Cabaret is a difficult show to do well. It weaves together two different stories: one is the goings-on inside the Kit Kat Club, a seedy cabaret in 1930 Berlin; the other is the romance between an aspiring American novelist named Cliff and an English dancer at the Kit Kat Club, Sally. The former story is racy and provocative, and the latter more delicate and emotional; the most difficult part of presenting Cabaret is to tell the stories in such a way that they complement each other rather than clash.
The director Ramin Sabi has made some interesting and ambitious decisions, but the cast can’t quite pull them off. The exaggerated sleaziness of the Kit Kat Club and the heavy-handed German accents of the actors are funny at first, but they wear out their welcome long before the end of the 90-minute first act. Mark Dlugash is funny and successful in his portrayal of the cabaret’s vulgar MC, to the point that the cabaret scenes almost completely overwhelm any softness that the love story of Cliff and Sally might have brought to the show. The audience is therefore denied any emotional engagement with the performance until the second act, subjected instead to watching innumerable suggestive dances and slapstick jokes.
The dance routines looked as if they needed to be rehearsed a few more times, as the dancers were often out of time with each other. It’s possible this clumsiness was a deliberate decision on the part of the choreographers, but deliberate or not, it distracted from the more praiseworthy parts of the show, especially the music. The band is lively and talented, and some of the performers are really gifted singers, which helps to compensate for the uneven dancing and acting.
Thankfully, the show improves significantly after the intermission, despite a less-than-promising first number where the chorus dancers’ energy felt low and the choreography not very well-rehearsed. As the Nazis become more powerful in Germany, the cabaret changes to reflect the atmosphere of the external world, with dancing evocative of military marching and the Nazi salute. At the same time, the political climate adds tension to the story of Sally and Cliff, and the audience is finally drawn into the play. The tone of the performance also becomes darker, revealing the emotional range of some of the performers. Alice Pearse, in particular, has a beautifully sorrowful solo number, 'Cabaret'.
Cabaret is a little shocking, a little dull, a little funny, a little bad, a little good. By the end, “you learn to settle for what you get” from the performance, as Fraulein Schneider sings in the first act. But Fraulein Schneider’s song is a little bitter, and I have to say, I am disappointed that Cabaret never realises its potential.