Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Led by Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, London’s hotly anticipated CABARET descends on Broadway, mis-judged

• By drediman
• May 13, 2024
• No Comments

It’s fascinating to gauge how much of a delicate balance live theater can be. For example, take the current Broadway of revival of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s classic musical Cabaret (which is currently selling out at the extensively reconfigured August Wilson Theatre) — when I saw the production in London, I adored it without reservation (granted, I saw one of the subsequent replacement casts). But due to the mysterious alchemy of theater, I somehow walked away from the Broadway edition of the production unaffected and more than a tad disappointed. What happened to Rebecca Frecknall’s hotly anticipated production on its journey across the pond en route to New York?

Most would agree that Cabaret is one of the most well-written musicals out there. Indeed, taken together, the book by Joe Masteroff and the score by Kander and Ebb are models of musical theater writing at its most effective. It’s no secret that Frecknall’s production makes bold revisionist decisions, particularly as it relates to its portrayal of some of the musical’s iconic characters. For Broadway, it seems that the director has doubled down on her choices, to the extent that they’ve started working against the writers’ original intent for the piece. More than ever, the game Eddie Redmayne’s Emcee registers not quite human as so much as an elusive abstraction — an angel of doom orchestrating the proceedings. As for Sally Bowles, Gayle Rankin is all agency without an ounce of tragic vulnerability. And somehow, the typically compelling Ato Blankson-Wood gives a bizarrely blank performance as Cliff Bradshaw. These decisions add up to a lukewarm jumble that doesn’t quite make sense within the context of the musical’s narrative thrust.

Scanning closest to the original vision of Cabaret — and therefore coming across most successfully — are Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell playing, respectively, Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, an older couple who fall into and out of love. They give heartbreaking performances that most clearly articulate the cautionary tale so central to any worthwhile production of the musical. I also applaud Frecknall’s intensely immersive approach — the preshow performances (more elaborate in New York than in London) seductively pull you into the seedy world of early 1930s Berlin. Too bad the rest of this misjudged production so severely takes you out of that world.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

CABARET
Broadway, Musical
August Wilson Theatre
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Open run