Some moments in life overwhelm you out of the blue. They touch you and remind you of places you’ve been, of things you’ve seen. On a cold Saturday night after a sunny October day, I found myself in the Hoof ’n Horn production Cabaret at the Rubenstein Center of Arts and Media, dreaming. I started to dream about Berlin, a city of memories.
When I moved to Berlin two years ago for my studies, I was drawn to its vibrant cultural scene—people walking everywhere from Spandau to Treptow, a stunning film museum, two national galleries, bars on rooftops and Kneipen (pubs) in basements. It’s a vivid metropolis. An incredible number of well-known German theatre and film artists worked there as well (Marlene Dietrich, Lotte Lenya, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Wilder, and Fritz Lang). I name these artists not coincidentally. They all left Germany in the 1930s, moved to the US, and took their culture with them, to wit, just as rapidly as the golden 1920s stimulated the city culture, the rise of the Nazis destroyed it again.
Cabaret is embedded in this rise of cultural experience in the 1920s and its decline in the early 1930s. It is originally based on the Berlin novels by Christopher Isherwood, a homosexual writer who lived in Berlin in the 1930s and experienced a town of freedom, queerness, clubs, and arts. Cabaret somewhat mirrors his life: Set in the fictional Kit Kat Klub in the rough district of Berlin-Schöneberg, the musical is centered around American writer Clifford Bradshaw, played by Harry Holden-Brown, who hopes to find inspiration in the vibrant town to write a novel. Paris and London could not help him. Clifford had relationships with men, such as the London dancer Bobby (Reese Ritter). In the night club, he also meets the broke London dancer Sally Bowles (Sarah Sedrish), who is later fired. They become a couple—at least for the time being.
Watching Hoof ’n Horn’s production of Cabaret, I was transported back to a Berlin that couldn’t be closer to the original. When Fräulein Schneider (Jane Palladino), Clifford’s landlady, mentions all the references to Berlin places, such as Nollendorfplatz in the district of Schöneberg or the Adlon Hotel, I immersed myself in memories of a city that, after two world wars, has kept its nostalgic charm. Still, you can find a bunch of small bars around Nollendorfplatz, ringing out music like the Kit Kat Klub. Still, you can see the Adlon Hotelwhen walking to Brandenburg Gate. And still, you can hear the rushing U-Bahn (subway) in the distance.
The actors on stage endeavour to convey the Berlin feeling that persists today. And, as a German, I can say I’ve rarely heard such brilliant German accents! Each actor shows a mastery of pronunciation: “Hals- und Beinbruch,” says Fräulein Schneider (Jane Palladino), literally meaning “neck and leg break” and “good luck” in a rough-hearted, metaphorical way. Ja, ach, Glück, might think the German speaker when the German-harsh Fräulein Schneider dances a romantic waltz with Herr Schultz (Terry Gershman). Herr Schultz and Fräulein Kost sing, “Oh, wie wunderbar” (“Oh, how wonderful”). It is almost like one of those German provincial theaters, where I once watched the operetta Im Weißen Rößl (The White Horse Inn). Thoroughly, the cast crafts German pronunciation not stereotypically, but authentically and gently. I started to realize how beautiful variations of language can be, from energetic prostitutes like Fräulein Kost (Sophie Yost) with that gentle German accent, up to an American-sounding American, a British-posh-sounding club dancer, or a queer Emcee (Michael Albert), who announces the different numbers in the Kit Kat Klub: “Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!” he sings at the beginning of the musical. In other words, we embrace the world. Yes, that’s Berlin. International, cultural, a little queer, full of energy all the time. Ach ja.
As for the set, Cabaret is guided by Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt, or alienation effect: just a few musicians, a few requisites, broken narrative structures. Two or three actors in total on stage. No pomposity. The audience was supposed to be distanced from the characters in order to reflect on the social conflict on stage. Cabaret does the same to us to some extent, tatsächlich: no bright, lavish stage setting, no huge orchestras like in the movie musicals. Just a few actors, a table, a few doors in the background. A band on top of the stage, in a small shed, musically highlighting a clarinet and a saxophone. They play swinging bar music you might have experienced in the 1920s, mostly with a two-quarter beat.
Social conflict lurks everywhere in Cabaret: the characters struggle with poverty, expatriation, their sexual identity, Nazism, antisemitism, and abortion. While the Kit Kat Klub dancers are dancing in tight, bright dresses, the economic crisis is hanging over Berlin like a Sword of Damocles. While Berlin was producing expressionist poems, films au Murnau et Lang, and those paintings students analyzes nowadays in school, everybody was broke and depressed. The war was lost, Germany’s democracy was fatally close to the abyss, and on top of all that, the inflation was pain in the ass. Again and again, the acting is interrupted by music numbers to distance the audience from the otherwise amusing performance, and the club director adds his comments. “Money makes the world go around,” the thoroughly choreographed cast sings in one scene, desperately reaching for non-existent money in the air. Old Berliners (“Watt is’n jetze los?!”) from our days would probably agree that the statement is still somehow valid: Despite its glamor, the city is often seen as a poor part of Germany. Not long ago a mayor campaigned with the slogan “Poor but sexy.”
Cabaret mirrors the world of the socially excluded, the marginalized, threatened by the temptation of dangerous ideologies. It is the world of little people, the world of Fräulein Schneiders, Kosts, Schultzes, and last but not least, Bowles and Bradshaws. Like Berlin, the musical encapsulates the ups and downs of its time. Once you have finally found your luck the evilness arises and throws you back, often leading to shattering, incomprehensible reactions. My legs started to shake when Herr Ludwig (Lane Miller) is revealed as a Nazi at Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz’s engagement party. Herr Schultz is Jewish, and suddenly the downward spiral begins. All goes so fast. Everybody looks at Schultz. The dream of the magic city fades. I feel the tears coming. The time of fascism that we talked about so much in school. Clifford resists the Nazis. The only one. He is American. Not German. The most shameful time of Germany. The end. They beat him up. Fräulein Schneider dissolves the engagement. Her business. Nazis everywhere in the neighborhood. Berlin’s brightness transforms into darkness. The sword of Damocles. “Life is a cabaret, old chump,” Sally sings towards the end with a broken voice, gazing at the audience. But we can’t believe her. The world is spinning out of control. Sally has an abortion. And Clifford goes back to Paris. Like the many artists I named at the beginning, he left Germany before it was too late. There is no dramatic ending. We don’t know what will happen. Clifford is gone; the others stay. There is no shock on stage. Just the Emcee again, singing his “Willkommen.” I feel the macabre tone; puzzlement and silence in the audience. It’s the hour of uncertainty. Hopelessness. No one can envision the future. What begins as a journey of memories, nostalgia, and culture transforms into a warning. May the darkness never return to Berlin.
Let’s always say, “Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
by Luis Pintak
