Theatre Review || Cabaret

Posted on August 17, 2022

I bought tickets to Cabaret the day that they went on sale. I love the musical, and I was excited by the prospects of seeing Eddie Redmayne on stage. And then the reviews started coming out: that it was the show of the decade and that Jessie Buckley was staggering. I could not be more excited. I went down to London on the day of the show, only to find out that the show was canceled hours before the performance due to COVID. I was absolutely gutted. The theatre offered like-for-like tickets (prices were now why out of my price bracket – but the booking agent was not honoring what the theatre was saying) after weeks of back and forth, I finally had rescheduled seats. Disappointingly though, it was now going to be after Buckley and Redmayne finished their run.

So there was a lot of baggage going into the production. But every single second of being in the Kit Kat Club was a spectacle. I won’t ruin the surprise for those who are still to see the show, but you are immersed in the world and the show from the second that you step foot into the theatre.

The musical is based on the 1950s play by John van Druten and stories from the 1920s, originally written by Christopher Isherwood, who, living in Berlin at the time, described the era as “a period of ecstasy, sentimentality, worry, hope and clock-watching.” Much like an actual cabaret club, Cabaret hinges on individual characters doing mesmerisingly weird things.

Fra Fee has taken over the role of the Emcee from Redmayne and Amy Lennox has taken over from Buckley (the cast will swap again on 1 October). And the new cast is excellent. Fee does a fantastic job with the Emcee’s unusual physicality – this isn’t a Sally Bowles show (as it is in the Lizza Minelli version), nor is it a personal show about the Emcee (as the Alan Cumming revamp was)- the Emcee because an embodiment of all of Germany, of the observer, of us, the audience who are now passive participants.

Director Rebecca Frecknall explodes the already eccentric world inside the Kit Kat club by leaning into the elements of visual fantasy. The famous choreographed dance scene with Emcee and a gorilla during the song ‘If You Could See Her’ in the second act involves an animal which looks so real it is frightening. I’m still not quite sure how the scene was done – the performer managed some first-rate animal work. This was also the most sincere and heart-breaking performance of the pineapple song (‘It Couldn’t Please Me More’.) The relationship between Scneider and Schultz became the beating-heart of the play.

The second half is sinister and stark – gone is all the hedonistic chaos and joie de vivre of the first half. The change in pitch and energy grabs the audience by the throat and holds them in thrall till the inevitably devastating final number.

Cabaret is a show that I would go see again in a blink of an eye if money were no issue.

The Playhouse Theatre has literally been turned into the Kit Kat club, with a stage in-the-round, and the theatre has been adorned with fussy 1920s details. For a much pricier ticket, you can sit on the actual cabaret stage with a three-course meal and a bottle of champagne.

Frecknall has released something truly impressive and I cannot wait to see what she works on next. (Though we know what she is working on – a production of The Great Gatsby with music by Florence Welch- I literally cannot wait.)

Tickets are on sale here. Run time is approximately 2 hours 45 minutes, including one interval. The theatre is at: Northumberland Avenue, London, WC2N 5DE