Went with Owen to see the new production of CABARET at the Lyric Theatre tonight.

I was looking forward to it but was also a bit trepeditious as from the tone of some of the reviews it appeared to be a case of Director's Theatre where the piece is shoehorned in to fit the director's concept eg. John Doyle's lamentable SWEENEY TODD. There were a few moments when I did want to say to Rufus Norris "stop being so tricksy - the show works goddamn it!" but on the whole I thought it certainly held it's own with the Sam Mendes production that I saw twice on Broadway - and made me look at it anew.

CABARET is an interesting show. An undoubted classic score by Kander & Ebb and a taut book by Joe Masteroff - no scene seems superflous - but one suspects that it's abiding appeal lies not in it's theatre history but in the 1972 film. This presents a problem to any theatre revival as the film bares little resemblance to the actual show and it of course runs the risk of comparison and bafflement on the part of the new audience.

For a start the actual warmth in the show doesn't come from Sally and Cliff but from the supporting roles of Fraulein Schneider, Cliff's landlady, and Herr Schultz, his unassuming Jewish neighbour who recognise the loneliness in each other but whose relationship is stifled by her fear of Nazi reprisals. When the decision was made that the film would ONLY feature songs in the Kit Kat Klub, these two characters were surplus to requirements and their two duets used as background music instead. However as I said the couple provide the only spark of warmth and genuine affection in the show and here the show is rewarded with exquisite performances by Sheila Hancock and Geoffrey Hutchings. Hancock is one of the rare breed of actresses that one instantly relaxes with, you know the character and the audience are in safe hands. Her non-singing singing voice adds to her charm and her final song "If You Were Me" is heartbreaking in it's simplicity. It's a shame the dialogue continues straight after she stops singing robbing her of a deserved round of applause. Poor Geoffrey Hutchings suffers from the Herr Schultz curse though as his song "Meeskite" sung by his character at his engagement party has been 86'd. Mind you this had also disappeared from the Sam Mendes production along with two other songs... although one of these appears again in this production! I guess the inclusion of WHY SHOULD I WAKE UP sung by Cliff all depends on how good a singer you cast. Michael Hayden certainly sings well - I also had seen him play the part in New York - but the role of Cliff is one that I've never seen played well. He may be the narrator of the show but he never seems to have much to do.

And so onto the two roles with the longest shadows cast over them by their film incarnations. As wonderful as Liza Minnelli was as Sally, strictly speaking she was totally wrong. What on earth was a belter of a singer like her doing in a low-rent club like the Kit Kat Klub? Sally is meant to have an average talent at best which fits in with her delusions of grandeur. The best stage Sally I have seen was Kelly Hunter in the production at the Strand - gulp! - 20 years ago which was a vehicle for Wayne Sleep as the MC - a bad idea - but Anna Maxwell Martin slowly gained my interest over the evening - her MAYBE THIS TIME was particularly touching - and by the time Sally had reached her apogee with the title song she had won me over. I could almost see Sally thinking during the song... realizing the lyrics grimly foretelling her own destiny. It's a brave casting choice and she rises to the challenge with a recklessness that is scary to witness but always suggesting Sally's own instability.

I was a bit anxious too about James Dreyfuss as the Emcee, it seemed such obvious casting especially after the huge success that Alan Cumming had in the role. How odd too that Alan Cumming is currently on in the West End in BENT - which is even more obvious casting really. However Dreyfuss was wonderfully malevolent, like a living Otto Dix painting. This struck me in particular during the MONEY SONG when he appears as a fat rich man who sits stuffing his face with money while the girls dance attendance on him. I had expected him to be a lot more camp than he was - he played the role in a gruff gravelly voice and with a hunched menace. As we know the Emcee ushers us in and he is also there to usher us out.

I was wondering how this production - which wilfuly ascerts the darkness of the piece at all times - could top the Mendes finale which was fairly bleak but this one ends in a coup de theatre which freezes the audience in their seats. The first act closes with TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME - here sung beautifully by Alastair Brookshaw - as a Hitler youth while behind him the chorus dance naked, suggesting the Nazi's ideal of Aryan purity and clean-living. The last act ends in a horrible mirror image of this. The Emcee in a dressing gown sings a muted reprise of "Wilkommen" in front of large letters spelling KABARET across the stage, he retreats to join the chorus upstage as a Nazi officer walks casually across the stage knocking the letters over one by one. The lights come up upstage to reveal the Emcee and the chorus slowly huddling together as the Zyklon B flakes fall and a hiss echoes around the stage.

It made me suddenly think of the name Kurt Gerron. Gerron, a successful German actor, director and cabaret performer, is now mostly remembered - if at all - as the owner of the club where Marlene Dietrich sings in THE BLUE ANGEL and who appeared in the original stage version of Brecht's THE THREEPENNY OPERA. His career was cut short as he was a jew and despite fleeing to France, Austria and the Netherlands he was arrested and sent to a series of camps until he was gassed in Auschwitz in 1944. No doubt one of the many cabaret performers from the heady days of the Weimar Republic who ended thus.