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grondficPart 1 can be found here -
https://grondfic.dreamwidth.org/31415.html
Author's Note
So sorry this has taken so long! As you will see below, the review rather took on a life of its own (and even then there were things I ran out of time/space to say about it).
Ironically, since I started writing, the show had to temporarily close due to COVID (although, like most theatres, it re-opened again), in spite of all the extra precautions it took. Happily it's due to continue at least until April and perhaps (with some cast changes) longer than that!
Anyway, I hope I can now get on with reviewing all the other wonderful things we saw between Cabaret and Christmas Carol just before Christmas.
*****
OK, so the first thing to say is - "Forget the film!" This piece is adapted from the original stage version of the musical; and contains a few songs and one plotline that doesn't occur in the film. The story here is thus more concise, and very much more pointed than that of the 1972 film.
WARNING for possible spoilers, if you plan on attending the Kit Kat Club:
I guess I should begin exactly where this all started - with Eddie Redmayne; returning to stage-work after eleven years. From the pre-publicity, it appears that it was Eddie who recruited Jessie Buckley to play Sally Bowles; and - having seen the Rebecca Frecknall-directed Summer and Smoke at the Almeida in 2018 - approached her to direct Cabaret. In spite of my early Kit Kat induced reservations, I have to admit that the results were inspired.
Redmayne plays the Emcee, and dominates the small, circular playing-space (it's hardly even a stage) like a colossus. He can act (properly, I mean - onstage!); and (rather to my surprise and delight) he can sing - powerfully and expressively. His Emcee is first and foremost a Clown, and (as Berlin progresses through the 1930s) a shape-shifting one, mirroring the political and social changes taking place. These are indicated subtly to start with - the clown costumes becoming more and more outrageous until he sings Money makes the world go round as an over-the-top, white-faced pierrot; BUT - with a shallow skullcap that has the look of a stormtrooper's helmet. By the end of the show (and the 1930s) he and his troupe of Kit Kat entertainers are dressed in austere brown shirts.
And what of Jessie Buckley, the co-star? Well, we've been fans of Jessie ever since her early stage appearance as Miranda at the Globe; and then, in the same Globe season, in Gabriel, an homage to Purcell. In it, she sang Cold and Raw to great effect. We've followed her 'unusual-film' career ever since, right up to the lockdown version of Romeo and Juliet filmed at the National for tv last year.
So - no surprise that she belts out all Sally Bowles' numbers with enthusiasm; but also manages to convey the fact that Sally is NOT a great singer. She ain't (in spite of The Film) the Queen of Berlin's club scene; merely an indifferent singer in a sleazy joint. Her numbers are sleazy too - Don't tell Mama drips with quasi-incestuous innuendo, and Mein Herr with lush sarcasm.
Then - gloriously - for her final song, a reprise of the title number, Jessie lets rip au naturel. A lovely performance!
In and around the central Kit Kat group, a couple of intertwined stories are played out. The tiny playing-space (ringed by a movable circular walkway) transforms into rooms, rail-station and club; indicated only by changes in sparse bits of furniture or luggage, hauled in as needed.
Pennsylvanian Cliff Bradshaw (played by Omari Douglas, rather too low-key-ily) arrives in Berlin by train and, on the recommendation of a chance-acquaintance, takes a room at Fraulein Schneider's house. Later, when Sally loses her job at the Kit Kat, she moves in with him to his tiny room (and bed). By this time we're aware that Cliff is a very closeted gay, who's formed a liaison with one of the club dancers. Nonetheless, when Sally reveals her pregnancy (probably by the club owner), Cliff is quick to suggest that HE might be the father, and that she should return with him to his mother in Pennsylvania. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that there are no Pennsylvanian wedding-bells.
The second story is much darker, concerning, as it does, a tentative and very delicate courtship between Liza Sadovy's time-worn survivor, Fraulein Schneider and her lodger, grocer Schulz, played by Elliot Levey. Schulz woos his landlady with ever-lusher gifts of fruit, culminating in a pineapple which the Fraulein serenades ecstatically (it couldn't please me more).
Sadly, the subsequent engagement coincides with Hitler's election to the Chancellery, and at the celebration-party, Herr Schulz is revealed to be Jewish. The everyone's-mate, small-time-smuggler is revealed to be a Nazi; and his threats to the landlady's livelihood are sufficient to break the last chance that both these older survivors have for happiness.
For me, this plotline overshadowed everything; and Sadovy/Levey stole the show (in spite of Elliot possibly being a more limited singer than some others in the cast). Needless to say, I exited in tears at the end.
Finally, I must mention the one of the two most chilling songs in the show. When it first appears in Act 1, it sounds like a bucolic paean to pastoral Germany -
The branch of the linden is leafy and green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
.... but when - to placate their local Nazi, the partygoers desperately sing it near the end, it's changed its tone; heralding what we know will (historically) happen next -
Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me (repeat)
So my final thanks must go to John Kander and the late Fred Ebb who composed this and all the songs (including the controversial If you could see her, the other most-chilling song, which Redmayne sings to a gorilla). So - maybe the Kit Kat Club (in London) wasn't a success for us; but the drama most certainly was!
https://grondfic.dreamwidth.org/31415.html
Author's Note
So sorry this has taken so long! As you will see below, the review rather took on a life of its own (and even then there were things I ran out of time/space to say about it).
