maybe next time…
Still not sure about why the new production of Cabaret at the lyric was so flat.
The book, the music, the lyrics are all great.
The actors are all very good actors.
The dancers weren’t really asked to do a lot (’Pretend you’re in a touring verison of Chicago’ seems to have been the brief), but they did it, and had spent a long time at the gym in preparation.
The costumes and sets (along with the small orchestra and reduced ‘corps de ballet’ were a little indicative of a fairly tight purse, but it could still have worked.
Except, it didn’t really fly. Or plunge.
And I think, if that piece is to work, that’s the trajectory you should see: The soaring freedom of Cliff arriving in a place where anything can happen; the joy of meeting all those strange characters; the blooming love of Fraulein Schneider (Sheila Hancock with a Norwegian accent) / Herr Schultz; the slight unease at the unabashed greed and sensuality of some of them; and then, finally, the realisation that it’s too late, that it’s beyond doomed, it’s already dead.
Instead, it felt like a lesson on the banality of evil. And Banal, we can get from any number of sources these days.
D and I weren’t sure if it was a greater disappointment than Lestat. But it was definitely not as heartbreakingly well done as (the imperfect) ‘Last 5 Years’ last week.
Still, at least they’ve moved the opening back from Yom Kippur. That would have been so…distasteful. and this production is nothing if not ‘tasteful’*.
But why take my word for it? Bob has a much more incisive autopsy report. Why’nt ya head on over and see?
*by ‘tasteful’, I mean, of course, terminally tedious.