Cabaret Reviews

[jdrye222]

I would be surprised if this gets raves ....

[bjh2114]

Huffington Post is mixed to negative and he did NOT like Michelle:

"Time now unfortunately, for the problems besetting this Cabaret incarnation. The major one is the accomplished movie star Michelle Williams in her Main Stem bow as Sally Bowles--or let's just say as a Sally Bowles who isn't very much like the one Christopher Isherwood introduced in The Berlin Stories and John Van Druten transferred to the stage.

Forget that the ur-Sally Bowles was talentless and really couldn't sing, which makes a puzzle of a musical in which she has to warble lark-like. Whatever, Kander and Ebb got her singing, and who's going to complain at this late date? Also to Williams's credit, she sings more than well enough and certainly much better that she's given out in pre-opening interviews she thought herself capable.

The singing's not the snag. Just about everything else, starting with her English accent, is. Supposedly, Sally Bowles is a young and naïve English expatriate affecting sophistication while remaining uninterested in, even ignorant of, everything that hasn't to do with herself and her negligible career."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-finkle/first-nighter-sam-mendess_b_5209314.html

[ethan231h]

wow. i am speechless

[bjh2114]

Her performance is going to be VERY divisive, so I wouldn't be so surprised every time you see a review for her like that.

[Zoot]

Welp, based on the reviews this might not be the long running money maker Roundabout was hoping for. I wonder how many extensions will happen before the audiences dwindle down?

[ljay889]

You're basing that on four reviews?

[ethan231h]

so far it really only had one bad review i am not counting the review by Matthew Murray because all of his reviews are bad but nbc and Timout are positive and especially once the Tony Nominations come out even if its not eligible for revival but other awards it should run at least as expected until January!

[NYC4Life]

Hollywood Reporter Positive

The Bottom Line
Willkommen back.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/michelle-williams-alan-cumming-cabaret-698741

[ljay889]

Variety appears Positive but mixed on Williams' early scenes.

http://variety.com/2014/legit/reviews/broadway-review-cabaret-starring-michelle-williams-and-alan-cumming-1201163155/

[bjh2114]

Variety is mixed to positive:

"This is the sleazy milieu in which that endearing English tart, Sally Bowles (Williams), makes her stage entrance in “Don’t Tell Mama.” In this suggestive narrative ditty, Fred Ebb’s cunning lyrics invite prurient males to imagine getting into the “lacy pants” that this little convent girl is wearing under her school uniform. But someone neglected to tell Williams that Sally is playing a sexy tease in this number — and an actual slut in her encore, “Mein Herr.” Although she sings with more artistry than you’d expect from Sally, the sweet-faced thesp doesn’t get her girlish sexiness, projecting instead the wide-eyed innocence of an actual English schoolgirl."

http://variety.com/2014/legit/reviews/broadway-review-cabaret-starring-michelle-williams-and-alan-cumming-1201163155/

[bjh2114]

Newsday is positive, but doesn't like Williams:

"The exception, alas, is Michelle Williams, making her Broadway and musical debut as Sally Bowles. As Natasha Richardson proved in this staging 16 years ago, Sally need not be anything like the showstopping singer and dancer portrayed by Liza Minnelli in the movie. In fact, Sally just needs to be decent enough to keep her gig in a second-rate club in anything-goes 1929 Berlin.
But she has to have flair and be magnetic enough to sell herself as a good-time girl. Williams, a splendid movie actor who pulled off being Marilyn Monroe in "My Week With Marilyn," does not seem to be having a good time. Her Sally is timid, bland and covered up in costumes that make her seem almost chaste. Williams rallies for her final "Cabaret," sung quietly at a pole microphone, but we don't get a hint that Sally understands the Nazi horror she has just accepted."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/cabaret-review-alan-cumming-is-still-dangerous-1.7804391

[disneybroadwayfan22]

There goes Michelle William's Tony nomination if Audra is eligible for BLA in a Musical.

[ljay889]

Wow, Williams' reviews really are divisive. So far.

[Broadway61004]

It really shouldn't be a surprise that this isn't getting lots of raves. It's a great production, but most of these critics saw it 15 years ago, so not as though they're going to drool all over it again.

