BWW Reviews: Life is More Than a CABARET at Ephrata

The best thing any production of a show can do is be itself, and not an attempted clone of another production. CABARET, John Kander and Fred Ebb's 1966 work of musical genius, borrowed from Christopher Isherwood's BERLIN DIARIES, has suffered for years from wildly derivative regional productions. Most of them, at least until a few years ago, were derivative of the movie - it was Jill Haworth who played Sally Bowles on Broadway, and Natasha Richardson in the 1998 revival, but everyone has Liza Minnelli in their mind's eye when they picture Sally. They don't even begin to imagine Dame Judi Dench, who was Sally in the first West End production. And the emcee is either a carbon copy of Joel Grey, for traditionalists, or a ghost of Alan Cumming's portrayal developed in 1993 in London and brought to Broadway in 1998.

Edward Fernandez at Ephrata Performing Arts Center has, thankfully, gotten past the carbon copy syndrome and brought originality back to the show. Based in the 1993 Donmar Warehouse version of CABARET, he's found a Sally reminiscent of Dench's portrayal but with a stronger belt, and has made the entire production, not just the Kit Kat Club, more redolent of the Weimar Berlin that was artistically open, economically deprived, and a sexual equivalent of the Wild West. It is very much the city of Marlene Dietrich and von Sternberg, the place where anything did indeed go. And the strength of the supporting cast highlights, in a way not usually seen, the story of Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. That, in itself, is a small delight.

Fernandez has stated that he groped for the real meaning of the show as he directed it; what he's brought to life is the cautionary tale that strong authoritarians kill openness and creativity, and force narrow conformity, but that many of the most open, the most creative, are blind to their own perilous existences within that. Like frogs in water that gradually increases in heat, they die without struggling when the water comes to a boil. Cliff, the American writer, finally has the sense to escape encroaching Nazism, while the Emcee and Herr Schultz are finally trapped and cannot run; but Fraulein Schneider is trapped in the warming waters by her own fear, and Sally by her inner need to grab the shiny, easy, immediate solution to her problems. Sally has always taken what seems to her the easiest, most attractive route, and for her, it has always led to making all the wrong choices.

This Sally, played by Martha Wasser, is no one's clone - no Liza she, she's reminiscent of Dench, but stronger vocally; neither is she Richardson. She and Fernandez recognize that every one of Sally's songs is not intended to be a masterpiece; her "Don't Tell Mama" is amusing but as uninspired as that of any would-be performer who hasn't gotten it together (Sally's drug habit doesn't hurt); it's her later "Maybe This Time," which Wasser knocks out of the ball park, that shows her personal grief and her determination - it's highly relevant that Sally's strongest performance isn't on stage at the Kit Kat Club, but a private musing on her own personal problems. Wasser's handling of the title song is completely worth seeing the show just for that moment - it's not a diva performance, but portrayed as the singing of a desperate woman who's suddenly found the music of her stage act reflecting the mess that she's made of her own life.

Nick Smith plays the Emcee of the Donmar Warehouse/1996 Broadway version with a necessarily light hand - the Emcee is a heavily dominant character in the show, almost a puppet master both on stage at the Kit Kat Club and in his semi-ghostly presence in other scenes; Smith avoids the feeling of oppressiveness that the Emcee can have, freeing the audience to concentrate on the real oppression in the show. Sean Deffley is a fine Cliff Bradshaw - and Cliff's role is a thankless one; though he serves as a narrator and the lens through which the audience views the rise of Nazism in Berlin, the character is colorless and bland; it takes a strong actor to bring life into the role, and Deffley succeeds. Preston Schreffler as Ernst, the smooth businessman who serves as a Nazi "banker," is suitably charming at first, and increasingly unsettling as his true colors are revealed to Cliff and the audience - and to Sally, who blindly can't see the slightest thing wrong with his political stripe.

But it's Gene Ellis as Herr Schultz and Tricia Corcoran as Fraulein Schneider who are the anchors for this production. Ellis brings Schultz, the greengrocer, a sweet stolidity that makes his burgeoning romance with the grumpy yet endearing landlady a complete delight for the audience, while Corcoran's world-weary, "I've seen everything" Schneider is a pessimist disguised as a realist, whose moment of happiness with Schultz may be the one truly happy moment of her life - and that moment is itself dashed to the ground by Ernst. Through their story, Cliff sees that Berlin is no longer open, no longer welcoming, but is turning into a dangerous place for anyone who is different from the German mainstream. Cliff, who is superficially a young American conformist playing at being an artist, manages to wake up; unfortunately, no one else not in immediate danger is able to see the signs of upcoming disaster that Ernst describes as social progress. The Emcee sees it clearly and telegraphs it, but the audience, like the spectators at the Kit Kat Club, is barely able to notice his warnings - the confused, laughing reaction to "If You Could See Her" shows just how little we pay attention to social wrongs until they become punch lines to ugly jokes.

It's showy, it's glittering, and it's both heavy and deep - CABARET is musical, but anything but comedy, yet it's one of the greatest musicals of the 1960s and still relevant in ways that topical shows written during their own times often fail to be when seen later. The EPAC production is a breath of fresh air, staged by creatives and cast who realize that their version is special, that it isn't losing meaning through presenting a gently... conforming... production. CABARET should never feel like "the same old thing" and lull audiences into tranquility rather than send a message. This is, fortunately, a production with meaning, as well as with some very fine stage talent. If you haven't caught it already, it closes November 1, so rescheduling your weekend to see it is a fine idea. CABARET is far more chilling than that monster movie marathon you were planning to watch. For tickets and information, call 717-733-7966 or visit www.ephrataperformingartscenter.com.

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