“Divine decadence,” the movie character Sally Bowles’ catchphrase for pre-Nazi Berlin, is often the first image in people’s heads when they think of the 1966 John Kander-Fred Ebb musical, “Cabaret.”
Director Keith Baker chose a different emphasis for his Bristol Riverside Theatre production of the now-classic, frequently staged show. While of course depicting the carefree party life in Berlin, via Sally and scenes at the bawdily sophisticated Kit Kat Club, Baker concentrates deeply and often chillingly on the rise of Nazism that occurred while thousands danced and arranged louche trysts at the Kit Kat.
Baker’s production has balance, but is strongest and far more poignant when it focuses on the coming Fascist threat. The dark dominates both dramatically and tonally. Scenes at the Kit Kat Club, especially numbers featuring the Emcee, as much as symbol of “Cabaret” as Sally, barely register and, frankly, lack noticeably needed luster, while sequences that involves characters usually regarded as supports (although billed as the stars in 1966) heartrendingly illustrate the horror that awaits Berlin, Germany, and much of Europe for a decade to come.
The juxtaposition creates a disjointed feeling reinforced by the performances of four compelling supporting players as compared to weaker leads. It makes the second act of “Cabaret” more engaging than the first and keeps Baker’s production from taking off until the show is almost an hour into its run.
The scenes of encroaching menace, signaled by benign or dismissed danger, are worth the wait. The question is why the flashier scenes, in the cabaret and between Sally Bowles and the young author she seduces, Cliff Bradshaw, seem so flat and comme il faut. That question becomes more nagging as Jenny Lee Stern, playing Sally, brings verve and variety to book scenes by Joe Masteroff that is missing in her overdone musical numbers.
The problem becomes parts of “Cabaret” floating by as familiar cliché while other parts jolt you to the edge of your seat and make you worry seriously about the subtlety of evil in embryo. The distressing overcomes the frothy in Baker’s production. You can enjoy the Emcee (Christian Elán Ortiz), and two dancers (Adam Hoyek and Meredith Beck) in “Two Ladies,” become absorbed when Stern settles into the ballad, “Maybe This Time,” and see the wit as Ortiz and Gabrielle Impriano, dressed in gorilla suit, do “If You Could See Her.” But, in general, musical numbers and Kit Kat scenes pale next to the wonderfully crafted performance of Bob Stineman as a charmer who is also a top Nazi organizer; the warm and ultimately heartbreaking exchanges between elderly romantics Herr Schultz (Danny Rutigliano) and Fräulein Schneider (Jo Twiss — who’s divine); and the brash antics of Fräulein Kost (K. O’Rourke).
O’Rourke provides more naughtiness, sexiness, and comic relief than all of the Kit Kat scenes combined.
The cast is as uneven as the production. Stineman, Twiss, Rutigliano, and O’Rourke bring texture and humanity to Baker’s staging. Stern has potential to be a crackerjack Sally, especially in her vocals and timing with a punch line, but she needs to be reined in on occasion and to understand that Sally is talented but a little untrained and not a roving chanteuse.
Ortiz and Chris French, in the important role of Cliff (the alter ego of author Christopher Isherwood whose “Berlin Stories” were transposed for the musical), don’t register strongly enough to make an impact on the show.
French took an interesting approach to Cliff. In the beginning of the show, he is callow and naïve to the point that he finds everything amusing and greets every situation with a laugh. Berlin is a lark to him until he realizes what Stineman’s Ernst is up to and a broken window brings Nazi anti-Semitism home to him.
His aloofness allows Stern, Twiss, and Stineman to take all early scenes as their own. Even when Cliff gains some theatrical muscle and French toughens the character’s outlook, there is some maturity and author’s distance missing.
Ortiz has moments, but in general, he looks like an actor sorting out the Emcee in rehearsal rather than someone who is command of the role. Nothing about him seemed droll or cunningly leering. It was mostly self-conscious searching for who the Emcee can be. In a production like Baker’s, in which Emcee is relegated to a supporting role rather than emerging as the lead Alan Cumming became in Sam Mendes’s landmark 1997 London production, Ortiz can get by, but the commentating aspect of the Emcee, initiated by Joel Grey, enhanced by Cumming, and played most recently in London by Eddie Redmayne, is totally absent.
Acting often takes precedence to singing in this production in which many are frequently off-pitch, as Ortiz was in delivering Kander and Ebb’s haunting “Berlin song,” “I Don’t Care Much,” which ended up having no impact at all.
Stern is the strongest singer. Her voice is rich, versatile, and amazing in range. Presentation is where work is needed. Aside from her, it was Bob Stineman’s Ernst Ludwig who carried the vocal day.
Whether in the deceptively lovely but ultimately malevolent “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” or in group numbers, it is Stineman who is on pitch and keeping the chorus in tune.
Stineman is also canny in keeping Ernst an urbane Berliner who is as suave as he is friendly. Stineman’s portrayal makes it more shocking when Ernst is revealed as prime Nazi organizer. Stineman makes Ernst so courteous and fun-loving, seeing him don a swastika armband stunned even this writer who has seen “Cabaret” more than 50 times since 1968.
Jo Twiss has a knack for finding the core of every character she plays. Her Fräulein Schneider is the best and most complexly realized of the characters on the Bristol stage. Twiss can be wily, as when she haggles with Cliff and Sally about rent. She can be conventional as she worries about Fräulein Kost ruining the reputation of her house or her intimacy with Herr Schultz being exposed. She can be warm and romantic, as in Schneider’s scenes with Schultz. She can be heartbreaking, as when the change in political tide that so interests Baker affects her life with Schultz, who is Jewish. Most ferociously, she can be passionate, practical, and philosophical as in her moving renditions of “So What?” and “What Would You Do?”
Twiss’s is a marvelous turn, matched and enhanced by Danny Rutigliano’s joyful, optimistic performance as Schultz. Rutigliano keeps a lovable uncle-like light in his eye and happiness in his voice as he entertains all with his buoyant personality and denies fate by thinking being born German and being German in all aspects of his life will save him from Adolf Hitler.
K. O’Rourke is flat-out funny in her unapologetic, resourceful approach to Kost, who like Sally’s Elsie, does not mind renting herself by the hour. Her caustic, knowing exchanges with Twiss are gems. O’Rourke also does well as the character who illustrates the spread of Nazism among everyday folks and who begins the unsettling singalong of “Tomorrow Belongs To Me.”
Watch for Act One’s last scene which begins with a happy, festive party and ends disturbingly. It is the key to Baker’s intentions and sets the tone for the best sections of his production in Act Two.
The set by Jason Simms was efficient and serviceable, Cliff’s room seeming cramped and cozy though walls were suggested by upstage slides. Linda R. Stockton did a fine job with costumes. Videos by Michael Long enrich the production and are often timed to the music being played. Joe Doran’s lighting and Damien Figueras’ sound are excellent.
Cabaret, Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe Street, Bristol, Pennsylvania. Through Sunday, April 16. Wednesday and Thursday, 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, 2 p.m., and Sunday, 3 p.m. $50 to $63. 215-785-0100 or www.brtstage.org.