[ethan231h]

lets just wait to see what either Brantly or Isherwood has to say!

[indytallguy]

"...i am not counting the review by Matthew Murray because all of his reviews are bad..."

That's ridiculous. He raved about two shows just last week. People never remember his positive reviews.

[luke-h***]

I don't get why a lot of these critics are slamming it for being exactly the same as it was in 1998. I understand, why didn't they re-approach the same production, but why when it was so impeccably received in it's original run? There isn't necesarrily a need to do so, and it's not like Roundabout were making any promise that this would be the case. They're bringing back one of their most critically acclaimed productions; and I think that's a perfectly fine thing to do. I get that it may attract a new audience amongst many other reasons to do so, but this is what is widely considered to be a near-perfect production of Cabaret, so I agree with TimeOut, why not?

And the criticism for the lack of shock value quite frankly is appalling; the way I see it, the reason that it shocked so much back in the original Mendes' production is not because of the content, but because of the content in this context - it's not like Broadway had never seen a man who is pretty much naked from the waist up for almost the entirety of the show before, it's just that they'd never seen an Emcee like that. And I don't think this production was conceived to shock people, it was conceived to present Cabaret in a different way, with a different concept, and perhaps even to leave audience members with a slightly different message. I don't see how they can criticise the production for still doing those things; yes, I understand it may not be groundbreaking in the same way it was before, because we've already seen, but that's just like saying there's no point in seeing Phantom more than once because the chandeleir crash has been the same since the day it opened. Besides which, I don't understand why anybody would expect it to be groundbreaking in the way it was before, it's just a bloody good production that's being produced again.

As has already been mentioned on the board, most musical revivals up until recent years were re-stagings of the original production, using the same design, direction, etc. It just seems like there's no pleasing some critics; I imagine if anything had majorly changed they would've criticised Mendes for tinkering with his almost faultless production from 1998.

I cannot wait to see it in July; I was too young to be journeying to New York back in the first mounting of this production and all the productions of Cabaret we've had in the UK in the past decade or so have been completely misguided, and just not Cabaret. This is Cabaret, as it should be from everything I know about this production. Oh, looks like there's one new audience member that the production is bringing in after all.

[oncemorewithfeeling2]

Reviews will have no significant impact on how long the show runs. It's a show that people recognize with a name they recognize. That can go far.

A few mixed or even negative reviews mean nothing for this show.

[ethan231h]

yeah look at wicked. It really didn't get great reviews and its now in its 10th year.

[ethan231h]

The AP LOVES it and LOVES Michelle!!!!!!

with praise for Emond, Burstein and of course Cumming!

[ljay889]

Associated Press is very Positive

Williams starts out a little tentatively but soon roars into the role and her version of the title song has a wrenching, dead-eyed quality that hauntingly undercuts its light lyrics. (Alas, Bill Heck, as her ambivalent, bisexual lover, sometimes lacks his co-star's nuances.)

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/e64900cd06244c81b1f10db17f23778a/US--Theater-Review-Cabaret

[Playbilly]

Admission: I have not seen this latest production yet. But...

Does anyone feel it's a bit of a conceit and cheat that they are "recreating" the same production? It's like that shot-by-shot remake of PSYCHO. Why not revisit the piece with fresh eyes in 2014? A lot of cultural sensibilities have changed in 10 years. Posters and producers shouldn't be surprised this production isn't getting the same reviews. It's THEATER, for heaven's sake. Not a movie locked in time.

[east side story]

NYTimes

[CapnHook]

The Times is "Meh"-to-Positive.

[ljay889]

He gave Williams a few compliments. Definitely a "meh" review.

Leading the Kit Kat girls in nightclub production numbers like “Don’t Tell Mama” and “Mein Herr” with a shiny, metallic vibrato, Ms. Williams comes closer to evoking the musical style of the Depression than any Sally I’ve seen. And for her climactic performance of the show’s title song, she has the shouty power and shell-shocked stare of someone who’s seen the future and knows that it’s terrifying.

[ljay889]

USA Today is a rave. Calls Williams "an unmissable star turn."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2014/04/24/broadway-review-cabaret/8043947/