THEATER REVIEW | ‘CABARET’

Raunchy and Vibrant, With Nazis Looming
By AILEEN JACOBSON

Published: February 11, 2011

Cast members in Cabaret at the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport

Even before the M.C. gushes his greetings of “wilkommen” and “welcome,” officially opening Cabaret, other actors at the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport have been busy onstage engaging the audience. While people are still taking their seats, men wearing black vests over bare chests and women in scanty underwear practice their musical instruments, cast seductive glances as they stretch their tattooed bodies or trade risqué banter with theater patrons: “Do you like boys or girls?” It’s a relief to report that this production of Cabaret is as raw, raunchy and unsanitized as the dark-hued musical demands. The fear that it wouldn’t be arose mainly because the show, with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and book by Joe Masteroff, comes toward the end of a season of family-friendly classic musicals, most recently The Sound of Music. That musical, too, has the Nazis’ approach as part of its theme. But Cabaret, set nearly a decade earlier in the Berlin of 1929 and 1930, as the Nazi Party slowly builds its power, is far scarier. The director, BT McNicholl, and his talented cast are delivering a polished black diamond of a show, flashing with wild exuberance as undertones of danger peep through. Based on stories by Christopher Isherwood and a play adapted from them by John van Druten, the musical is framed by the relationship between Clifford Bradshaw, a young American writer, and Sally Bowles, a British chanteuse trying to start a career at the seedy Kit Kat Club. Like the German characters, these two outsiders also search for meaning and a moral center in an era spiraling toward disaster. Crucial to the action is the M.C., played with reptilian charm by Jon Peterson, who has been acting in the role off and on since 1999, first during the national tour of the Broadway production that ran from 1998 to 2004, later as an understudy on Broadway and then at the Westchester Broadway Theater and Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine. He is still fresh, lively and entertaining. Equally strong is Lori Wilner as Fräulein Schneider, Clifford’s landlady, who is having a romance with Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor tenderly portrayed by Scott Robertson (who played the role on Broadway). Fräulein Schneider is not Jewish, which leads to a dilemma that has her singing “What Would You Do?” Ms. Wilner — who made her name in the 1980s playing a Jewish heroine in “Hannah Senesh” — offers an agonizing apologia for Germans who felt compelled to acquiesce to Nazi ideology. Herr Schultz reveals himself as a Jew who refused to believe what could happen. Fred Rose as Ernst Ludwig, a young man who at first seems benign, and Laura Shoop as Fräulein Kost, a prostitute who finds a way out, both display nuances in their smaller roles. Adam Greer is appropriately stalwart as Clifford, and Kate Fahrner is bright-eyed and energetic as Sally, but they take a back seat here, though Sally is usually considered a star of the musical. Ms. Fahrner is sometimes mechanical showing the damaged side of Sally — it’s hard when you have a dazzling white smile — but doesn’t detract from the hard-edged show. This production is, according to the program, “inspired by” the version that originated at Donmar Warehouse in London in 1993, directed by Sam Mendes, who also directed the 1998 Broadway revival. Mendes’s vision differed from the original 1966 Broadway show directed by Harold Prince with Joel Grey as the M.C. Among other changes, the Kit Kat Girls and Boys also became the band. In Northport, these actors — who set the play’s tone at the beginning — supplement the band. The robust choreography is by Andrea Christine Leigh and Michael O’Donnell. Mr. O’Donnell is also the associate director, a title held in the Broadway production by Mr. McNicholl, who went on to stage Cabaret in Australia, Paris and Madrid. Court Watson’s bilevel set and Gail Baldoni’s costumes look good, and Richard Latta’s stark lighting helps to bring the show to a chilling end.