By Kiera Garcia – Associate Culture Editor
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club is one of the most critically acclaimed productions worldwide and I was able to see it performed on the West End this January. The production promises to draw you in with colorful numbers and enigmatic characters, and to leave you with a heightened awareness of how quickly one ideology can take over a country.
For those unfamiliar with it, the play is set in Berlin in the 1930s, focusing on ‘The Kit Kat Club’, its host of dancers, enigmatic Emcee, and those who frequent it. The characters include Clifford Bradshaw, an American author, Sally Bowles, a British performer at the club, Fräuline Schneider, the woman who runs their boarding house, Herr Schultz, a boarder who ends up courting her, and Ernst Ludwig, a man Clifford meets on the train to Berlin who smuggles money in for a vague ‘political cause’. Now, if you have any knowledge of Berlin in the 1930s, you’d know that this story is set during the prelude to World War II, specifically the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Even if you don’t, the play insists that you are aware by the end.
All of this is narrated and observed by the Emcee of the club. I had the privilege of seeing Adam Gillen in the role of Emcee and he truly set the tone of the performance. His interpretation of the Emcee as lively and playful ,with a few screws loose, falls in line with the expectations of the character. However, as the play progresses Gillen steadily adds an aire of mania and hostility to the previously peculiar yet enchanting character. This is reflected most specifically in the phrase that the Emcee uses to introduce the Cabaret girls and boys every night: ‘We have no troubles here. In here, life is beautiful.’ At the beginning of the performance, this is easy to believe. There are dancers swirling across the stage in colorful outfits, lively music, and the individuality of each performer takes precedence. By the end of the play, the Emcee is not just saying it, but insisting upon it, yelling it at the audience as if to say ‘do not question this’.
The Kit Kat Club itself serves as a thermometer for the outside world, despite its goal of remaining a place where everyone can come and forget their troubles. It is first introduced as a queer-friendly, if not almost exclusively queer, space; a sort of home for those that are ostracised in mainstream society. As the play progresses, the performers lose their uniqueness, each slowly beginning to dress more and more uniform.This identical, almost militaristic portrayal of the performers signifies the extent to which the Nazi party had pervaded all levels of German society. It shows that fascism has slowly crept into the workings of the everyday until somewhere that once was a prominent counterculture becomes as militaristic and ordered as everywhere else.
This is not only seen in the club, but in the everyday lives of the characters. Herr Schultz and Fräuline Schneider’s engagement party is interrupted by Ernst Ludwig’s as he states his disapproval of their union on the basis of Herr Schultz being Jewish. In tandem with this disapproval, he removes his coat and his Nazi armband is revealed. Throughout the play there have been signs of change but this scene in particular at the engagement party strikes as the true change of the play’s direction from a study of eccentric characters to a clear commentary on the presence of the Nazi party and its ideological domination in Berlin.
This reveal is meant to be especially shocking for Clifford, as he had earned some money working for Ernst Ludwig’s political cause. He had said, upon taking the job of smuggling funds from Paris to Berlin, that he did not care what it was for and simply was doing it to earn extra money for him and Sally. His ignorance and lack of care has led to him smuggling in funds for the Nazi’s, an organisation he strongly detests. As Ernst goes to leave from the party due to his disapproval of Fräuline Schneider marrying a Jewish man, Fräuline Kost, one of the borders, tries to convince him to stay by singing ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’. Although this song was created for the musical, it is clearly meant to represent a Nazi propaganda song, as many of the German characters begin to sing it alongside her. It is only Sally, Clifford, Herr Schultz, and Fräuline Schneider who do not take part, looking around the stage at all of their friends and neighbours who are suddenly taking part in such a sinister practice.
In a prior conversation between Sally and Clifford where Clifford is starting to show concern over the political happenings in Berlin, Sally asks him ‘What does politics have to do with us?’. This is a perspective shared by quite a few of the characters who seem to be blissfully and intentionally ignorant to the effects of the rise of fascism and ignorance in the country. The scene at the engagement party shows that this reality of the rise of the Nazi party is unable to be ignored, whether it is the attitudes towards Herr Schultz by those he once called his neighbours or the fear that becomes palpable within the Kit Kat Club.
As the play ends, there is a sense of despair that envelopes all of those on stage. Sally, a character who has previously been portrayed as flighty, oblivious, and typically a bit drunk suddenly comes crashing down to earth. Clifford, who had previously said they should raise the child she is pregnant with together, tells her that they need to go back to America as it is no longer safe in Berlin. She refuses and ends up having one last manic, chaotic performance at the club before going to the doctor to have an abortion. She changes from this aloof performer and instead quickly becomes a very real and troubled person.
Every production of Cabaret has its own take on the ending. One of the most famous endings was Alan Cumming’s performance in which the show ends with the Emcee appearing to be in a concentration camp. This production took a very opposite turn with the Emcee, right as Clifford leaves on the train to Paris, appearing on stage with all of the performers. Those who were once in frilly bloomers and personality based costumes end in identical beige suits, marching around the Emcee. He seems to take a sort of enjoyment out of seeing this fate and the curtain drops with a certain horrifying realisation that, like many other characters in the show, he has sold out to the Nazi party and the descent to fascism is ever quickening.
Cabaret has always been a musical about warnings and cementing the idea that the atrocities committed by the Nazi’s must be discussed and remembered so as not to repeat them. In this day and age, with the rise of far-right extremism across Western Europe and America, we must actively remember these atrocities and the consequences that came with them. To see a billionaire appear to give a Nazi salute upon the election of a far-right leader who instills the belief of out-groups as the cause for the country’s economic failings, is far too explicit to assume that we will not see a return of the oppression that fascism brings. Heed the warning of Cabaret and be sure to always, always pay attention.
Illustration By Lucy Griffiths