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Kitchen Table Kibitzing: No, 'Cabaret' is not a comedy [1]
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Date: 2025-05-03
Possibly the best test of any film’s “greatness” is the degree to which it sticks in your mind over the years. I first saw “Cabaret” (the 1972 film, not the stage production) as a young teenager, certainly at too young an age to appreciate many of its nuances. Now, over a half century later (and as many have observed) it seems more disturbingly relevant than ever.
I would imagine most people reading this have seen this film or the play on which it is based so I won’t bother to rehash the plot. Both the Broadway production of “Cabaret”’ and the subsequent film are based on a first-hand account of cosmopolitan Weimer Germany just before the full ascendance of the Nazi party. As explained by Sam Moore, writing for the BBC:
The film has its genesis in the largely autobiographical 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, who had travelled to the city in 1929 in pursuit of its vibrant gay scene. There, he lived among a crowd of misfits, who formed the basis for the likes of the ambitiously bright-eyed Sally Bowles and the provocative Master of Ceremonies, who was played by Joel Grey in the 1972 film … What Isherwood found was a country blindly barrelling into the abyss as its inhabitants drowned in decadence. Anti-Semitism was on the rise, Nazi rallies doubled, trebled and quadrupled in size and the bohemians – gay people, communists – all living like every year was their last, were soon to be purged and imprisoned in concentration camps alongside the Jews (Sam Mendes' 1993 theatrical adaptation of the musical ended on this very grim note).
The most recent adaptation, currently on Broadway, starred Adam Lambert (through March) in the key role of the “Master of Ceremonies,” a complex, riveting, ambiguously sinister persona indisputably immortalized by Grey (he won both an Academy and Tony award for his efforts) in both the 1972 film and the play’s initial run.
Here is Grey, now 93, writing about the musical production’s enduring relevance, for the New York Times on November 20, 2024:
The 1960s were a time of social upheaval but also a time of hope. There was a sense that as a society, we were striving toward progress — that the fight for civil rights, for peace, for equality was a fight we could win. “Cabaret,” with its portrayal of a decadent society willfully ignorant of its own demise, provided a stark counterpoint to that hope. It was a warning against the seductive power of distraction, the dangers of apathy and the perils of looking away when history demands that we look closer. Now, in 2024, we find ourselves in a different, far more precarious moment. The recent election of Donald Trump to a second term has left many Americans, particularly those who fought so hard against the forces of authoritarianism and hate, feeling drained and disillusioned. There’s a sense that we have seen this show before, that we know how it ends and that we’re powerless to stop it. Or worse, a sense that even though we are facing dark times, they won’t really affect our own day-to-day lives — echoing the tragically shortsighted assessment of so many European Jews in the 1920s and ’30s.
As Sam Wolfson, writing for the Guardian, March 20, 2025, observes, it appears that some Americans at least have been taking away a different message from that intended, at least judging by their reactions to one of the new production’s more disturbing numbers, “If You Could See Her:”
Every night on a new Broadway production of Cabaret, Adam Lambert waits to see how the audience will react to one of the show’s biggest numbers, If You Could See Her. The song sees Lambert’s Emcee dancing with a performer in a gorilla costume and finishes with him looking into the ape’s eyes singing: “If you could see her through my eyes / She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.”
The film’s version:
As Wolfson notes:
The line is supposed to represent the normalisation of bigotry, demonstrating how the Kit Kat Club, once the most immoderate, carefree cabaret club in Berlin, has amended its routines in order to placate the new Nazi patrons. The moment used to provoke gasps from audiences. But during this run, which spanned the US general election campaign and second Trump presidency, there have been many nights when the cast have heard guffaws in the crowd. Last month, Lambert began addressing the audience directly when they laughed. “No!” he shouted, off-script but in character. “This is not comedy. Pay attention.” ...[T]he audience laughing at an antisemitic line comparing a person in an ape costume to a Jewish woman wasn’t something the show’s production team had expected. That’s why last month, Lambert began calling out theatergoers, on one occasion waiting for the show’s close to tell them to “read a book”.
In his piece for the Times, Grey also took note of this strange reaction observed among many in the audience to the new production:
My initial assessment, when word first reached me about this unusual reaction, was that these must be the triumphant laughs of the complicit, suddenly drunk on power and unafraid to let their bigotry be known. Now I find myself considering other hypotheses. Are these the hollow, uneasy laughs of an audience that has retreated into the comfort of irony and detachment? Are these vocalized signals of acceptance? Audible white flags of surrender to the state of things? A collective shrug of indifference? I honestly don’t know which of these versions I find most ominous, but all of them should serve as a glaring reminder of how dangerously easy it is to accept bigotry when we are emotionally exhausted and politically overwhelmed.
Among the film’s most memorable scenes, as many are well aware, is the depiction of an angelic-faced Hitler youth serenading the crowd of “ordinary” Germans at a beer garden with a rendition of “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” which inspires those citizens to rise and enthusiastically join in. It culminates, inevitably, with the boy proudly performing the Nazi salute:
Grey points out that the current production of “Cabaret” succeeds in skillfully creating a celebratory,“ “immersive,” almost “party environment” which initially lulls the audience into a sense of mirth and complacency. It is only “when the Nazis finally show up” that the audience is jolted back into the reality of what they’re witnessing. Alluding to the current political situation in this country, he wonders, “Will we listen this time, or will we keep laughing until the music stops?”
Ironically enough, I’m attending a party tonight but will check in at some point.
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