CABARET

This evening Joan and I attended the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse’s current production of the smash 60’s musical Cabaret. This two-and-a-half hour production by John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics), and Joe Masteroff (book) is based on a play by John Van Druten (“I Am a Camera”) and a novel by Christopher Isherwood (“Goodbye to Berlin”), and is semi-autobiographical in its relationship to Isherwood’s time in Berlin during the 1930’s.

The characters are set in a certain period and place in history, the rise of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. Making use of the whole stage with its various vertical levels along with projections of archival film helped to place you in the time period.

The performances of Josh Walden, as the creepy emcee, of Paige Faure, as the leggy club headliner Sally Bowes, and of Mick Bleyer, as the the naive writer Clifford Bradshaw, are riveting. And Fraulein Schneider (Sandra Karas), the rooming house owner and Herr Schultz (Joel Briel), a Jewish tenant and fruit store owner, were superb.

Paige Faure (Sally Bowles) with dancers from the Kit Kat Klub

While not your grandmother's musical theater, this solid musical property will have its effect on you.

After sitting through this MGR presentation one can understand why it was a Tony Award-winning musical (1966) and why it won an Academy Award winner for Liza Minnelli (1972).

Other shows of this season:
Kiss Me Kate
9 to 5
My Fair Lady
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Nunsense