaffe’s “Maybe This Time” summed up her grasp of the character’s literally and emotionally damaged insides. Her vocals were strong and believable, while also showing the cracks of a singer and performer at times hurting too much to sound so perfectly resonant.
There is another key relationship in Cabaret –that of Fraulein Schneider and the kindly neighborhood fruit seller Herr Schultz who is besotted with the Frau. Hayden-Moore was inspired casting, as her attractive nature combined with a world-weary demeanor allows her to embody the lady who will in one moment berate tenant Fraulein Kost for entertaining a parade of sailors in her room, to showing her own self to be more than receptive to the not-so-chaste interest from Schultz. Her ultimate fate with Schultz is played to a believable heart-rending crescendo. Dale Dobson seems almost born to play the sweet, adoring good-guy to all with a heart that seems always open. And he plays the confident, self-assured, yet ultimately vulnerable, Schultz to just the right notes.
Katie Lietz Bailey, McKara Bechler, Lydia Adams and Natalie Rose Sevick play the Kit Kat girls, and display a very good chemistry, which is key, because they have a lot of stage time. Sevick, doubling as Kost, excels as the anything-to-pay-the-rent demimonde, especially when she sings a solo in German.
The character of Bradshaw, I have always found, is one of the more thankless parts in the American theatre. Writer Joe Masteroff has written him that way – in addition to what moments he does have being over-shadowed by the huge characterizations of both the Emcee and Sally Bowles. Crist does a good, solid workman-like job with what he is given to work with. But in none of the half-dozen productions I have seen, including on Broadway, as well as the film, has anyone been able to make Bradshaw much more than a prop for the rest of the cast.
The ensemble players – Brian E. Buckner, James Fischer, Nick Pettengill and Victor McDermott, all make their scattered turns tight and compelling, which helps the production stay on a very solid track throughout. Matt Tomich’s one-piece, two level set works nicely to convey the increasingly drab atmosphere of 1931 Germany, as well as the frayed edges of the Kit-Kit Club. Brian Rose’s music direction brought out the best in a very vocally talented cast, and his ensemble of drums, reeds, trombone and trumpet with Rose on piano surrounded the players from their second story perch.
The ending of Cabaret, changed a bit from the original to the revival, is startling to those who have never seen the play before. It’s not a happy ending. But what is so compelling about this play, besides the memorable music, and this company’s deft handling of the overall production, is how crushingly relevant the story is in 2016, fifty years after its debut on Broadway. Divisions in our society, often violent – based on religion, race and politics–is sadly evident in our headlines and newsfeeds every hour of every day. And just as there was an election looming in Germany in 1931 that would change the course of Germany and the world, so does the U.S. face a highly consequential election.
The timing could not be better to look at a seemingly timeless musical performed so well to make us think about how we have not come so far as we’d like to think in fifty years.