Ironically, since I started writing, the show had to temporarily close due to COVID (although, like most theatres, it re-opened again), in spite of all the extra precautions it took. Happily it's due to continue at least until April and perhaps (with some cast changes) longer than that!
Anyway, I hope I can now get on with reviewing all the other wonderful things we saw between Cabaret and Christmas Carol just before Christmas.
*****
OK, so the first thing to say is - "Forget the film!" This piece is adapted from the original stage version of the musical; and contains a few songs and one plotline that doesn't occur in the film. The story here is thus more concise, and very much more pointed than that of the 1972 film.
WARNING for possible spoilers, if you plan on attending the Kit Kat Club:
I guess I should begin exactly where this all started - with Eddie Redmayne; returning to stage-work after eleven years. From the pre-publicity, it appears that it was Eddie who recruited Jessie Buckley to play Sally Bowles; and - having seen the Rebecca Frecknall-directed Summer and Smoke at the Almeida in 2018 - approached her to direct Cabaret. In spite of my early Kit Kat induced reservations, I have to admit that the results were inspired.
Redmayne plays the Emcee, and dominates the small, circular playing-space (it's hardly even a stage) like a colossus. He can act (properly, I mean - onstage!); and (rather to my surprise and delight) he can sing - powerfully and expressively. His Emcee is first and foremost a Clown, and (as Berlin progresses through the 1930s) a shape-shifting one, mirroring the political and social changes taking place. These are indicated subtly to start with - the clown costumes becoming more and more outrageous until he sings Money makes the world go round as an over-the-top, white-faced pierrot; BUT - with a shallow skullcap that has the look of a stormtrooper's helmet. By the end of the show (and the 1930s) he and his troupe of Kit Kat entertainers are dressed in austere brown shirts.
And what of Jessie Buckley, the co-star? Well, we've been fans of Jessie ever since her early stage appearance as Miranda at the Globe; and then, in the same Globe season, in Gabriel, an homage to Purcell. In it, she sang Cold and Raw to great effect. We've followed her 'unusual-film' career ever since, right up to the lockdown version of Romeo and Juliet filmed at the National for tv last year.
So - no surprise that she belts out all Sally Bowles' numbers with enthusiasm; but also manages to convey the fact that Sally is NOT a great singer. She ain't (in spite of The Film) the Queen of Berlin's club scene; merely an indifferent singer in a sleazy joint. Her numbers are sleazy too - Don't tell Mama drips with quasi-incestuous innuendo, and Mein Herr with lush sarcasm.
Then - gloriously - for her final song, a reprise of the title number, Jessie lets rip au naturel. A lovely performance!
In and around the central Kit Kat group, a couple of intertwined stories are played out. The tiny playing-space (ringed by a movable circular walkway) transforms into rooms, rail-station and club; indicated only by changes in sparse bits of furniture or luggage, hauled in as needed.
Pennsylvanian Cliff Bradshaw (played by Omari Douglas, rather too low-key-ily) arrives in Berlin by train and, on the recommendation of a chance-acquaintance, takes a room at Fraulein Schneider's house. Later, when Sally loses her job at the Kit Kat, she moves in with him to his tiny room (and bed). By this time we're aware that Cliff is a very closeted gay, who's formed a liaison with one of the club dancers. Nonetheless, when Sally reveals her pregnancy (probably by the club owner), Cliff is quick to suggest that HE might be the father, and that she should return with him to his mother in Pennsylvania. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that there are no Pennsylvanian wedding-bells.
The second story is much darker, concerning, as it does, a tentative and very delicate courtship between Liza Sadovy's time-worn survivor, Fraulein Schneider and her lodger, grocer Schulz, played by Elliot Levey. Schulz woos his landlady with ever-lusher gifts of fruit, culminating in a pineapple which the Fraulein serenades ecstatically (it couldn't please me more).
Sadly, the subsequent engagement coincides with Hitler's election to the Chancellery, and at the celebration-party, Herr Schulz is revealed to be Jewish. The everyone's-mate, small-time-smuggler is revealed to be a Nazi; and his threats to the landlady's livelihood are sufficient to break the last chance that both these older survivors have for happiness.
For me, this plotline overshadowed everything; and Sadovy/Levey stole the show (in spite of Elliot possibly being a more limited singer than some others in the cast). Needless to say, I exited in tears at the end.
Finally, I must mention the one of the two most chilling songs in the show. When it first appears in Act 1, it sounds like a bucolic paean to pastoral Germany -
The branch of the linden is leafy and green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
.... but when - to placate their local Nazi, the partygoers desperately sing it near the end, it's changed its tone; heralding what we know will (historically) happen next -
Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me (repeat)
So my final thanks must go to John Kander and the late Fred Ebb who composed this and all the songs (including the controversial If you could see her, the other most-chilling song, which Redmayne sings to a gorilla). So - maybe the Kit Kat Club (in London) wasn't a success for us; but the drama most certainly was!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-15 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-15 06:55 pm (UTC)I didn't mention the ensemble - which was debauched and totally brilliant too.