Cabaret, part 4, posts starting 10/19/24

So great that Eddie saw the show! Maybe it was good that Adam didn't know he was there. He might have been really nervous. But then again, I don't think Adam gets nervous in situations like that. He's just Adam, giving his usual 1000%.

The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist. At least, so it’s been said. In turn, the greatest trick Nazism ever played was convincing Americans it couldn’t happen here. Worse, that it didn’t happen here. It did and obviously it is again. That’s all to lay the foundation for why Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret is so vital. Director Rebecca Frecknall’s interpretation currently playing at the August Wilson Theatre cranks up the vitality, deftly walking the tightrope between truly entertaining and completely chilling.

If you’ve followed this production from its West End origins, you know that it’s one that puts the audience in the role of Kit Kat Club patrons. Thankfully, the August Wilson hasn’t been completely converted to a night club. Though there’s lurid pre-show entertainment in the lobby, you can sit away from the spotlights.

That doesn’t reduce our complicity in the production. This also began with Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee, on one level just what the character name suggests, but on another, a disturbing observer and commentator on what is happening in the last days of the Weimar Republic. He’s almost supernatural.

Redmayne has long left, and as has become standard with clever revivals, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club replaces one celebrity with another in the key role. It’s a brilliant casting. Out and proud rock star Adam Lambert reminds us that he started out as a theater kid, and the energy he brings to the Emcee hammers home the tragedy and terror of where this musical goes.

More..  fanboyplanet.com/cabaret-at-the-kit-kat-club/