In 1966, when the John Kander-Fred Ebb musical “Cabaret” first appeared on Broadway, audiences were dazzled and disconcerted by the depiction of life in early 1930s Berlin.
Joel Gray played the host of the Kit Kat Club; he would reprise the role in the Oscar-winning 1972 film version, urging patrons to “leave your troubles outside!”
But it’s a threatening invitation, because waiting in the wings is the horror of the Nazi Third Reich.
“Cabaret is a place of hope,” said actress Gayle Rankin. “And I think that’s why all these really extraordinary beings go down there, and how that hope is dashed and shattered and destroyed.”
Is “Cabaret” a warning? “For me it is,” said actor Eddie Redmayne. “It shows hope, joy, aspiration, but it shows how progress can be taken away from you and we can regress.”
Marc Brenner
In the all-new production, retitled “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club,” which opens this weekend on Broadway, Rankin plays today’s funny, light-hearted and vivacious singer, Sally Bowles, a role immortalized by Liza Minnelli in the film. “I started thinking about Liza the other night and I thought: Stop! Stop that!” she laughed. “I was like: I honor you, I honor you, I honor you, I have to go on stage now!“
And a serpentine Redmayne wows the crowd as emcee. “Every night, underneath wherever you are, I kind of emerge from here (with) this iconic drum roll. I’m standing down there, waiting to be propelled onto the stage, and I have the “I feel like I’m going to the guillotine. And then, just as it starts to build, something euphoric happens.”
Marc Brenner
Rankin and Redmayne have already been to “Cabaret”; her, in a supporting role in the 2014 revival with Alan Cumming; Redmayne (Oscar and Tony winner) in the London staging of this new production in 2021.
But his relationship goes back even further: “I was about 14 or 15, I was at school and I was chosen as a host. And I had never listened to ‘Cabaret,’ so that was my introduction. And something about that experience struck me. I don’t come from a very theatrical family, but from a very young age I was like, “Oh, that’s it.” what I want to do. And my parents were like, “Okay, but we hear all the statistics about actors not working and I don’t know, is that the problem?”
“And I’ll never forget that after they came to see my school’s production of ‘Cabaret,’ they said, ‘Go for it.'”
For this production, the stage is surrounded by seats on three sides. In a radical reinvention of the August Wilson Theater, designer Tom Scutt ripped out the old stage and added seats to create a nightclub in the round.
“It has to be different,” Scutt said. “It must shake us and take us to a different world, and make us forget where we are and who we are. This can only happen if you see other members of the public experiencing the same thing as us. You (are ), the same feelings as you I think the more we can do that, the better.
Marc Brenner
Even getting to your place in this production is an experience. Rather than entering through the front doors of the theater, residents of this Kat Kat Club enter from the side to watch a show. Before the show. Redmayne said: “You’re taken into these cavernous bars and you meet extraordinary artists, musicians, dancers, the idea being that once you enter the theater – the theater proper – you’ve truly left all your problems out. Weimar, Germany.”
Two-time Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth said, “They lull you into a feeling that makes you realize how bad evil is.”
Neuwirth plays Fräulein Schneider, the kindly guesthouse owner who falls in love with a Jew and then faces a terrible decision. “There is darkness and light in everything,” Neuwirth said. “And in this show, there is light and there is also horror.”
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When asked why “Cabaret” kept coming back, Neuwirth said, “The first answer is the music, because it’s just glorious. It’s also, unfortunately, timeless, because it’s also a story about the invasion of evil, and what do we do in the face? Do we recognize it?
“Even in the happiest moments, it’s there, right?” Rocca asked.
“It’s true,” Neuwirth said. “You can feel it right outside the theater doors. Just outside there’s rumbling.”
The musical “Cabaret” celebrates its 58th anniversary this year. Original emcee Joel Gray recently visited the theater to celebrate his 92nd birthday and conferred his blessing on Eddie Redmayne, Gayle Rankin and the rest of the company. They hope to welcome even more customers to their club.
“Oh, my God, wait until my mom and dad come,” Redmayne said. “They’re so excited. My dad, I talked to him the other day, he said, ‘I hate the fact that you’re in New York. I could be there every night!’
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Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Ed Givnish.
See also:
In 2023, Joel Gray and John Kander received Lifetime Achievement Tony Awards. In this special video tribute, the actors who played host in the London production of “Cabaret” (Olivier Award winner Eddie Redmayne, Callum Scott Howells, Matthew Gent, Fra Fee, Mason Alexander Park and John McCrea) pay tribute to Gray and Kander. for their astonishing musical theater creations:
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