50 Favourite Musicals: 7: CABARET (1966) (John Kander / Fred Ebb)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life.

First performed: 1966, Broadhurst Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1986, Strand Theatre, London

Productions seen: four

Score: John Kander / Fred Ebb

Book: Joe Masteroff

Plot: Writer Cliff Bradshaw arrives in 1930s Berlin seeking inspiration.  Renting a room at Fraulein Schneider's boarding house, Cliff then visits the seedy Kit Kat Klub - presided over by the mysterious MC - and meets extravagant English performer Sally Bowles.  Sally moves in with Cliff the next day and their love affair grows alongside Fraulein Schneider's tentative relationship with Jewish shopkeeper Herr Schultz.  But the darkening shadows of the Nazis are closing in...

Five memorable numbers: CABARET, TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME, WILKOMMEN, WHAT WOULD YOU DO, PERFECTLY MARVELLOUS

CABARET has infiltrated people's imaginations for 54 years, largely due to Bob Fosse's iconic 1972 screen version with the brilliant star wattage of Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles.  It seems remarkable that the film was released only 6 years after the show's Broadway debut but it is a completely different entity to it's source.  Fosse dropped most of the score, any songs that were sung outside the Kit Kat Klub onstage were jettisoned to give his film a more realistic feel; a few sneaked through as background music and of course "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" provided a magnificent set-piece in a beer garden.  So a first-time viewer of the show who has a knowledge of the film - like me in 1986 - is thrown initially with the original storyline.   But CABARET has seen additions and deletions from it's score with almost every stage revival as tastes and directorial conceits change.

The first attempt to musicalize John Van Druten's play I AM A CAMERA based on Christopher Isherwood's GOODBYE TO BERLIN stories was by Sandy Wilson, writer of THE BOY FRIEND - just dwell on that for a minute - but the rights transferred to Harold Prince who decided his SHE LOVES ME writer Joe Masteroff could provide the book, with the score being written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, only their second musical.  The show opened at the Broadhurst Theatre, going on to win 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical.  This production included British actress Jill Haworth as Sally, Joel Grey as the MC, Lotte Lenya as Fraulein Schneider and Jack Gilford as Herr Schultz.  The production transferred to two other theatres before closing in 1969, and by then Prince had reproduced the show at London's Palace Theatre with Judi Dench as Sally (her musical debut), Lila Kedrova as Fraulein Schneider and Peter Sallis as Herr Schultz.  As I mentioned, I first saw CABARET when Gillian Lynne directed a revival at the Strand Theatre which felt off-kilter thanks to an over-emphasis on Wayne Sleep's MC to the detriment of Kelly Hunter's Sally, a real star turn.

Sam Mendes staged his acclaimed revival at the Donmar in 1993, starring Alan Cumming as the MC, Jane Horrocks as Sally and Sara Kestelman as Fraulein Schneider.  Setting it within the cabaret itself and ramping up the sleaze, songs were dropped while others were added.  In 1998 Mendes' production, now co-directed by Rob Marshall, made it to New York where it ran for four years, first at the site-specific Kit Kat Klub then, very appropriately, at Studio 54.  The cast was led again by Cumming with Natasha Richardson as Sally and both won Tony Awards as did the show for Best Musical Revival, losing other awards to THE LION KING juggernaut.  Mendes moving the MC to the centre of the production also meant he closed the show by stripping off an overcoat to reveal he was dressed as a concentration camp inmate.  Taking the sleaze and Nazis route, Rufus Norris directed a London revival in 2006 at the Lyric which starred Anna Maxwell Martin as Sally, James Dreyfus as the MC, Sheila Hancock as Fraulein Schneider and Geoffrey Hutchings as Herr Schultz.  No doubt feeling the need to top the Mendes final image, Norris had the MC joining the Cabaret dancers huddled upstage under a shower of Zyklon-B flakes and the sound of hissing echoing around the stage.  Hey Mr Director... we, the audience DO get the ending of the show.  One wonders how the next revival will end, it's almost like the directors are desperately covering up that they are actually directing a Broadway musical.

CABARET should be higher in the chart, it is at #7 only because it has suffered with misguided productions that the show struggles to overcome.

The obvious choice would be a clip of the Fosse film but I have gone with the original 1966 production at the Tony Awards - just look at the size of the cast - with Joel Grey's MC bidding us Wilkommen.... and who can ever refuse that invitation?