Review: CABARET at The Phoenix Theatre Company

Bravo! To The Phoenix Theatre Company! Guest Contributor David Appleford delivers an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the production of CABARET, directed by Michael Barnard.

The Phoenix Theatre Company’s new production of the Broadway musical CABARET, now in performance on the theatre’s Mainstage until September 1, is not only an outstanding production but also a perfect example of how high a level of theatrical greatness can be achieved at what has now developed into the city’s first-class regional theatre.

Those whose awareness of the 1966 musical is confined to the Bob Fosse-directed film may be shocked. The '72 movie re-molded the show, cut songs, added new ones, and completely overhauled the plot. While the overall themes of CABARET when presented on different forums remain similar, director Fosse changed characters or cut them altogether, including the geographical origins of its two principal players. 

The American writer from Harrisburg, PA arriving in Berlin looking for inspiration for his novel became British, while in contrast, the sad, vulnerable, 19-year-old central figure from London with minimal singing talent, Sally Bowles, became American. As played by Liza Minnelli on the screen, Sally was now a somewhat older and accomplished nightclub singer who could really belt a tune. If Liza’s Sally Bowles is the only Sally you’ve known, then you don't know Sally Bowles. And as for CABARET the movie, it ultimately resembled little of the original.

Tracing back through the spidery web of revivals, re-inventions, and re-writes since the show first opened in 1966, in the way the Fosse film bore little resemblance to the original '66 stage show, this current and thrilling The Phoenix Theatre Company production, directed with an assured grip by Michael Barnard, bears little resemblance to either. While plots and characters from Joe Masteroff's script are back to where they were, and missing songs are reinstated, the show's presentation is now worlds apart from sixty years ago when the leering, creepy nightclub Emcee made his first entrance. It's now quite a different show. 

Set somewhere between 1929 and 1930 in Berlin when the Nazis were rising to power and insidiously making their way into society, American writer Clifford Bradshaw (Christopher Behmke) arrives in town with only his suitcase and a typewriter, looking for inspiration, not to mention cheap lodgings.  Within hours of arriving in the city, Clifford is introduced to the tawdry world of the Kit Kat Club.  

It's here where Clifford meets the ebullient nightclub singer from London, the divinely decadent Sally Bowles (Alyssa Chiarello) who, like an unstoppable whirlwind, sweeps into Cliff's life, talking a mile-a-minute, and later eventually moving in with him. Plus, a subplot missing from the film with two important characters is back where it should be. German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider (Johanna Carlisle-Zepeda) enters into an unexpected but ultimately ill-fated romantic affair with the elderly local Jewish fruit vendor, Herr Schultz (Mike Lawler). The scenes between Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, as played by Carlisle-Zepeda and Lawler, are surprisingly effective and touching. And by reinstating Fräulein Schneider, one of the great Fred Ebb/John Kander musical theatre songs cut from the film, So What? is now back where it should be.

One of the many strengths of this new production is the presentation of the songs, staged by director Barnard with choreography by Daniel Gold and backed by a superb live orchestra conducted by Kevin Robert White. Whether they’re the large, ensemble numbers like the excitingly staged introductory Wilkommen, or the solos such as the already mentioned So What? and the title number, Cabaret, the theatre hits the bullseye each time.

The songs performed within the Kit Kat Club are a musical way of commenting on events occurring outside in the troubled world. Thus, when Cliff earns easy cash by running a suspicious errand against his better judgment, the Emcee and the ladies perform Money. Plus, later, when Cliff is mercilessly beaten by swastika-wearing bully boys, the full impact of the violence is performed to the syncopated beat of the nightclub drums.

Scenic Designer, Aaron Jackson, has created an impressive new look to the show's setting where the boarding house and the Kit Kat Club appear to share the same stage.  A large, strikingly attractive peacock with its all-seeing eye embossed on a giant backdrop curtain continuously peers down on the proceedings as a silent witness to the developing atrocities.

By the conclusion of the show, there will be a lot for local audiences to remember and to talk about, but what will most likely remain in memory long after the show has closed are the performances of its two leading players, the Emcee, and Sally Bowles.

Unlike Joel Grey’s tuxedo-clad, creepy, pale-faced ghoul of Broadway’s sixties original, or Alan Cummings' slinky, sexualized character in the nineties revival, local talent, Eddie Maldonado makes the character his own. He enters the stage with the ferocious, bulging eye intensity of a perverse one-man Greek chorus who not only draws the audience in but also loiters and observes moments that occur outside of the nightclub. He lingers, unseen, finding cruel, depraved humor expressed by a cunning, lascivious smile that comes at the torment of others.

As for Sally Bowles, a character based on the real-life English performer, Jean Ross, who was just nineteen when she moved to Berlin in ‘31 and worked as a singer in several low-rent nightclubs, local talent Alyssa Chiarello may not look quite as youthful as the described ‘Toast of Mayfair’ but her portrayal of Sally, including a pronounced English accent, is far closer to the show’s original intentions than the Sally made famous by Liza Minelli, exemplified by the stunning performance of the title song.    

Perhaps the biggest musical surprise of the evening is the difference between how the title song is performed by the Sally of the film and the Sally of the show. Its most famous presentation is naturally Minnelli's. It was even a '70s radio hit. But what was delivered as a climactic, show-biz belter with a big, open-armed finish from an undeniable Broadway star is here rendered as an indictment to a wasted life purposely sheltered from the rising horrors of the real world. When Chiarello concludes with the declaration that 'Life is a cabaret,’ it’s delivered with guttural irony and bitterness. Unlike some more recent interpretations where the character angrily throws the mic to the ground and storms off stage, as if acknowledging that she has purposely chosen a life of ignorance over common sense, Chiarello still manages to make the song a Phoenix Theatre showstopper while maintaining a sense of personal anger.  It’s a powerful moment of musical drama. 

From what we witness in the effective, concluding moments, those who remained in Berlin at the nightclub were in for a terrifying future. If The Sound of Music with the Von Trapp’s escaping Nazi persecution by climbing over mountains was the stuff of inspirational musical dreams, then CABARET, as presented in this superior The Phoenix Theatre Company production, is Sally Bowles’ nightmare from which she’ll never awaken.

The Phoenix Theatre Company ~ https://phoenixtheatre.com/ ~ 1825 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ ~ 602-254-2151

Photo credit to Brennen Russell, Blink Sessions Photography: Eddie Maldanado as Master of Ceremonies, Alyssa Chiarello as Sally Bowles

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