SAMHI C.
Features Editor
skc5908@psu.edu

The last time we talked, in the November 9 edition, we focused on the cast and characters of the Behrend Theater Program’s production of “Cabaret.” 

But today, I want to give you my thoughts on the play at large. The costumes, the setting, the songs, the plot. All the other elements that make a play a play. Or, well, I should say: a musical, a musical. 

The thing about the theater is that the enjoyment of it requires a certain level of imagination more so than any other form of art. 

When Jordan Loys’s character, Clifford Bradshaw, for example, runs his hand across an old typewriter on stage, you must pretend there is dust flying off into the air even if there is not. When the stage crew shuffles about in the dark between scenes, rearranging the items on stage, you must pretend that the moments from the darkening of the lights to their return did not happen, even as there is no curtain to stop you from seeing their silhouettes. 

This becomes easier when the costumes are selected and designed to accurately fit the era and the locale. I’ve said before that I did not expect the Emcee and some of the supporting cast to walk onto the stage in lingerie in the opening number, but the fact that they did gave the audience the mental push they needed to turn the cast into characters, to turn the stage in Fasenmyer into the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin, Germany, 1929, and to turn fiction into real feelings. 

The laughter, the gasps, and the “‘Did that just happen?’s” that the play begets from the audience are just as real as the story is not. 

The props and sets, too, were selected beautifully. I especially loved the couch in the corner, antique-ish and delicate. 

For the soundtrack, the highlight was “Mein Herr,” sung by Molly Hellhake’s character Sally Bowles. I also enjoyed musical numbers “Maybe This Time,” “Married,” and “Wilkommen.” 

While not so much for the musical qualities, the reprise of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” performed by Norah Dana’s Fraulein Kost, Logan Boyle’s Ernst Ludwig, and company which they turned into a Nazi propaganda song at the end of Act 1 definitely made me hold my breath and go ‘What the-.’ It was an epic cliffhanger and definitely an interesting transition between acts. 

During intermission, I heard one guy at the table next to me tell his friends, who were all still reeling from what they had just seen: “I saw it coming but also didn’t.” 

Yes, I think that is what most audience members who had zero knowledge of what “Cabaret” was about probably felt. I definitely did. 

To be honest, earlier in Act 1, when we see a copy of “Mein Kampf,” I was so sure our American, Clifford, was secretly a Nazi, but I am sure now that that was a red herring, making it all the more shock-inducing to see half the cast, especially the two clownish characters of Kost and Ludwig, revealed as antisemitic Nazis.

I also have to hand it to Professor Emily Cassano and the Theater Program for picking now of all times to host a production of a play in which the female lead gets an abortion without telling the father of the child. 

If I had to guess, I would assume that the timing of this production was no accident, a commentary on our current political and judicial missteps, and a commendable one, in my opinion. Or perhaps it was a coincidence. In this case, I still think this play has much to say about abortion, philosophy, females’ and women’s rights, and the misguided efforts of men to force women who clearly do not want to be mothers or wives to be mothers and wives.

There is also a commentary on the rights and reputations of sex workers, and the most jarring dialogue is present from Clifford, who tells his girlfriend, Sally, “The only way you got this job is by f*cking someone.”

More so than the Nazis and their clichèd and expected antisemitic views, this dialogue and the rest of Clifford’s misogynistic ideals disturbed me. It begs the question: is there so much of a difference between the Nazis’ hate and that of the rest of the world’s intolerant men, intolerant people? 

I also caught a metafictional moment when Clifford is only able to complete his novel after he and Sally break each other’s hearts and he is driven out of Germany by his own fear. The play seems to be saying that pain and fear are excellent sources of inspiration. Which, let us face it, is true. 

The last minutes of the play, set in dimmer lighting with spotlights on the main cast, who look terrified and depressed, perfectly juxtapose the introduction, where everything is bright and lusty. 

By far, Behrend’s “Cabaret” is the best live musical I have seen of the few that I have. Surprisingly, I am wholeheartedly looking forward to the spring theater production. Did I mention I used to hate going to the theater?